Happy Pride!

While the Trump administration has continued in its campaign to expunge queer people and their histories from federal websites and monuments in recent months, this year’s Pride Month celebrations show that the LGBTQ+ community will not be quietly erased or sidelined. Celebrating the history of trans and queer resistance is more important than ever, and Professor Wendy Rouse of San Jose State University has written an excellent new blog on the subject for Pride Month. 

• Lessons from LGBTQ+ History by Professor Wendy Rouse

We’ve compiled a list of additional teaching resources on LGBTQ+ history below. While June is Pride Month, LGBT History Month is October. So how about kicking off the 2025-2026 school year with a queer history lesson?

CHSSP Resource Spotlights

• LGBTQ+ History: This Resource Spotlight from 2024 includes an extensive list of CHSSP inquiry sets and lesson plans on LGBTQ+ history, as well as picture book and historical scholarship recommendations. Take a look through our collection, LGBTQ+ History Through Primary Sources, created by Wendy Rouse, which features queer history lessons and primary sources that span the entirety of American history.

• June 2023 Monthly Highlights: This collection of resources, curated for Pride 2023, includes LGBTQ+ history book recommendations and picture book selections for #KatesBookClub.

• Teach FAIR: This Monthly Highlights blog from 2022 focuses on teaching the FAIR Act and highlights resources from across the CHSSP network. Included is a ninth-grade Ethnic Studies lesson on Political Activism in LGBTQ Communities.

  • Our colleagues at the UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project have created a sizable collection of LGBTQ lesson plans. Their eleventh-grade lesson, The Lavender Scare and McCarthyism, was awarded the Committee on LGBTQ History of the American Historical Association's inaugural Don Romesburg Prize for a K-12 lesson plan on LGBT History.

CHSSP Blogs

• Teach the History of LGBTQ+ Joy, by Wendy Rouse (2022)

• Teaching LGBTQ Topics, by Wendy Rouse and Beth Slutsky (2021)

Other Resources for Educators

• The One Institute’s LGBTQ+ History Lesson Plans feature primary sources from the USC Libraries’ One Archives and were developed in collaboration with K-12 teachers and our colleagues at the UCLA History-Geography Project. The lesson plans align with CA state standards and the HSS framework and support implementation of the FAIR Act.

• The GLBT Historical Society has curated Primary Source Sets that feature video, audio, photographs, newspaper articles, art, and more. The sources are grouped into various topics, including ones like “Black Voices and Activism” and “Lesbians in the Military,” which makes them easy to build classroom lessons around.

• The Queer America Podcast, created by Learning for Justice, features both queer history and strategies for classroom implementation. It is designed to help teachers “learn and teach LGBTQ+ history,” and it features an array of excellent historians of queer history.

Kate’s Book Club: June Reads

No One Owns the Colors by Gianna Davy, illustrated by Brenda Rodriguez. This title shows us that colors are simply part of our natural world. No bit of the spectrum—from pink and blue to scarlet and chartreuse—is meant to be claimed by any one gender or being or culture. Color is not something that can be right or wrong, or better or worse. Students will love the rhythmic text.

Pink Is for Everybody! By Ella Russell, illustrated by Udayana Lugo. A group of kids is stuck inside on a rainy day, and they're feeling gloomy ... until they discover a pink treasure chest! Inside, they find a collection of items that turn their gray day into a playground of pink. Subtle message that teaches the kids a gentle lesson about choosing what you love, no matter who you are, while respecting the unique preferences of everybody around you. The book invites readers into a welcoming space where different clothing, toys, and colors are enjoyed by all, and encourages children to embrace their true colors.

Rainbow Revolutions:  Power, Pride, and Protest in the Fight for Queer Rights by Jamie Lawson, illustrated by Eve Lloyd Knight. This non-fiction title charts the dramatic rise of the LGBTQ+ rights movement and celebrates the courageous individuals who stood up and demanded recognition. Fabulous illustrations.

Two Grooms and a Cake:  The Story of America’s First Gay Wedding by Rob Sanders, illustrated by Robbie Cathro. Story of Jack Baker and Michael McConnell and their inspiring story of becoming the first married gay couple in the US fifty years ago. Their struggle to obtain a marriage license in Minnesota and their subsequent appeals to the Minnesota Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the United States is an under-told story of LGBT history. Pair with When You Look Out the Window:  How Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin Built a Community for a California perspective.
 

Recent Scholarship

• Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School by Don Rumesburg (2025): Professor Don Romesburg’s newest book narrates the history of LGBTQ education activism in CA – a long-term battle that started in the late twentieth century and ended in the passage of the landmark 2011 FAIR Education Act. Romesburg, a key leader in the movement for LGBTQ-inclusive education, examines the opportunities the FAIR Act created and the ongoing challenges to inclusive education across the nation.