Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

Being able to include and welcome all families is an important in the early childhood classroom.  When a child’s family includes same-sex parents, we has early childhood educators should not make either these families rather they are Gay or lesbian families, feel invisible are excluded.

When families who different from the traditional family norm feel included and welcomed into the early childhood classroom, children are introduced to the richness of diversity (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010).  Anti-bias curriculum guides encourage educators to discuss and introduce children as early as possible to diversity, including family diversity, as one means of stemming prejudice, yet many educators have reported feeling discomfort in welcoming families headed by gays or lesbians (Souto-Manning & Hermann-Wilmarth, 2008).