Queer kid stuff
This website introduces “Queer Kid Stuff,” an educational YouTube video channel about LGBTQ+, especially for kids and families. The creator of this channel, Lindsay Amer, makes various kinds of LGBTQ+ videos in a simple way and aims to make the complicated LGBTQ concepts accessible for kids. For example, she talks about what each letter in LGBT stands for, and explains some big words like “privilege,” “homophobia,” “ally,” and even “intersectionality” in each short video. Recently, she also gave a TED talk with the title “Why kids need to learn about gender and sexuality,” mentioning this YouTube channel.
I liked her video series because she uses songs and metaphors to make the content more fun and easy to understand. I do feel it’s an ambitious and difficult attempt to try to teach kids (starting at age 3 etc.) about all these complicated and sensitive issues, and in fact, Lindsay has received a lot of criticism on the videos because some people think it’s too early to introduce these concepts to kids and it will only create confusion among them. However, some research actually shows that children start to develop their sense of gender identity around the age of 4 (mentioned in her TED talk), so I think it’s important to educate people about LGBTQ at an early stage, so that they will gain understanding and respect toward each other.
I think this video channel can be useful not only for small kids, but also for teenagers. Since she uses simple English to explain the meaning of difficult concepts, it can be used for low-level English learners as well. I think it might be helpful to use these videos for introduction, and then complement them with other reading or visual materials, such as newspaper articles and TED talks.
Mari, thank you so much for this resource! I think it’s so ridiculous that people think any age is “too young” to talk about gender/sexuality. Especially when people literally have gender reveal parties based around the blue/pink dichotomy. So many people socialize their kids into gender roles before they’re even born. Yet somehow being queer is an issue.
I will definitely look more into this channel.
Oh, my pleasure, Ann! I found this channel through her (?) TED talk! I think it’s really cool and I definitely want to use them for my future teaching!
This is awesome, Mari! This is an example of a great solution to the question of “how can we get kids to talk about this?”. I don’t plan on working with kids any time soon (but who knows, I change so frequently…) but I definitely will be suggesting her books to my students with children! (I have one student asking me about books in English for her kid). And who knows, if I have my own kids they will definitely be reading things like this!
I also love that this website leads you to lesson plans… Yes!!! Thank you!
Great that you like the channel, Kate! Yes, definitely, not only for our students, but also for other educational purposes like raising kids, I think it’ll be nice to have this kind of resource!