Starting next week, many children as young as 5 who attend Los Angeles Unified public schools will participate in a weeklong celebration of “National Coming Out Day,” which falls on October 11.
The district issued its “Week of Action Toolkit,” emblazoned with a Black Power Fist over neon rainbow stripes and is nominally optional, although peer pressure will likely prompt elementary school teachers to use its programming. Its version for elementary students contains an “Identity Map activity” that “Prepares students to think critically about identity and intersectionality” as well as suggestions to include “brief biographies of an important LGBTQ+ person or advocate to spotlight.”
Monday will feature transgender YouTuber Jazz Jennings, who allegedly claimed to be a girl at the age of 2, as well as the book “Julian is a Mermaid”; Tuesday will feature Marsha P. Johnson, an “American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen” and the book “The Great Big Book of Families”; Wednesday will feature Hollywood’s Elliot Page, formerly star actress Ellen Page and the book “Be Who You Are”; Thursday will feature the WNBA’s Layshia Clarendon, who “came out as transgender and non-binary” in 2020, and Friday will feature Carl Nassib, the first openly gay active player in the NFL, and the book “From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea.”
“At the Week of Action’s start, teachers should engage kindergarten and first-grade students in discussions about identity, aided by an activity called an ‘Identity Map,’” City Journal reported. “Pupils chart their experiences of discrimination or privilege along 12 axes, including race, gender identity, sexuality, mental health, and body size. This mapping allows seven-year-olds to see themselves through the ‘lens of intersectionality.’ Teachers then post the identity maps on the wall for a class discussion about students’ multiple “identities.”
The LAUSD has a virtual club for elementary school students called The Rainbow Club that has been meeting every Wednesday after school for an hour between September 13 – November 15.