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Lowell, Mass.

Teachers sit at square tables in a college classroom here poring over primary and secondary sources about the civil rights icon Bayard Rustin.

There鈥檚 his 1987 obituary in The New York Times, which avoids any mention of his sexual orientation. There are copies of FBI documents from the mid-20th century, which, in coded language, talk about his male companions. There鈥檚 a piece about an interview with Rustin鈥檚 longtime partner, Walter Naegle, detailing how, in the absence of any other way to secure legal protection for their relationship in the 1970s, Rustin adopted him.

Leading the teacher training are Debra Fowler and Miriam Morgenstern, asking probing questions like good history teachers: How might his sexual orientation have helped Rustin鈥檚 civil rights work? How might it have complicated it? Would an obituary today mention his partner?

Fowler and Morgenstern are the co-executive directors of History UnErased, or HUE. It鈥檚 a small group with a huge aim: to chip away at the nearly total absence of LGBT individuals from the K-12 liberal arts curriculum鈥攁nd teachers鈥� hesitation to teach about them鈥攚hich the group does in part by having teachers from coast to coast and many different grades engage with a rich array of historical resources.

There is a rock-and-a-hard-place element of their work: LGBT issues remain sandwiched between a culture war on one side and the tendency to treat them as an 鈥渁dd on鈥� in the manner of women鈥檚 history or black history on the other. But ultimately, Fowler and Morgenstern argue, gay history is a misnomer. It鈥檚 simply history, and that is the best argument of all for teaching it.

鈥淭he argument is really that this is not a value judgment. It is objective,鈥� Morgenstern said. 鈥淚t is part of our collective, shared historical narrative, whether or not that makes one uncomfortable. It needs to be included and explored.鈥�

A New Approach

Perhaps no other civil rights advance has proceeded as swiftly as LGBT rights, most recently in the U.S. Supreme Court鈥檚 2015 decision affirming a constitutional right for gay men and lesbians to wed.

But when it comes to their place in that most American of American institutions鈥攑ublic schools鈥擫GBT issues remain fiercely contested. Just last month, the Fresno, Calif., school board president created controversy by saying that students are 鈥渕oldable鈥� and implying that the state鈥檚 sex education curriculum might encourage them to become gay.

HUE鈥檚 approach marks a subtle turning point in the debate about LGBT students in schools. Most K-12 policy on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students focuses on safety and bullying鈥攊mportant work that nevertheless contains a subtext of victimization.

Fowler and Morgenstern agree that discrimination remains a reality, but equally insidious are schools that purportedly embrace LGBT students and then fail to include their history or experiences in the curriculum. 鈥淪ometimes the perception is that everyone is all set, all fine about LGBT students,鈥� Fowler said. 鈥淏ut diversity clubs are not enough. Gay-straight alliances are not enough. It鈥檚 still siloing LGBT students.鈥�

Nationally, LGBT inclusion in the curriculum rivals climate change as a topic that varies geographically in how it鈥檚 taught, if at all. California alone requires schools to discuss the contributions of LGBT Americans, while states such as Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas limit what teachers can say about LGBT people. Nor is there an abundance of scholarship on how to integrate LGBT topics into K-12 education, said Stacie Brensilver, a doctoral student at New York University鈥檚 Steinhardt School of Education, who is writing her dissertation on that challenge.

For the most part, teachers have been largely left on their own to determine whether to discuss LGBT issues in their lessons鈥攁nd, potentially, to deal with any fallout from parents and administrators.

Pushback is not uncommon even in presumably progressive areas. Educator Justin Smith detailed an uncomfortable interaction with an administrator at a previous teaching job in California鈥檚 Bay Area after parents objected to some news articles about LGBT students that he used in an English class.

鈥淚t was genuinely a 鈥榩lease don鈥檛 cause me more headaches鈥� kind of thing,鈥� said Smith, now the director of curriculum and instruction at Forte Preparatory Academy, a charter school in New York City. 鈥淚t鈥檚 often nested in this idea that this isn鈥檛 that important and it just ruffles feathers, so let鈥檚 not worry about it.鈥�

From a curriculum-development perspective, most teachers themselves were never taught about inclusive history, nor do commercial materials address it in a substantive way.

鈥淭hey went by the textbook and made the Powerpoint by the textbook, and there was barely anything that touched on it,鈥� said Katie Ly, a recent high school graduate of the Alameda, Calif., district, about her world and U.S. history teachers. 鈥淚 think our primary issue is a lot of teachers are not informed about LGBT history鈥攐r it鈥檚 out of their convenience to learn more.鈥�

It was that challenge that gave birth to HUE in 2014. Fowler and Morgenstern were colleagues at Lowell High School, wrestling with how to respond to students鈥� demand via petition for more LGBT topics in their classes. Morgenstern hesitated at first: 鈥淚 just knew teachers weren鈥檛 ready to do it. They didn鈥檛 have the materials or the background knowledge,鈥� she said.

Within a year, the two teachers had set up the organization to supply those resources. Both now work for it full time.

The group has been supported mostly through grants, and it partners with historical archives and a well-respected podcast to locate the primary-source documents and oral histories that form the basis of lesson plans and trainings like this one.

The bulk of the training is devoted to working with historical sources. After all, the HUE leaders reason, if you want to understand the importance of this history, then you must be engaged in practicing historical inquiry. 鈥淓verything we do is grounded in primary and secondary sources, so teachers can feel confident that this is real history,鈥� Morgenstern said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not something we鈥檙e making up.鈥�

Engaging students in inquiry is key, they say, but teachers play an important role in helping students separate fact from fiction, navigate a crowded media landscape, and demonstrate the validity of their historical arguments. As to content, HUE has developed resources addressing a range of topics, including the firing of LGBT employees during the Cold War; the Harlem Renaissance, which birthed poets such as Countee Cullen and gave rise to performance and art forms that broke gender norms; and the myths surrounding the 1969 riot at New York City鈥檚 Stonewall Inn.

It鈥檚 natural to wonder how such curricula can be appropriate at the grade school level, where LGBT issues tend to be more controversial. But as the HUE leaders point out, the curriculum is not about sex, but rather how gender relations and identity have been shaped over time by historical circumstance. In the 19th century, for example, some women assumed male garb to fight in the U.S. Civil War; others joined together in 鈥淏oston marriages鈥� that supplied financial and emotional support rather than marry; and here in Lowell, girls who came to work in the city鈥檚 own textile mills lived together in close-knit dormitories.

Understanding Context

The HUE educators caution that modern conceptions of homosexuality and gender identity didn鈥檛 develop until the 20th century, and so teachers need to be careful when they discuss such examples with students. 鈥淲e are not assigning today鈥檚 language to the past. That would be ahistorical and irresponsible,鈥� Morgenstern said.

Historians agree that that鈥檚 a good practice, to help dispel teachers鈥� concerns about being accused of promoting ideology or an 鈥渁ctivist agenda,鈥� said Beth Slutsky, a University of California, Davis, associate professor of history, who has helped craft LGBT-inclusive lesson plans for California teachers.

鈥淲e have been telling them, be really upfront with students. It鈥檚 OK to say that people have described race and they鈥檝e described gender in different terms over time, and the way we talk about it now is different than in the past, but that doesn鈥檛 mean that families and relationships didn鈥檛 happen,鈥� she said.

Although they鈥檙e history teachers first, Fowler and Morgenstern are also expanding HUE鈥檚 teaching resources to other subjects and grade levels.

Often, that means thinking through how to analyze those topics through an LGBT lens. It needn鈥檛 be expansive, they point out鈥攋ust one more critical perspective in a larger discussion.

Take literature, for example. The protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, a coming-of-age novel often taught in high school, seems discomforted by a friend鈥檚 discussion of gay people and at one point confides: 鈥淚 kept waiting to turn into a flit or something.鈥� As students wrestle with Holden Caulfield鈥檚 struggle to understand himself, why not ask how their perspective changes if they assume, for a moment, that Holden is gay?

So far, there鈥檚 a groundswell of interest in their work even beyond K-12; attendees at this summer鈥檚 session included a community college activities coordinator and a staffer at a local youth center. But the leaders recognize that their training will take time to bear fruit.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a long game,鈥� Fowler said. 鈥淲e will probably not live to see this normalized in curriculum in our lifetime.鈥�

And supporters say persistence matters for the underlying lessons in inclusive curricula to take root.

Smith, the New York City curriculum developer, recalled teaching Shyan Selvadurai鈥檚 novel, Funny Boy, a book about a Sri Lankan youth coming to terms with being gay on the eve of that country鈥檚 civil war. A year after, he watched as the same teenagers who lovingly dog-eared their copies relentlessly teased a gay teacher at the school.

鈥淭hese kids really cared about these issues intellectually, but when they had a queer teacher in front of them, that didn鈥檛 translate,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just intellectual history about queer people, but about how that creates empathy.鈥�