In the wake of an ongoing customer backlash against Target, the retail chain’s longtime partnership with a national activist group that places LGBT-themed books in K-12 school libraries and encourages teachers to discuss sex and gender with children has gained renewed attention.
Over the past decade, the New York City-based Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has received from Target more than $2 million in donations, according to the company’s website.
“Target donated $250,000 donation to GLSEN to advance its mission of creating affirming, accessible and antiracist spaces for LGBTQIA+ students,” the retail giant said last year in a blog post celebrating Pride Month. “This marks our 11th year of partnership, with a total of $2.1 million in support to date.”
Founded in 1990 by a teacher-turned-gay activist who would later oversee the Obama administration’s school drug and violence prevention program, GLSEN bills itself as a “leading national organization working to guarantee LGBTQ+ students safe and affirming education,” with 43 chapters in 30 states across the nation.
In 2015, GLSEN worked with Target to produce a mini-documentary for the group’s 25th-anniversary celebration. “Together, we have been able to change school climates for LGBT youth and are excited about what the next 25 years will bring,” then-GLSEN executive director Eliza Byard said at the time.
While outrage over Target’s effort to market LGBT-themed children’s products continues to grow, GLSEN’s effort to send “LGBT-affirming text” to schools has been going on without drawing much public attention.
In a video call recording shared to social media last year, senior education programs manager Michael Rady states that GLSEN’s “Rainbow Library” initiative puts “a major emphasis on books centered on the voices of trans and non-binary people as well as books that tend to the voices of BIPOC LGBTQ+ people.”
Inclusive Curriculum & GLSEN’s Rainbow Library Project
PRIDE BOOK FEST: GLSEN Rainbow Library
“I know as a former teacher that having high-quality LGBTQ books at my fingertips will allow me to seamlessly integrate this into a reading lesson that I otherwise would be teaching anyway,” Rady said. “It’s the first step for getting in front of kids.”
By Bill Pan
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