"Don't Say Gay"
A01=Don Romesburg
Author_Don Romesburg
book bans
Category=JBSJ
Category=JNB
Category=JNF
Category=JNLC
Category=JNU
Category=NHK
Category=WQH
Category=YPJH
culture war
education
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
FAIR Education Act
gender studies
history
k-12 education
LGBT
politics
public policy
queer history
school
sex education
woman studies
“Don’t Say Gay”
Product details
- ISBN 9781978824096
- Weight: 286g
- Dimensions: 127 x 203mm
- Publication Date: 15 Apr 2025
- Publisher: Rutgers University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Today, many states have proposed so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bills that prohibit public school teachers from mentioning LGBTQ topics in the classroom. But a few states, like California, have taken decisive steps in the other direction. They mandate inclusive education that treats LGBTQ history as essential to the curriculum. At once a history of an evolving movement and an activist handbook, Contested Curriculum navigates the rocky path to LGBTQ-inclusive K–12 history education in the United States and recounts the fight for a curriculum that recognizes the value of queer and trans lives.
What began in fits and starts in activism and educational materials across the late twentieth century led to the passage of California’s landmark FAIR Education Act in 2011, ensuring that LGBTQ history has a place in the K–12 classroom. Historian Don Romesburg, the lead scholar who worked with advocacy organizations to pass the act, recounts the decades-long struggle to integrate LGBTQ content into history education policy, textbooks, and classrooms. Looking at California and states that followed its lead, he assesses the challenges and opportunities presented by this new way of teaching history. Romesburg’s powerful case for LGBTQ-inclusive education is all the more urgent in this era of anti-gay book bans, regressive legislation, and attempts to diminish the vital role that inclusive and honest history education should play in a democratic nation.
What began in fits and starts in activism and educational materials across the late twentieth century led to the passage of California’s landmark FAIR Education Act in 2011, ensuring that LGBTQ history has a place in the K–12 classroom. Historian Don Romesburg, the lead scholar who worked with advocacy organizations to pass the act, recounts the decades-long struggle to integrate LGBTQ content into history education policy, textbooks, and classrooms. Looking at California and states that followed its lead, he assesses the challenges and opportunities presented by this new way of teaching history. Romesburg’s powerful case for LGBTQ-inclusive education is all the more urgent in this era of anti-gay book bans, regressive legislation, and attempts to diminish the vital role that inclusive and honest history education should play in a democratic nation.
DON ROMESBURG is a professor of women's and gender studies at Sonoma State University in California. He is the editor of The Routledge History of Queer America.
