Education Commons^™

Glsen Rainbow Library, Will Rapp

Kansas LGBTQ+ Leadership Symposium

GLSEN Kansas, as a part of a national network works to ensure that LGBTQ students are able to learn and grow in a school environment free from bullying and harassment. GLSEN believes that every student has the right to a safe, supportive, and LGBTQ-inclusive K-12 education. Our research and experience has shown that there are four major ways that schools can cultivate a safe and supportive environment for all of their students, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression: developing supportive educators, advocating for comprehensive inclusive policies, providing inclusive curriculum and supporting student led GSAs.

The GLSEN Rainbow Library …

Revealing A Community's Heritage: The Gay And Lesbian Archive Of Mid-America, Stuart Hinds

Kansas LGBTQ+ Leadership Symposium

The Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America (GLAMA) was founded in 2009 to collect, preserve, and make accessible the documents and artifacts that reflect the histories of the LGBTQ communities in the Kansas City region. Originally a partnership between the University of Missouri – Kansas City Special Collections and Archives Division, the Kansas City Museum, and the Jackson County Historical Society, by 2014 two of the partners retreated from the project and it has been solely an initiative at UMKC since. GLAMA has been wildly successful in many respects – response from community donors; interest on the part of student, …

Documenting The Kansas Lgbtq+ Digital Presence: A New Initiative By The Kansas Archive-It Consortium (Kaic), Mary Elizabeth Downing-Turner, Michael Church, Crystal Hutchinson

Kansas LGBTQ+ Leadership Symposium

The Kansas Archive-It Consortium (KAIC) is a statewide organization with members from the Kansas Historical Society, FHSU, ESU, KSU, KU, WSU, and Washburn. Since 2017, KAIC has worked to preserve and make accessible web content that aligns with each member’s collecting areas. During the COVID-19 pandemic, members of KAIC worked together to collectively preserve relevant web content. This initiative demonstrated that KAIC could effectively work together on joint projects. In January 2022, KAIC members approved an initiative to actively collect web content relevant to the LGBTQ+ community within Kansas for the purpose of preserving digital ephemera of the LGBTQ+ experience …

Transgender Children’S Books In The Public Library, Tom R. Taylor

Kansas LGBTQ+ Leadership Symposium

In 2019-2020 the Andover Public Library received book challenges on three books in the children’s collection featuring transgender main characters, George by Alex Gino, Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart and I am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings. The Library Board rejected the challenges and the books remain in the children’s collections. This presentation will share the story of the challenges and all that transpired, including media attention and a protest. It will demonstrate how the director and the library board rejected the book challenges. This specific example demonstrates some of the best practices for facing book challenges …

The Rainbow Read-In: A Place To Build Community, Elizabeth Johnson

Kansas LGBTQ+ Leadership Symposium

The UMKC University Libraries held the second Rainbow Read-In (RRI) virtually in June 2022. Readers presented either their own works if they identify as LGBTQIA+ or works written by LGBTQIA+ authors. Nine participants presented and sixty people attended. Our first Rainbow Read-In included ten presenters and forty attendees in 2021.

The goal of this presentation is to share how we created a safe space to showcase works from within the queer community. The objectives of this program are to discuss the origins of the RRI, the formation of the committee, lessons learned, short- and long-term goals, potential areas for improvement, …