HRC Day of Reading

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s recent Youth Report shows that more than 46 percent of LGBTQ+ youth, including almost 55 percent of transgender and gender-expansive youth, feel unsafe in at least one school setting. And despite the pervasiveness of school bullying, many teachers and staff remain unaware — or are explicitly unhelpful when informed. This is why HRC’s Welcoming Schools resources and professional development training, including National Day of Reading events, are so vital to meeting the needs of LGBTQ+ students today. This year’s National Day of Reading is happening on February 27th, and today In the Den we are joined by the HRC Foundation's Welcoming Schools Sr Director Cheryl Greene to tell us more about this event and how we can get involved.

Special Guest: Cheryl Greene

Cheryl is the Vice President of School and Youth Programming at the Human Rights Campaign. She has spent her career in education and is passionate about providing educators and school leaders with the tools to create LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive classrooms where all children can thrive. She spent 20 years as a middle school teacher, district bullying prevention coordinator, and as an adjunct professor before turning her talents to lead the broader work of preventing bias-based bullying nationwide. Cheryl leads the most comprehensive, bias-based bullying prevention program in the nation specifically designed for youth serving professionals impacting over 10.5 million students. She also oversees a robust school advocacy program designed to empower local advocates to organize and impact school boards and district policy to positively impact LGBTQ+ youth and families. In her spare time, Cheryl enjoys spending time with her spoiled Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, her wife, and three amazing grandchildren.

Links from the Show:

• HRC LGBTQ Youth Report 
• Learn More About HRC’s Day of Reading
• Welcoming School Resource List
• Request a Welcoming School Training
• Pledge to Participate in the Day of Reading
• Join Mama Dragons today

In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you. Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at www.mamadragons.org. 

Transcript

SARA: Hi everyone. Welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons. A podcast and community to support, educate, and empower parents on the journey of raising happy and healthy LGBTQ+ humans. I’m your host, Sara LaWall. I’m a Mama Dragon myself and an advocate for our queer community. And I’m so glad to be part of this wild and wonderful parenting journey with all of you. Thanks for joining us. We’re so glad you’re here.

Hello friends, and welcome to the In the Den with Mama Dragons podcast. I’m Shauna, filling in today for Sara; I’m happy to be with you all again. The Human Rights Campaign, or HRC, is the nation's largest civil rights organization working to achieve LGBTQ+ equality. The HRC Foundation’s recent Youth Report shows that more than 46 percent of queer youth, including almost 55 percent of transgender and gender-expansive youth, feel unsafe in at least one school setting. And despite the pervasiveness of school bullying, many teachers and staff remain unaware or are explicitly unhelpful when informed. This is why HRC’s Welcoming Schools resources and professional development training, including the upcoming National Day of Reading events, are so vital to meeting the needs of LGBTQ+ students today. This year, Mama Dragons is partnering with HRC for their National Day of Reading, which is happening on February 27th, and today In the Den we are joined by the HRC's Welcoming Schools Senior Director Cheryl Greene to tell us more about the work that HRC is doing to make the world safer for our kids, the upcoming National Day of Reading event, and how we can get involved. Welcome to the Den, Cheryl! We’re so happy to have you here with us.

CHERYL: Thanks for having me.

SHAUNA: I’m looking forward to learning from you today. Would you mind starting out by just telling us a little bit about you and how you came to be involved with HRC and Welcoming Schools?

CHERYL: Yes, I’d love to. I was a teacher, actually, for over 20 years. I taught middle school. I’m one of the crazy ones. And also spent quite a bit of time working around bullying prevention both at the district level and state-wide level before joining HRC. As a queer educator, it became super relevant to me and important to make sure that we had systems in place to prevent bullying in general, but in particular looking at our LGBTQ kids that were being bullied at a rate that seemed to be much higher than the general population. So my background really is, one, being an educator and advocate for bullying prevention which led me to working with the Welcoming Schools program, sort of put everything that I was doing on a bigger stage and being able to reach more than just students in my own community but the possibility of really impacting educators all around the country.

SHAUNA: That’s awesome. You lead the most comprehensive, bias-based bullying prevention program in the nation specifically designed for youth-serving professionals, right?

CHERYL: I do.

SHAUNA: And it says that it impacts over 10.5 million students. So you oversee a robust school advocacy program designed to empower local advocates. So I’m excited. It feels like you are particularly positioned to talk to us today about bullying. What can you tell us about the state of bullying in our schools, and it feels, honestly, from our government, like we’re seeing bullying of queer people everywhere these days, it feels like?

CHERYL: Yeah. Gosh, when you say that, I feel so blessed to do this work. The idea that our program is impacting that many students, I just feel really blessed to be able to do this work. Let me backtrack and just say that Welcoming Schools started in 2008. And it started as a way to empower elementary educators to understand that sometimes kids have two moms or two dads. So it literally was about this program just around family diversity, like understanding that not every kid has a mom and a dad. That’s kind of how it originated as this advocacy group of parents who said, “Look. My kid has two moms or two dads and they’re not being supported in school or they’re being told that their families don’t exist.” So that’s how it started. And certainly, when I joined the program in 2016, that was a pivotal year, 2016, with the election of Donald Trump. And just things started to just turn on its head. So we started to focus – certainly we continue to focus on family diversity. We think that’s super important – But our work around gender really took off at that stage because people just really weren’t doing this work with educators around the country in a way that was where we were moving the needle. What we found was that educators, most educators, wanted to do the right thing to support trans and nonbinary kids or LGBQT youth but really didn’t know how. And so we came in with, one, providing the competency of understanding what is gender outside of this binary concept, and what does that look like in the classroom to create an atmosphere where it’s gender inclusive. Everything from simple things like how you’re lining kids up, how you’re separating kids, how you’re deciding in early elementary, you have your play stations, making assumptions that if you’re doing things with blocks, then it’s boys that are doing it, or you’re doing this, it’s a girl thing. So really kind of disrupting the narrative around these gender roles and gender stereotyping is how we sort of started. And then we started getting a lot of calls from families and from educators saying, “Hey, I have a kid that’s trans. I actually don’t know what to do here. How do I talk to this class? How do I tell the other staff members? – which you don’t – How do I support this kid in the best way that I can?” So we started to really dig deep into creating resources and training on specifically supporting trans and nonbinary students. That’s our most widely used training right now is supporting trans and nonbinary students. And certainly, it has become so much more – it’s always been important, right, but even for people that live in areas with supportives laws and policies and supportive communities, these families are not immune to what’s happening in this country, even if it’s not happening to them in their school or in their community. They’re not immune to seeing the vitriol and what’s happening around the country. And it certainly is affecting everybody. So the work that we’re doing right now, like I said, I don’t think it could be more important to be able to provide educators with a strong stance on why you need to do this work, but also how and how to navigate the complexities of community push-back and other things that are happening.

SHAUNA: My oldest came out as trans in 2016. And it does feel like there’s been sort of a shift in just the focus on trans folks in the last ten years has been pretty intense. And then, 2015, gay marriage becoming legal. It feels like the national discourse has just heated up so much. Has that increase of conversation, do you feel like, has it made bullying worse or made bullying better, or both?

CHERYL: I mean, I think it’s made it worse. You gave some stats on our HRC Youth Report. And I think you might’ve said this, but just LGBTQ youth in general, 52% of them felt like they were victimized at school over the last year. But if you look at trans and gender-expansive kids in particular, 55% of them feel unsafe at school in at least one area of school. That’s over half of them. And this was in the 2024 Youth Report which was done in 2023. I would say a lot has changed since then, right? So I’d be interested to see, we have another report that should be coming out, or there is data that should be coming out soon. And just from hearing from educators and from hearing on the ground, I feel like that number’s going up. So our work around preventing bullying, really is critical. And our program, that’s the umbrella over all the work that we do. So in order to create spaces where LGBTQ kids, trans kids, nonbinary kids, gender-expansive kids feel safe and welcoming, you have to then proactively create an atmosphere where that can happen. And that’s by creating gender-inclusive spaces, creating spaces where everyone can thrive. So you want to prevent bullying, you have to proactively create spaces where it doesn’t occur. So I always talk about early in elementary school, one of things that kids get teased about is not fitting into that stereotypical box, right? You’re a boy. You should act like this. You should play games like this. You should dress like this. This is what the box is for a boy. Here’s what the box is for a girl. And if you don’t fit into those boxes, you get teased and you get bullied very early on. Now, if we had educators that could disrupt that early on like, “Toys don’t have a gender. Colors don’t have a gender. Anybody can play.” If they set that stage very early on, then that bullying doesn’t occur to these kids very early on and then it doesn’t move along to other types of bullying. We’ve done some really great research with some schools that have used Welcoming Schools in an entire district throughout the course of this five-year span and took rates of bullying when we started working with them and then at the end of this five year period. And it was dramatic because if you can nip this early in kindergarten where it’s not happening, then it just doesn’t happen. And certainly you’re always going to have bullying. We’re not going to eliminate bullying. But what I will say is, lots of bullying happens because it’s allowed to happen and it’s sort of cool to do it because no one’s stopping it and kids get rewarded from other social, all of this stuff. And so if we can change that narrative early on, we really really can reduce the rates of bullying for kids, for all kids but in particular we want to make sure that our program is focused on ensuring these trans and LGBTQ kids are not bullied based on the perceived perception of who they are, right? So we know that it works when you can proactively create environments where it’s okay to be who you are, less bullying happens. We know that that’s the truth. But now it’s compounded by other things, by external factors with book bans, with awful rhetoric from our government, from local leaders. And so that sort of trickles down and kids are repeating what they hear from the bully at the top and repeating it. So it makes it even harder for educators to set that stage. But certainly, we’re doing it and it’s important.

SHAUNA: Yeah. It feels like the first line of defense would be in the home, right? And I feel like that’s something that we’re trying to attack as Mama Dragons is helping parents not be their kids' first bully, right? Helping parents to be supportive and model that acceptance in a way. That can be hard because a lot of us come from a generation where we didn’t talk about that. Gender was just considered a binary. We had our boxes to check. And so it can be hard to unlearn those things. But I love what you said about talking to little kids. And I think sometimes parents think, “Well, they’re too young.” What would you say to that? “They’re too young to have these conversations.”

CHERYL: I would say a couple of things. One, kids know who they are. As soon as they can start talking, they will tell you who they are. We know that, right? And then we talked about people that have parents that are male and female and we talk about those family structures. But for some reason, it’s not okay to talk about loving families that have same-sex families. We’re talking about just accepting people for who they are, right? And I think that it sometimes – always – tends to get conflated with sex. And when we’re talking about gender, we’re not talking about having sex, right? And so I think the conversation around, “They’re too young,” is because they’re conflating it with thinking about sex. And we’re talking about just who these kids know themselves to be. So I think that that is some of the pushback that we get. And one of the things we’ll say is we want to make sure that we are authenticating people for who they say they are. And our umbrella for doing this work is respect, love, and family. Those are sort of our three things. So regardless of how you feel about anything, you need to be respectful. So you have to be respectful of people. And so respect, love, families are about love. And we just want to make sure that we’re creating an environment where – here’s where sometimes we go with this. People get to have their own personal values and beliefs. So you certainly can have your own personal values and beliefs about anything. But if I’m an educator, it actually is my job to ensure that every one of my students is not only in a safe place, but in a place where they can learn and grow and thrive and are free from obviously getting bullied regardless of your own personal beliefs and values as an educator. That’s actually your job to make sure every kid in front of you, regardless of your personal beliefs and values, is in a safe, nurturing environment where they can thrive. They can’t do that if they’re being bullied or teased for who they are. And then I would say the same thing for other families. In your own family, you get to have your own personal beliefs and values. But once you start saying something about somebody else and you’re being disrespectful, then you’re crossing the line. And so when you’re telling your kids this is not okay and then they’re coming to school and bullying another kid because of who they are, then we can say it’s actually not okay.

SHAUNA: That’s a good way to put it. You can have your own beliefs, but making other people feel bad because they don’t share those beliefs or those values, is the big problem.

CHERYL: Right.

SHAUNA: Where is Welcoming Schools available? I know some states are probably harder to get into than others.

CHERYL: We have been in every state. I’ll say that.

SHAUNA: Okay.

CHERYL: But there are many states now that we’re not able to get into. So we work everywhere. I won’t say we’re not in any state. I would say that some of the times, people, we’re working with them. We’re not actually coming into their school and doing a live training. We have eLearning, an eLearning platform, HRC Learn, so you can take an entire course anywhere in the country, actually anywhere in the world through our HRC Learn Platform.

SHAUNA: Awesome.

CHERYL: We’re reaching a lot of people through asynchronous learning which we have some really robust training. So our in-person training, we’re not getting into some of the really red states in person. But we are able to reach these folks by, like I said, our HRC Learn Platform. And then just our website has so many great resources. It’s all free, open access, free to download. There’s resources for families. There’s resources for educators. There’s resources for just school advocacy. So we’re starting to do a lot of work with school boards as well because I’m really passionate about understanding the role of school boards. And look, if we can help school boards, help elect people who are going to be inclusive on school boards, you’re changing the trajectory of what those kids have access to, books, curriculum, everything, policies. So we’re spending a lot of time with school board advocacy right now because even in states, like in California, where you have some really strong legislation and policies in place, you also have some really conservative school districts that have taken over these school districts and it’s a problem. So we’re doing a ton of work around school board advocacy as well.

SHAUNA: That’s awesome. We will put the links to those resources in our show notes.

CHERYL: Great.

SHAUNA: So that anyone who, like me who lives in a very conservative state who is looking for ways to still access those resources can for sure do it. What can we do about school boards, like we in conservative states or more progressive states? What would you recommend for us as parents to do on that front?

CHERYL: First of all, understand what school boards do. So we have a whole guide, it’s called “School Boards Matter.” It’s understanding the role of the school board, how to get things elevated that you’re interested in to the school board, how to attend school board meetings because, look, if you’re a community member, you have a say in what happens here. And if people show up and say, “I’m not okay with this.” And you get ten of your friends to come and do the same thing, it actually changes how school boards think about things. So we have a whole guide on understanding what school boards do, how to speak at school board meetings, how to know when things are coming up before they actually happen. So there’s a whole process before something gets passed in the school board. It has to go through all these different committees. So understanding when things are sort of brewing instead of waiting until something’s already past and you’re missing out. So understanding that and then school boards are elections. And sometimes there’s nobody that is opposing the people that are running. And many times, people don’t even know what their stances are because they’re usually nonpartisan races, right? So you don’t know. So how can you learn about the stances of these folks? So we’re putting out some things on how to find that out. But you can ask questions to these school board members. And they, almost all of them, will have a website that talks about what their policies are, what they stand for. And you can certainly gain from that. And then, the last thing I’ll say is, people should run for school board. We need people on school boards that can actually make decisions that are going to support all students. And so, like I said, many times these people go unopposed. So run for school board is what I will say. Or, at minimum, get involved and know who you’re voting for. Many times you’ll go to – it’s on the back side of the ballot and it’s like you don’t know any of the names and you’re just, “Okay.” And then it makes a big difference. So understanding what school boards do and getting involved in your local school district is super important.

SHAUNA: That’s awesome. I think a lot of moms will volunteer in classrooms, which is fantastic, right? That’s a great way to be on the ground and see how the classroom is going and if your child is protected. But imagine a whole school board of Mama Dragons. That would change everything.

CHERYL: It would change everything. Even in a conservative city or in a conservative district, you can still do that because, like I said, first of all, a lot of people aren’t even paying attention. So you get five Mama Dragons to run for the school board and you change the entire trajectory of that school district where you’re now able to have books in classrooms. You’re now able to write resolutions that are enumerated that support all kids, even in conservative areas.

SHAUNA: That’s fantastic. What are the newest resources available through the Welcoming Schools program? I know you’re always coming out with new stuff.

CHERYL: We’re doing a lot more around guidance for school leaders to be able to respond to things that are happening. So sort of this teachable moment on, so a community member’s not happy because you are allowing students to use an all-gender restroom. And they don’t want their kids in a restroom with someone that’s trans. How do you respond to that in an appropriate way? So we’re putting out more and more guidance on helping school leaders to address these community concerns in a way that is supportive of all families. So it’s one of the things we’re doing. We have a new resource coming out, actually, on immigration and ICE in schools which dove-tails with LGBTQ youth, but just in general.

SHAUNA: Yeah.

CHERYL: So we have a resource out on that. And then we have some family resources as well. And so we’re putting more and more resources out for families as well, how to advocate for your kids at school. And then our biggest push has been around books. So National Day of Reading, which I’d love to talk about, but leading up to National Day of Reading we’ve had Book of the Month. So every month, we’re selecting a different book, highlighting the book, getting something from the author and putting out a discussion guide. And the discussion guides are not just for educators. But it’s like, if you want to use this in the classroom, that’s great. Here’s some discussion prompts, some things you can use to have discussions around the book with your students. But also, it’s a discussion guide for adults. So read this kids book, but have adult discussion around the importance of this book and how it affects you and how you end up talking about these topics with other adults. We’re really proud of this Book of the Month series that we’re doing. And it’s every month, we have a different book that we’re highlighting leading up to this month, February, which is National Day of Reading. So this month is the big month for National Day of Reading. It’s a huge event.

SHAUNA: I love the idea of the Book of the Month, I think, for educators who want to be supportive but don’t understand the trans experience. I think us, as parents, also are cisgender ourselves. And we have our child that we can learn from. But the idea of having a monthly book where we’re trying to understand the experience of somebody else would open us to be able to see the places where we’re maybe not doing the best that we should or ways that we can be more supportive. I love that idea. Okay. Let’s get into Day of Reading because I’m excited about that too. How did it start? What was the impetus?

CHERYL: So in 20- I think it’s been a decade.

SHAUNA: I think you’re right.

CHERYL: 2016, so a really small town in Wisconsin and a kindergarten teacher was wanting to read the book, I am Jazz, to his kindergarten class. He had a trans kid in his class and he thought, what a great way to read a book that talks about what it means to be trans in an age appropriate way. So he decided he was going to read I am Jazz. The principal was fine with it. He was getting ready to read it. And all the sudden, community members got ahold of what they were doing and said, “No way. Hell no. You’re not reading this book in this kindergarten class.” So the principal was like, “Ay, you better not read this book.” And he’s like, “What?” So he didn’t get to read the book in the class. And a parent of an ally in the class, so not the trans kid’s mom but another mom, said, “This is ridiculous.” So this ally decided to host the reading at a local library. This town has about 4,000 people in it. It’s a really small town. So they hosted a reading with I am Jazz. And 600 people showed up at this library for this reading. We were there. HRC was there. Actually Sara McBride was there. She was our press secretary at the time. And it was families. And it was the most amazing thing ever. Just families coming together. We literally read the book, gave out stickers. It was powerful. And so we came back and said, “We need to do this again. This just was amazing.” And so we came back and the following year, we had this event called “I am Jazz,” because that’s the book that we read. And so, we asked people to read I am Jazz. And lots of different schools just thought this was a great idea. The following year we decided to add some more books. We ended up changing the name to “Jazz and Friends.” And so had a few different books that were a little bit more diverse as far as representation. We created these tool kits that had guides. And it was just for educators. So we were doing this all for teachers. And it was just elementary-focused. It started to get really big and we’re like, let’s expand this again. And it should be not just for educators. It should be for everybody, people in the community. It should be for high schools. Everybody should be getting involved in this. So we changed the name to National Day of Reading and started to highlight a couple of different books, so a couple of elementary books, a book that’s more middle school focused, and one that’s high school focused. And every year I say that it couldn’t be more important. But, certainly right now, it couldn’t be more important with book bans on the rise and attacks on the trans community. Our National Day of Reading really is just a powerful testament to our mission as a program celebrating LGBTQ literature. We want our youth to see themselves reflected in the pages that they’re reading to ensure that every kid feels valued and seen. But even as important, it’s important for people that are not in the community to read about lives that are not like theirs. That’s how we build empathy. That’s how we reduce bullying. I strongly believe that. When you start reading about people that are not like you, you gain empathy for them. When you are empathetic, you are less likely to bully. That’s true. This year, we’re proud to partner with you all, Mama Dragons. We have nine other national partners. So when we first started it was the National Education Association, which is great, and the American Association of School Libraries. They still are partnering with us. So those two are really huge national partners for us. But we decided this is bigger than schools right now. So partnering with Authors Against Book Bans and EveryLibrary and PanAmerica and you all. And National PTA actually is a sponsor, Red Wine and Blue. So all these organizations that are stepping up and saying, “This is super important.” And look, it’s a day to simply celebrate trans and nonbinary youth through the joy of reading. It really is that simple. We have these great tool kits. We have discussion guides to use with youth. We have discussion guides to use with adults. It’s just a really amazing way to come together on a day and say, “This is important.” People are always looking for something to do, right? Right now, we need something to do. Host a reading. Pledge to host a reading. We’ve got lots of things we can offer when you pledge like, here’s the toolkit, here’s how to do it. And we want people to actually go on our website and pledge to host a reading and say that you’re doing it so that we can kind of nationalize how many people are actually doing this. So encourage your viewers to go to our website and actually pledge to do a reading.

SHAUNA: Yeah. What really touches me about that first reading is that it wasn’t the mom of the trans kid because that sometimes is not safe for our families to do. Nothing warms my heart more than when someone who is not personally affected by an issue who is willing to stand up and support others, such an empathetic, kind move. And I love that. And I think that’s such an important way for trans people to feel loved and seen is those of us who have kids in the fight should for sure be there on the front line too. But that is so beautiful that it was just an ally, the parent of an ally.

CHERYL: Right, the parent of an ally. That is what is going to really make change in our country is when allies are standing up and saying, “No. This is not okay.” There are more allies than there are trans families. There are more allies than there are LGBTQ people. It’s when the masses say, “No, this is not okay. I’m going to stand up,” is when the needle shifts. So, yes, it was a beautiful thing. That’s what we need more of.

SHAUNA: And the more we share our stories, the more allies we’ll gain, right?

CHERYL: Yep.

SHAUNA: Because people will know about trans people and people will love the trans people in their lives and want them to have all the goodness and happiness that they have. And I think the concept of this is so beautiful. Let’s talk about book bans because that feels really pertinent to the day of reading. It feels like – I know especially in my state of Idaho – book bans have become just crazy out of control. And a lot of it is trying to control anything surrounding the idea of gender diversity, trans people, queer people. What are you seeing as far as book bans in the country? What are the trends of what is being banned and the pace of that?

CHERYL: It’s unbelievable, actually. I mean, I feel like it started around trans identities. And it’s everything now. It's race. It’s everything. And I think because they’ve sort of blown this up and they’re pulling so many books off the shelves now, not just around gender but around everything that they don’t agree with, that I feel like it’s going to start to backfire because, now what books are left on shelves, actually, for people to read besides the Bible? I don’t know.

SHAUNA: The Bible is questionable. It has some questionable plotlines.

CHERYL: Yeah. It absolutely does. It should maybe be banned. But I feel like the book bans, it’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before. What started out as pulling this book off the reading list because they felt like the kids were too young to see this kind of content just has exploded into something which I guess I believe – and again, I’m going to have a hopeful view of this – is that they’ve really gone too far. And I think it’s going to shift back. You can’t erase our history. You can say this doesn’t exist. There’s a playbook for this on the right. There’s a playbook for why they’re doing this. And if you’re not exposing people to differences, then they’re not going to be embracing differences because they’re not exposed to them. So they’re trying to completely change the trajectory of a student’s experience in school where they’re not exposed to anything that’s not about white Christian people.

SHAUNA: But what’s the reality of those kinds of efforts?

CHERYL: I mean, the reality is staggering, actually, that our students are not being exposed to people that look like them, act like them, are them. It’s erasing our families. It’s erasing us. And as I said, as much as people that live in areas where that’s not happening, we’re still seeing effects. And certainly, if you’re living in a conservative area where there are no books that represent who you are, people are not allowed to mention LGBTQ words or affirm anything about who you are, it’s horrible. What’s going to save us? Democracy, voting, getting out and getting involved in school board elections. That’s a huge start. At the local level, understanding school boards, getting involved in school board races, voting, speaking up, protests, all of that. Democracy is going to have to save us. There are more of us than there are of them. There are more people that are supportive of us than there are that are not. Yet, they’re louder.

SHAUNA: Yeah. The vocal minority.

CHERYL: Yes.

SHAUNA: And taking away representation, taking away the words, or not giving trans and nonbinary kids the words, doesn’t not change who they are. I know we grew up, our child was in a very conservative area. We were in a conservative religion. They were still trans. None of us had the words. And it was catastrophic for their mental health. And none of us knew what was happening. And giving words and stories was life-saving for our trans child. And I would say that that’s what these book bans are harming in ways that we can’t even know because they think if you can’t see it, you can’t be it. But you’re still going to be it.

CHERYL: You’re still it.

SHAUNA: You just aren’t going to have the words or the support system.

CHERYL: Yeah. I will say I’ve been really happy with libraries for the most part. Now there are some libraries that are making really bad decisions. But American Library Association, the Urban Library Counsel, -- I don’t know what it’s called – but the rural library association, all of them have been really strong in saying, “We are going to have books that represent everybody.” And so at least, in local communities, for the most part, libraries still have these books. I did see some things in Texas how that’s not happening in Texas. But lots of things happen in Texas. But, for the most part, I feel like libraries are stepping up and visibly saying, “You exist here. Your stories belong here.” And libraries are important parts of the communities as well.

SHAUNA: Shout out to the librarians of the country. They really are doing good work. How can we, as moms – what’s the best way for us to get involved in Day of Reading? Hosting? If we’re in a place where we think our schools might be able to host a reading, what would be our steps there?

CHERYL: Well, it could be as easy as you all host your own reading with your friends and family in the backyard or in a community center. So it doesn’t have to be a huge event. It’s about gathering people together. The more people that you can get to start having these discussions around the book, the better. If you can get your school to host a reading, we selected a couple of different books at the elementary level for a couple of reasons. One, to create diversity. But one of the books is maybe a lighter lift into talking about different identities. One of the books is Chloe and the Fireflies. And it’s about two dads, and it’s about adoption. So that’s a start, right. So maybe that’s a lighter lift if the school is maybe a bit more conservative. Maybe that one as opposed to Marley’s Pride which is more about trans identities, nonbinary identities. So we did that on purpose, gave a couple of options, because anything is better than not reading at all. So if you could get your school to read one of the books in a classroom, and provide them ahead of time with the discussion guides – you can find all of that on our website, that’d be great – but really, it just could be about gathering people together and doing it on your own as well, is powerful as well. So any way that you can do that, community centers, after school programs, all kinds of ways to engage.

SHAUNA: Yeah. So just make a phone call

CHERYL: Make a phone call.

SHAUNA: And see if your school is willing to do that. And if they’re not, figure it out.

CHERYL: And if they’re not, I would push that as, “Why are you not open to doing this?” If they say we don’t have the time, reading one of these books can be done at lunch. It can be done in a different setting. What books are you already using for things that you’re doing in the classroom? Could this be a substitute for a reading time? If they push back, I would ask why you are not interested in doing this.

SHAUNA: Yeah. That’s good. Anything else that you want us to know about HRC’s efforts around this Day of Reading or in general that you think it would be important for Mama Dragons to understand?

CHERYL: Just to spread the word. This is about engaging in conversation around the importance, one, of having books that reflect our lived experience. But also just enriching the conversation with each other as we talk about allies. The questions that we have for discussions are really good at having those discussions with people and why this is important. So the more you can spread the word about coming to a reading, engaging in a reading, the more we can then start having those conversations, which ultimately – we hope – will start moving the needle on people getting off the sidelines and saying this is not okay. And as you said, when people know people that are trans, you change the way that you feel about them. That’s just the truth, right? But we also know that we want people to be safe and you’re not always going to know somebody that’s trans. So we want you to also know about them through having discussions with people that can talk about them as well. So there’s both of that. But when you know somebody that’s trans, you absolutely change the way you think about supporting trans people, 100%.

SHAUNA: For sure. Would you mind just sharing a little, personally, what it means to you to see queer representation in media, in books?

CHERYL: Yeah. I can say, well, as a queer woman with four kids – and I actually have four kids, I also have three grandchildren – it validates who I am as a person. It validates that my family, it’s the same as any other family. It’s not erasing who I am and who my family is. So all of that, certainly it’s personal. And as an educator, I will say that when my trans and nonbinary, gender expansive kids are not supported in school with books and just validating who they are, it hurts my soul. And part of why I do this work is because of that, because these kids – all kids but particular LGBTQ kids and trans kids in particular – deserve to grow up in a world that affirms who they are.

SHAUNA: Thank you. This has been a great conversation. We like to end with the same two questions. And so I’ll ask them to you if you don’t mind answering. The first one is, Mama Dragons, the name Mama Dragons came about as representative of our fierceness for our queer kids, like our willingness to breathe fire to protect them. And so I’m wondering what you are fierce about in your life?

CHERYL: Oh, I think I’m most fierce around preventing bullying, helping educators to prevent bullying. I guess I would say, if there’s one thing that is a singular focus for me and has been throughout my career, it’s been around preventing bullying.

SHAUNA: I thought you might say that. When I was reading your bio I’m like, this woman has spent a lifetime in the fight to curb bullying. That’s awesome. Okay, the last question that we like to ask is what is bringing you joy right now?

CHERYL: What is bringing me joy? My three grandkids.

SHAUNA: So fun.

CHERYL: They’re so innocent and I want them to grow up in a world that is better than it is right now. They’re very young, 1, 2, and 4. And it brings me joy to see them, just their innocence. I just love those kids and it makes me forget about some of the awful things that are happening in the world when I’m around them. I don’t have my phone with me. I just am in the moment. So they both give me joy and also purpose for making this place better for them.

SHAUNA: I love that. Thank you. And Thank you, Cheryl Greene, for having this conversation with us. Thank you to the HRC for all of the work that you’re doing to make the world better for our kids, and everyone’s kids. Thanks for being here and sharing your knowledge with us.

CHERYL: Thanks for having me and thank you for everything that you’re doing as well. I appreciate you.

SHAUNA: Thanks.

SARA: Thanks for joining us here In the Den. Did you know that Mama Dragons offers an eLearning program called Parachute? This is an interactive learning platform where you can learn more about how to affirm, support, and celebrate the LGBTQ+ people in your life. Learn more at Mamadragons.org/parachute. Or find the link in the episode show notes under links.

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