One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
California's K-12 Recommended Reading List Just Got A Little Gay
"Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown did not quite made the cut (Photo by Shockingly Tasty via the Creative Commons on Flickr)
The California Department of Education has released a new list of recommended reading, and for the first time ever it is including books that deal with gender and sexuality.
The state comes out with a recommended reading list every year, but this year's list includes selections like an activity book for young children about gay rights leader Harvey Milk or "I am J," which is a novel about transgender teens that's more appropriate for teens.
The state says that it didn't pick books just because they dealt with the full alphabet soup of LGBTQ issues. Lupita Alcala with the California Department of Education told ABC 7, "It's not based on content at all. It's mostly based on the quality of the literature. It could be non-fiction, fiction, biographies and poetry."
We haven't been able find a full list of the new books, but the list does include books that received Stonewall Awards. We searched through the 7,800 recommended books for K-12 students and found "The Shared Heart: Portraits and Stories Celebrating Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Young People," "Gay America: Struggle for Equality," "Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution" and the James Baldwin classic "Giovanni's Room." (We checked and "Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown did not make the cut.)
It's hard to imagine books on the list going over well in some of the more conservative parts of the state. For instance, our conservative neighbors to the north in Kern County fought hard to bar Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" from Kern County High School classrooms, since it described incest and sex. The book was allowed to stay on the reading lists only for honors students. (State Sen. Roy Ashburn opposed the book alongside family values types in the days before he was outed.)
Social conservatives are speaking out about the books added to the list. Randy Thomasson, the executive director of SaveCalifornia.com, told ABC it is detracting from students' education, "Your children are not being taught rigorous academics or critical thinking. They're being taught social engineering that will hurt them physically and emotionally."
But LGBT groups are praising the new list. Spencer Douglas with the LGBT Youth Task Force told ABC 7, "It's good to teach kids that everyone is different, and we are all people and that we can all be accepted for who we are. I think it's really great to see these books being recommended."
Sponsored message
California has already taken the lead in making sure to include stories about gays, lesbians and transgender in its history books.
Related:
History is So Gay: LGBT Contributions to Be Added to CA Textbooks
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
