By Janice Anderson  January! A new year with new expectations and hopes. And, boy, do I hold tightly to a hope that 2022 will bring progress and acceptance for everyone. As a school librarian, I am disheartened and tired of seeing books with diverse protagonists and topics challenged by parents and politicians.   Representation within books

By Mandy Giles I am humbled to serve as the PFLAG Houston president for the 2021-2022 year, and I’m honored to have the opportunity to contribute to a community that has given me so much. I attended my first PFLAG meeting five years ago after one of my children came out as bisexual. While my

 By Janice Anderson One of my favorite bumper stickers is “The EARTH without ART is just EH.” The pandemic disrupted many things in our lives and one of the biggest is the arts. Live music stopped. Art openings stopped. Theatre and performance stopped. Earth continued to turn and time to flow, but it’s been “eh.”

By Janice Anderson I am so looking forward to this next school year. Last year was so weird with its hybrid classes, social distancing and no club meetings. I’m the club advisor for my middle school’s Gay Straight Alliance (GSA). Because of social distancing, we couldn’t hold club meetings until the Spring semester. I missed

By Janice Anderson The summer is a great time to prepare for the upcoming school year. As a teacher, I spend my “time off” preparing or improving lessons for the upcoming fall. As parents, the summer gives us a chance to prepare and improve our children’s success in their school environment. This summer, our general

By Janice Anderson One year at the Gender Infinity conference, I attended a panel discussion on being nonbinary. One of my children had recently explained to my husband and me that they were nonbinary and I was eager to learn more. The panel was peopled by nonbinary students learning at the University of Houston. I

By Janice Anderson   As we embark on a new year, I can look back at 2020 and see positive things that have occurred. Our weekly support Zoom meetings have brought people in who otherwise may not have been able to make the trip into town or to our satellite locations. Seeing familiar and new

By Janice Anderson Yesterday, a student told me they wanted to be called another name. They didn’t like their name. I asked what name they would choose for themself. After some discussion about the name and why they wanted it, I shared that my child had changed their name, and they liked their new name much

 By Janice Anderson and Greg Lambert While most of us have been disappointed by what 2020 has brought to us so far, the Supreme Court of the United States brought some more joyous news in June. With the decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (Georgia), the Court extended Title VII protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual,