Dear Straight Parents: Please Read Queer Board Books to Your Babies and Toddlers

14 LGBTQIA+ books for kids ages 0-3

Jun 15, 2023

The phrase, “That’s so gay!”, has bothered me ever since I heard it sometime in the early 2000s.

At the time, I was in high school and had recently come out as bisexual. You might be surprised to learn that back then I was living in Florida and that my sexuality was fully embraced by my peers.

Despite the rejection of my sexual orientation by my Latinx immigrant parents and the failure of my school’s administration to allow me to start a Gay-Straight Alliance even though I had faculty support and student interest, I had a pretty good experience.

Florida was still a solid swing stage back then, and I went to a particularly liberal school. This may be due to my school being a magnet school for the International Baccalaureate program—which I like to describe as “AP classes but for all four years.” Basically, most of the school was a bunch of smarty-pants and studies have shown a link between higher IQ and liberalism.

So… I was lucky. I never feared for my life. I was never afraid of being physically hurt. I never really expected or had any repercussions of coming out as a teen, and I know how very, very lucky I was back then. I probably don’t have to tell you that the situation in Florida today is, well, pretty awful. The “Don’t Say Gay” bill enrages me to no end both as a queer person and as someone who lived in Florida when their current evil governor first ran for office. (I didn’t vote for him, in case that wasn’t obvious.)

After high school, I moved to New York City and went to what at the time was ranked by The Princeton Review as the #1 school for LGBTQIA+ support—New York University. I found my gay community pretty quickly, and this has remained a huge part of my identity over the years even though I have been in a heteronormative relationship with my male cis husband since 2016.

I’m still bi, after all. FYI: Being in a monogamous relationship does not change one’s attraction to all genders. It just means I only sleep with my spouse… but I can still find myself attracted to the sweet female barista at my local coffee shop or the non-binary pharmacist who is always so kind in their interactions with me.

So why am I telling you all this and how does it relate to Raising Gen Alpha?

Well, ever since my husband and I began to talk about having kids, I knew that I wanted to raise a little ally from day one. (Assuming my child identifies as straight and cis when they grow up.)

ALLY: An adjective used to describe a straight and/or cisgender person who supports and advocates for LGBTQ people. Plural is allies. source: GLAAD Media Reference Guide

And in order to do this, I knew that having a diverse and inclusive children’s library was the place to start.

As parents, we already know that reading regularly is probably the most important thing you can do for your child when it comes to their cognitive development. And so, reading about many different topics is part of helping your kid become a well-rounded human.

More than that, though, reading diverse books that feature people of all different colors, shapes, sizes, cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, and lifestyles helps your child to understand from day one that humanity is diverse.

After all, not even twins are 100% alike for 100% of the time.

And because it’s important to me and my husband that our son grows up with a varied worldview and an understanding that all people are different, and—even more importantly—that all people deserve love and acceptance, LGBTQIA+ board books were some of our earliest purchases for Rio. Before I even hit the midway point of my pregnancy, tbh.

Most of the parents I am friends with and interact with online call themselves allies of the queer community. And that’s great! But I have a question: What are you doing right now, today, to raise your Gen Alpha kids to be allies too?

Whenever I ask people this question or Google what advice is out there about this topic directed toward straight parents (cause, let’s face it, queer parents probably don’t really need this guidance), I see the same things:

Explain that some families have two mommies or two daddies when they ask, typically when your kid meets a family like this in daycare or preschool
Talk to them about being nice and understanding of different kinds of families
Make a rainbow-themed craft with them during June, aka Pride Month

Sometimes, a suggestion will include taking kids to a Pride Month reading hour at the local library or if the parent is really daring, taking their kid to a nearby Drag Queen Story Hour.

And all of that is great! Definitely good and important things to do—along with going to a Pride event or two that’s not just targeted toward kids.

But you know what is often missing from these conversations? How to be proactive about raising your child from an early age to be kind and accepting of LGBTQIA+ people. You know, outside of the month of June.

It’s sort of like the advice about how it’s important for white parents to talk to their white children about racism early and often, since Black parents don’t have the privilege to ignore this uncomfortable subject and are already doing this when their kids are very, very young. The same goes for children of immigrants like me. And the same goes for queer families.

We don’t have the option to ignore LGBTQIA+ issues. And considering all of the shit happening in the U.S. right now with queer books being banned, the anti-trans legislation targeting children, and so much more… You shouldn’t be ignoring these issues either.

At least, definitely not ignoring them 11 months of the year.

And so, as I write this in the middle of Pride Month, I want to ask you one thing: Please, please start reading queer books to your kids—and start them early!

I began this with my son by reading LGBTQIA+ board books early on, and it’s something we continue to this day. It’s not difficult considering the many options of queer board books we have today.

All you have to do is buy a couple of these books or check them out occasionally from your library, then incorporate them into your reading routine with your little one.

For us, that means reading before bedtime. I don’t make a big deal of it, either. These books are just part of our overall library of books, and we keep them in our regular rotation. It’s easy for kids to love and appreciate these colorful, fun, beautiful books—and a great way to get them started on the road to allyship.

You don’t even have to make it a big deal to point out that these are queer books about different families or people. I certainly don’t! Just as I wouldn’t make it a huge point to say, “Hey, this is a book about an Asian family—and they’re different from us!” This just ends up othering people, instead of what we actually want to do here, which is normalizing our differences.

To get you started, here’s a list of some of my family’s favorite LGBTQIA+ board books for babies and toddlers—and some of the books on my wish list. It’s by no means an extensive list, so be sure to look for others or ask your local librarian for some guidance.