Gender Inclusive Ministries

Thanks to Rowan Larson (they/them) and Lauren Kay (they/them) both of Building Faith for sharing these two Great Ideas!

Rowan Larson offers six simple steps to take to move toward a more gender-open and gender-inclusive ministry – throughout your building and programming.

Steps include:

  1. Don’t ask children to sort themselves by gender.
  2. Reminder children that hobbies, interest, clothes, haircuts, names, and more can be for all of us, regardless of gender.
  3. Don’t simply stop gender-based teasing or bullying (or any such harm), but talk through the preconceived notions that drive it.
  4. Offer pronoun buttons to allow older kids to self-identify when using name tags.
  5. Respect parent and/or child self-identification preferences for younger children.
  6. If they don’t exist already, start the conversation about all-gender restrooms.

See the full article for more specifics on each of these.

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Lauren Kay shares links to a A Service of Renaming, from The Episcopal Church’s Book of Occasional Services (p. 120) and they offer a compelling discussion of the power of names and the power of celebrating renaming in our faith communities.

Read the full article here.

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You might also engage gender-identity discussions with young children/families and/or people expecting a child utilizing Be Who You Are, It’s Okay to Be Different, Introducing Teddy or other books found in our Sexuality & Gender Identity lib guide.

To support parents engaging gender identity, body image, and sexuality conversations at home, you might share the UCC’s It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing UP, Sex, and Sexual Health or other books found in our Tweens & Teens Sexuality & Gender Identity lib guide.