Counselors

• Post it on your door, on a bulletin board outside or inside your office, on a whiteboard or blackboard, on the wall, or any other place that might be appropriate outside your office.
• If you have a page on the school's website, put this information there, too.
• Please include some or all of these critical crisis resources.

• Display a Philadelphia pride flag or Quasar/progress flag on your office door or window.
• Put other LGBTQA+/SGL symbols in your office.
• Display flyers and stickers from your school's Gender & Sexuality Alliance.

• How School-Based Mental Health Providers Can Support LGBTQ Youth
• Safe and Supportive Schools for LGBTQ+ Youth.
• The School Counselor and Transgender and Nonbinary Youth
• Serving Transgender Students: A School Counseling Perspective

• Do you know the differences between the alphabet soup of queer and trans identities? If not, this part of the adult resources section is a great place to start.
• Are you completely comfortable with folx who have more "out there," in-your-face sexual and gender presentations? It's critical to remember that queer and trans tweens and teens deserve respect and love not in spite of their queerness and transness but because of it.
• If a student comes out to you as queer and non-binary, can you treat them with the same level of care, encouragement, and knowledge as a student who is a cisgender gay boy or lesbian girl?
• If not, do your own internal work first before proceeding with anything else listed here.

...if your school requires you to out students to their parents:

• Post prominently that these are the rules you're forced to live by. You want queer and trans young people to know upfront before they come out to you.
• Come up with a code so that you and your student can have a conversation without overtly talking about queer or trans identities. Perhaps you need to have conversations with a student about butterflies or relationships between parents and children in ancient Mesopotamia….

• If a student comes out to you as queer and non-binary, can you treat them with the same level of care, encouragement, and knowledge as a student who is a cisgender gay boy or lesbian girl? If not, do your own internal work first before proceeding with anything else listed here.
• Do you know the differences between the alphabet soup of queer and trans identities? If not, this part of the adult resources section is a great place to start.
• Are you completely comfortable with folx who have more "out there," in-your-face sexual and gender presentations? It's critical to remember that queer and trans tweens and teens deserve respect and love not in spite of their queerness and transness but because of it.