ABOUT THIS MAP
Under affirming statewide curricular standards, K-12 local education agencies develop curriculum that includes positive representations of people who are LGBTQI+; Black, Indigenous, or people of color; people with disabilities, and all those who experience marginalization or erasure.
- Six states (California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon) have inclusive curricular standards laws that set the expectation for locally created academic curriculum to include affirming representation of LGBTQI+ people in K-12 schools.
- Eight states (California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington) have enacted LGBTQI+ inclusive sex education curricular standards laws.
- Additionally, two states (Connecticut and Delaware) have passed legislation that directs the state education agency to create a model LGBTQI+ inclusive curriculum. These laws do not set a statewide standard for inclusion, but encourage and lower the barrier for local education agencies to adopt inclusive curriculum.
New and old efforts to censor curriculum impose direct and indirect barriers on the adoption of inclusive curriculum by local education agencies.
- Eleven states have curriculum censorship laws targeting LGBTQI+ communities:
- Beginning in 2021, seven states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, and North Carolina) have passed “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” K-12 curriculum censorship laws that prohibit instruction on LGBTQI+ people.
- Earlier attacks on inclusive learning in the 1980s and 1990s prohibited affirming representation of LGBTQI+ identities, typically in the context of K-12 sex education. Four states (Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas) still have these so-called “No Promo Homo” laws.
- Since 2021, fifteen states (Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah) have passed curriculum censorship laws targeting honest teaching about race and gender disparities in K-12 schools. These bills are sometimes framed as bans on teaching “critical race theory,” a school of thought that allows scholars to understand how “race neutral” or “identity neutral” policies can nonetheless perpetuate racial and other forms of structure inequality.
We continue to assess and categorize states on this map based on updates to state laws and regulations. If you see a state on this map that needs an update, please email policy@glsen.org.
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