LEE AIRTON, PH.D.

Gender and Sexual Diversity in Education

Now available wherever books are sold. Fully revised and updated for current conversations.

Gender diversity is an ongoing conversation and much has changed since GYG first came out in 2018. Get help with conversations you're already having on hot topics like transgender people in sport and gender-affirming health care for children and youth. Learn to make a power move with effective strategies for gender-friendly change in spaces where you spend time.

"This guide is unlike anything else available today, and an obvious and necessary item for collections of all kinds."

Library Journal Starred Review

"I feel like Airton is both my smartest and best friend on this subject matter."

Steven Petrow, The Washington Post

"I wish I had a copy of this book to give to every teacher, principal, counsellor, parent, partner, boss and co-worker of a trans, gender variant or non-binary person in the world."

Ivan Coyote, Author of Tomboy Survival Guide

Click on the cover for purchasing, reviews and free starting place discussion guides.

Dr. Lee Airton is an Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies in Education at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. As a researcher, educator, and speaker, Dr. Airton focuses on enabling individuals and institutions to welcome gender and sexual diversity in everyday life. A teacher educator for over fifteen years, Dr. Airton has worked with hundreds of new and veteran teachers to widen the circle of belonging for people of all genders and sexualities in schools.

Dr. Airton has founded campaigns and created resources that have changed the Canadian conversation about transgender people and gender diversity, such as They Is My Pronoun in 2012, the No Big Deal Campaign in 2016 and, in 2021, Gegi.ca, a comprehensive self-advocacy resource for K-12 students experiencing gender expression and gender identity discrimination at school. Most recently, Dr. Airton and colleagues released a white paper titled No for Now: Guidance for School Staff on Supporting Transgender Students and Parent-Child Relationships.

Dr. Airton's book Gender – Your Guide: The Gender-Friendly Primer on What to Know, What to Say and What to Do in Today's Gender Culture, fully revised and updated as of 2024, offers practical steps for welcoming gender diversity in all areas of everyday life. With Dr. Susan Woolley, they are also the editor of Teaching About Gender Diversity: Teacher-Tested Lesson Plans for K-12 Classrooms.

Dr. Airton's research program is funded by the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada and explores how Canadian K-12 education and teacher education are responding to gender identity and gender expression human rights protections. In today’s climate of growing anti-transgender backlash and rollback in educational institutions, Dr. Airton works with school and community partners to secure the career induction and retention of transgender teachers and mitigate the harm of anti-transgender laws and policies in schools across Canada. Most recently, they received Ophea's 2025 Award of Distinction recognizing their leadership in the meaningful advancement of inclusive healthy, active living opportunities for children and youth in Ontario school communities.

Dr. Airton is a frequent speaker and media commentator, and has been interviewed over 90 times in local, national and international media. Their scholarly publications appear in Gender and Education, Sex Education, Curriculum Inquiry, Teachers College Record, Canadian Journal of Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Journal of Education Policy, and their editorials appear in The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star.

(Photo: Bernard Clark)

Learn to self-advocate at school with Gegi.

Follow Darcy the Dragon Tamer and Safia the Swimmer in their self-advocacy journey after they experience what might just be gender expression or gender identity discrimination at school.

Tools for welcoming gender diversity in teacher education.

Despite gender identity and gender expression human rights protections in every Canadian province and territory, Canadian teacher education is full of barriers to transgender and/or gender non-conforming (TGNC) people.

Often, these barriers are 'business as usual' processes and structures that people who work in teacher education seldom even think twice about, but that TGNC teacher candidates surface just by being there.

This resource was created from the findings of an action research project in the Queen's Faculty of Education, and guides teacher education programs in creating a 'Frequently Asked Questions' document for TGNC teacher candidates. Creating an FAQ document together gets staff and faculty into the game of identifying barriers to these still under-represented candidates, and reveals work yet to be done in a particular program.

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Ready for classroom use.

This collection of classroom-ready lesson plans provides teachers with tools to fully integrate (not just add-and-stir) gender diversity into their curriculum, talk with students about gender diversities of all kinds, and foster classroom communities that are more welcoming of the many ways in which gender is lived, including but not limited to people who are under the transgender umbrella.

Sections target Elementary (K-5), Middle Years (6-9), and Secondary (10-12) classrooms with subject-specific lesson plans in mathematics, English language arts, social studies, drama, health and physical education, and science. From read-alouds with early literacy picture books to creating multi-modal gender fanzines, and from statistically modeling the rise of gender-neutral pronoun usage to analyzing gender characterization in dramatic monologues, Teaching about Gender Diversity will help you walk this road with over thirty educators who enfold our changing world of gender into their teaching.