My Own Way: Celebrating Gender Freedom for Kids

Inclusive Children's Book Teaching Guide

My Own Way: Celebrating Gender Freedom for Kids

by Joana Estrela and Adapted by Jay Hulme

What is this book about?

Small children are often asked to choose between a gendered binary—boy or girl, pink or blue. This colorful picture book smashes those stereotypes and encourages readers to follow their own way.

Girl or boy?
What brings you joy?
Pink or blue?
It’s up to you.

With colorful illustrations and rhyming text, My Own Way teaches young children that there are no limits to what they can do and who they can be.

Translated from the original Portuguese by award-winning transgender poet Jay Hulme, My Own Way is an important and timely celebration of identity, diversity and respect.

Who is depicted in this book?

Children or adults who transcend gender stereotypes

What early childhood themes and concepts does this book explore?

Self-determination and independence
Confidently making one’s own choices
Either/or choices as early examples of binary thinking

How does this book support anti-bias education?

My Own Way can be used to validate nonbinary forms of gender expression, stimulate discussions about gender diversity, and support young children as they explore and express their unique gender identities.

Depending on how the book is shared or used—and the developmental level of the children—the images and text may be used to support the following core goal from the book, Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves:

Identity—Teachers will nurture each child’s construction of knowledgeable and confident personal and social identities so that children will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.

How can this book be used to meet early childhood learning standards?

For all ages

Use My Own Way: Celebrating Gender Freedom for Kids to meet early childhood literacy standards >

For children from birth to age three

Teaching suggestion: As you flip through the book, point out body parts and imitate forms of play.

What Illinois Early Learning Guideline does this meet for children from birth to age three?

Developmental DomainSocial-Emotional Development

Standard: Self-ConceptChildren develop identity of self.

Indicators for children:

Initiates actions with others, e.g., imitates actions, plays peek-a-boo (Birth–9 months)
Begins to display the beginning of joint attention, such as pointing at objects and people and engaging in parallel play in closer proximity to other children, but no interaction is attempted (Birth–9 months)
Points to and identifies own body parts (7–18 months)

Teaching suggestions: Introduce questions about the children’s preferences, such as their favorite colors, hairstyles or toys.

What Illinois Early Learning Guideline does this meet for children from birth to age three?

Developmental DomainSocial-Emotional Development

Standard: Self-ConceptChildren develop identity of self.

Indicators for children:

Demonstrates preferences (21–36 months)

For preschoolers (ages three to five)

Teaching suggestions: Ask the children: "What do the people in the story have in common and how are they different?" State that gender labels do not dictate choices in activities, clothing, etc.

Note: The Illinois early learning standard that corresponds to this activity asks children to distinguish between boys and girls. My Own Way can be used to disrupt this standard by supporting discussions about the many differences between people, the ways people are similar, and the ways they are unique.

What Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards does this meet for preschoolers?

Social Studies Standard18AExplore people, their similarities and their differences.

Benchmark 18.A.ECa:

Recognize similarities and differences in people.

Teaching suggestion: Reinforce the message that gender is what you know yourself to be. To reinforce the concept of gender autonomy as it is shared in the book, support the children as they declare their gender with comments such as: “You get to decide who you are.” Encourage them to be supportive when other children declare their gender identities and suggest language that they can use to express their support, such as: "They get to decide who they are."

What Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards does this meet for preschoolers?

Social Studies Standard18AExplore people, their similarities and their differences.

Benchmark 18.A.ECa:

Recognize similarities and differences in people.

See inside this book.

What other resources are available?

What are the four core goals of anti-bias education,and how do they apply to LGBTQ+ social justice?

Goal 1: IDENTITY

Teachers will nurture each child’s construction of knowledgeable and confident personal and social identities so that children will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.

Early childhood educators can work toward this goal by:

Encouraging children to express positive feelings about their gender identity and become comfortable with their own way of expressing gender

Creating opportunities for children of any gender to explore a wide range of opportunities, interests and activities

Encouraging children to share openly about their families

Goal 2: DIVERSITY

Teachers will promote each child’s comfortable, empathetic interaction with people from diverse backgrounds so that children will express comfort and joy with human diversity, use accurate language for human differences, and form deep, caring connections across all dimensions of human diversity.

Early childhood educators can work toward this goal by:

Teaching children about the diversity of people both within and across genders

Celebrating the uniqueness and assets of diverse families

Goal 3: JUSTICE

Teachers will foster each child’s capacity to critically identify bias and nurture each child’s empathy for the hurt that bias causes so that children will increasingly recognize unfairness (injustice), have the vocabulary they need to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts.

Early childhood educators can work toward this goal by:

Engaging in activities that help children recognize and challenge stereotypes

Helping children understand the unfairness of identity-focused harm

Questioning unfair depictions or erasure of LGBTQ+ families

Goal 4: ACTIVISM

Teachers will cultivate each child’s ability and confidence to stand up for oneself and for others in the face of bias so that children will demonstrate a sense of empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions.

Early childhood educators can work toward this goal by:

Empowering children to claim their identity and gender

Modeling how to support others, regardless of their identities

Teaching children how to resist rejection, teasing or bullying

Interested in learning more about anti-bias education? Check out the book, Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards (Second edition, 2020)

Early Pride Matters

Laying the foundation for a world without bias