Look at that photo of yourself in your childhood (if possible, at the same age as the kids you are working with), or remember that moment in your life. Connect with it, and ask yourself:

What was my relationship with LGBTIQ+ at that age, did it connect with me, was it a reality close to me?

What did I know and what would I have liked to know?

Did I have conversations with adults about this issue? What were these conversations like?

Did they talk to me about it at school?

You may at first think that in your childhood LGBTIQ+ communities were absent, both materially and on a symbolic and cultural level.

In this case, it may be of interest to investigate how this void has reflected in your adolescent and adult life, always bearing in mind that sometimes it is possible that what we read as “absence” is a strategy of camouflage or adaptation for survival, or that we simply didn’t have the “glasses” to see it. It seems important to us to consider these “gaps” as signs that indicate to us what needs to be integrated, enriched and complexified in our work practice.

Then, we invite you to ask yourself: And me, today, how do I talk about this with the kids?

Do I know their learning needs in relation to this subject? Do I attend to them and accompany them? Do I propose spaces and contents that could answer the questions of my “yesterday’s me”? How did those conversations I had (or didn’t have) influence my work practice today?

Finally, we suggest you formulate three questions (and seek three answers from specialised sources) in order to start building conversations with the kids.