Educator perspectives on working towards the inclusion of LGBT parents and trans and gender-diverse children in ECEC settings

LGBT-parented families and gender-diverse children have long been present in ECEC and are becoming more visible. The Early Years Learning Framework (V2.0) (EYLF V2.0) requires children to have opportunities to explore gender identity and diverse family structures. However, little guidance exists on how to do this. In partnership with Rainbow Families, we conducted interviews with 17 ECEC educators in NSW. We asked educators about what kinds of training they needed and discussed the day-to-day scenarios they faced. We found that all participants had relationships with LGBT people—either staff, families or children—and had learned from these relationships. While educators intended to be allies, they lacked confidence and appropriate and specific language, and might not fully understand LGBT lived experience in their service. We found that LGBT inclusion is intertwined with broadening out understandings of gender roles, and educators faced challenges from the wider community when doing this. Educators feared offending both LGBT and cisgendered heterosexual parents. The programming examples educators provided were predominantly books that were made available or read to children. Exploration through intentional pedagogical play was rare, and educators reported little planning in their services on how to meet their EYLF V2.0 obligations. This research adds to our understandings of educator experiences in working towards LGBT inclusion for both adults and children, and points to possibilities for supporting educators in this work.