# GLSEN Founded in **1990** in Boston by a group of teachers led by **Kevin Jennings** as the **Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network**, now known by its acronym alone. GLSEN is the **largest national organization focused on K-12 schools and LGBTQ students** in the United States. ## What GLSEN Does The organization works at four operational levels: - **The biennial National School Climate Survey** — the longest-running survey of LGBTQ K-12 students in the U.S., documenting in-school harassment, family rejection, mental-health outcomes, and the effect of supportive school policies. The survey has been continuously fielded since 1999 and has become the primary data source on K-12 LGBTQ-student experience - **Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA, now often Gender-Sexuality Alliance) network support** — supporting student-led GSAs in tens of thousands of U.S. schools - **Educator training and curriculum** — LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum resources, professional development for teachers and administrators, and the annual *Day of Silence* (mid-April) student action - **Policy advocacy** — at federal, state, and district levels, particularly around anti-bullying policies, curriculum-inclusion, and LGBTQ-student protections ## Why GLSEN Matters Now The post-2021 wave of state-level legislation targeting LGBTQ content in K-12 schools — "Don't Say Gay" laws, library-book restrictions, parental-notification requirements for LGBTQ students, prohibitions on staff use of students' chosen names and pronouns — has made GLSEN's school-policy work central to the **defensive front of the contemporary queer-liberation ecosystem**. The organization is the primary source for educators, parents, and students navigating both the new restrictions and the litigation challenging them. GLSEN also operates as the **counterweight to the parental-rights coalition** built around organizations like [[Moms for Liberty]], which has made K-12 schools the central battleground of contemporary anti-LGBTQ organizing. --- ## See Also - [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]] - [[Queer Liberation Timeline]] - [[Trevor Project]] - [[PFLAG]]