The following comes from a July 14 LA Times article by Joy Resmovits:

California’s students will soon be learning more about LGBT people and their struggles after state education officials voted to include contributions from the community in history and social science instruction.

The California State Board of Education on Thursday voted unanimously on a new History-Social Science Framework that includes “a study of the role of contributions” of minority groups, including “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.”

LGBT content will be included in some elementary, middle and high school grades. In fourth grade, for example, students would learn about “the emergence of the nation’s first gay rights organizations in the 1950s,” the framework states, as well as struggles in California from the 1970s to the present day to affirm the right of gay people to teach and to get married.

“[The curriculum] allows all students to think critically and expansively about how that past relates to the present and future roles that they can play in an inclusive and respectful society,” Don Romesburg, framework director for the Committee on LGBT History, said in the statement.

Miguel Covarrubias, who teaches 11th grade U.s. history at Franklin High School in Highland Park, said many students are encountering LGBT history for the first time in his class. “Some are initially uncomfortable,” Covarrubias said. “It makes a huge difference to know how they are part of the evolving American story.”