On April 10, 2018, in Springfield, Illinois, The Illinois Senate voted on a plan that would require all public schools to include at least one unit on the contributions made by LGBT members throughout history. If the plan is enacted, Illinois would become only the second state to have this kind of inclusive curriculum in their school systems. The unit would have to include all roles and contributions made by individuals in history who identify as a member of the LGBT society and discuss anyone in history already a part of the curriculum, but whose involvement in this group has been overlooked.

Of course, ever since this new plan was made public to the world, many have turned up their noses or have taken to the internet to share their disgust with this plan. Most believe that sexual orientations are not important enough to be included in our history classes and teaching them as such to young minds could "corrupt" their thoughts and ideas.

However, if you support this plan and encourage friends, family, and children to do the same, you would actually be helping the students, children, or younger minds in your life even more. It is so important in this day and age for children to support one another and feel accepted in whatever environment they are in. Whether this is their own home, the playground, shopping mall, but even especially at school.

More and more children are finding their own identities at younger ages, so why would they be comfortable sitting in a classroom while listening to all of their countries important historical figures be described as perfect, cis-gendered, and heterosexual individuals?

This will only make them feel even more excluded and timid about identifying to the world their orientation or gender identity. Individuals such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, Leonard Matlovich, Billie Holiday, Eleanor Roosevelt, and so many more fall into the LGBT category but because in their day and age, their orientations were overlooked and tried to be lost in time.

It is just as important for children in the year 2018 and every year from here on out to learn about an all-inclusive history as it is for any child or student of any other race to feel just as welcome and considered a part of American history. If we continue to exclude the parts of history that are deemed "uncomfortable" or "unnecessary", we will crumble at the core and start to exile our own children and bright-minded students away because they will no longer feel accepted and loved. When children and students see successful and intelligent individuals who share their same sexual orientation or gender identity, they will also feel the power to succeed, do great things for themselves, and even make the new history books.