Administrative/Biographical History

Sue Sanders (b. 1947), Emeritus Professor Harvey Milk Institute 2015, is an educator and LGBTQ+ and disability rights activist. She is founder of LGBT History Month and the Classroom, and advises the public and voluntary sectors on a range of rights issues. For over 40 years she has been a teacher, tutor and lecturer on women's studies and on combating homophobia in schools, universities and other organisations, both in the UK and Australia.

Sanders has served on the LGBT Advisory Group to the UK Government’s Hate Crime Board. She has served as part of the National Union of Teachers LGBT working party, been a member of the Southwark anti-Homophobic Forum (which she joined in 1997) and worked as a consultant to the Crown Prosecution Service, helping to produce national policy on prosecuting homophobic crimes effectively. In 1996 she co-founded, with Paul Patrick, a consultancy called Chrysalis which delivers training around equal opportunity issues.

In 2000 she became the co-chair of Schools OUT UK, a group working for the equality of LGBTQ+ people in the education system. With the help of the Schools OUT UK committee she instituted the UK's first LGBT History Month, launched in December 2004. In 2011 Sanders founded The Classroom, a website with over 80 lesson plans free for teachers to use for teaching LGBTQ+ issues across the curriculum and in all Key Stages tied to the national curriculum.

Sanders has written poetry and short stories as well as articles and publications on feminist issues, education and homophobia. She regularly appears on TV and radio programmes dealing with equality and LGBTQ+ issues, and is a keynote speaker and workshop leader in many conferences dealing with diversity, homophobia, and LGBTQ+ issues.

Scope and content

Papers of educator and campaigner Sue Sanders, Schools OUT UK and LGBT History Month [1973-2016], including:

• Meeting minutes, publications, notes, correspondence and conference documents regarding Schools OUT UK, an education charity dedicated to making schools and educational institutions safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students and staff in schools, [1978-2013]
• Publications, leaflets, flyers, information packs, badges and ephemera regarding LGBT History Month, [2004-2018]
• Papers regarding Sanders’ work with the Anti-Bullying Alliance, Victim Support, domestic violence, Trades Unions LGBTQ+ groups and age discrimination, [1993-2015]
• Booklets, leaflets and flyers regarding disability inclusion policies and legislation, [1980-2012]
• Booklets, training materials, journals and research materials regarding advisory work with the Metropolitan Police, London Probation Community Advisory Panel, Criminal Justice Bureau and the Crown Prosecution Service on tackling hate crimes and homophobia, [1998-2014
• Training materials and resources produced by Sanders and Paul Patrick for their consultancy firm, Chrysalis, regarding equality issues and preventing and responding to homophobic bullying within schools, [1996-2013
• Publications regarding LGBTQ+ Youth and LGBTQ+ voluntary and community organisations, [2006-2009
• Teachers’ packs, support network publications.

Quantity

45 boxes.