Teacher Mary Gilreath goes out of her way to address gender identity in her first-grade classroom. She says it's "a safety issue and a mental health issue for kids," pointing to the recent suicide of a 9-year-old Denver boy who was bullied after he came out to his classmates.

Lisa Durant teaches health and physical education at a high school outside Denver. She says when she started hearing students use words like "asexual" and "gender-fluid," "I had no idea what they were talking about."

Studies have shown LGBTQ students are more likely to be bullied at school, which can lead to missed classes and a higher risk of suicide. For those kids, a teacher who knows how to be inclusive — or how to "queer" the classroom, as some refer to it — can make a big difference. But many teachers aren't sure how to do that. Over the years, gender and sexual identity have evolved, and not everyone has kept up.

"When they [teachers] realize, 'I don't know what I'm doing,' you know how vulnerable it feels? It's a big deal. They need support," says Bethy Leonardi, co-founder of A Queer Endeavor, an initiative of University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. A Queer Endeavor helps teachers navigate questions like how to intervene when they see anti-LGBTQ bullying, how to be there for students who identify as gender-fluid and how to address kids who use gender-neutral pronouns like "they."

The organization has put out a list of tips for making classrooms more LGBTQ-friendly. Read more via NPR and listen to the story