Gender Unicorn Characters

Resource
Ideas for Action
Grade(s)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

What Is it All About?

A creative way for students to express how they view gender, sexuality, attraction, and the expression of these ideas by making connections to a known media or literary character that don’t conform to gender stereotypes. For example, Hagrid in the Harry Potter series presents as stereotypically male (e.g., large, bearded) but says of his pet dragon “he knows his mummy” and carries around a pink umbrella.

Why Do It?

Allowing students to get creative can create a safe space to discuss and explore these all components of gender.

How Do We Do It?

Using paper cut outs, students can decorate their gender unicorn to express the gender identity of a known media or literary character, using only evidence found in the book, TV show, or movie they are from.

The expressions can be with clothes, hair, accessories, or any add-ons the students agree upon.

The expressions should be based on the following four categories: gender identity, assigned sex, attraction, and gender expression (see Key Terms for definitions of these categories).

These can be posted in the school hallway to spark conversation within the school community.

What Else Do We Need?

Paper and markers

How Do We Get Creative?

Together students could bake unicorn cookies and decorate these to express the media or literary character’s identity.

The gender unicorns can be posted in the hallways for others to view.


Adapted from: The Students Commission of Canada (The Canada We Want Conference), March 2017.