THE ROUTE

December 2025

Welcome to the November edition of The Route, your monthly(ish) update from Rainbow Routes, filled with queer joy, global connection, and updates from our growing community.

Updates

We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with History UnErased, a nationally recognized nonprofit reshaping how LGBTQ+ history is taught in K–12 classrooms. They equip educators with inclusive, primary-source-based curricula so LGBTQ+ stories are taught as a core part of history.

As part of this collaboration, students in Rainbow Routes programs will help identify primary source materials in the archives we visit around the world. Those materials will inform future History UnErased curriculum, so the stories students encounter on our programs can reach younger learners in classrooms around the country. We’re excited to share more as this work takes shape with our first cohort in 2026!

Giving Tuesday: Support Our Very First Program!

After years of planning and preparation, we are overjoyed to share that our first faculty-led trip is officially scheduled! We’re so excited to partner with the University of Northern Colorado to turn this vision into reality, and early responses from prospective students show us that they are too. Next summer, students in our first California Queer History Field Study will learn directly from places and people that have shaped LGBTQ+ history. They will:

• Visit the ONE Archives, the largest LGBTQ collection in the world, where they will sift through primary sources and help identify materials for History UnErased

• Walk through historic queer neighborhoods in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where bar raids, protests, community organizing, and everyday acts of survival have shaped today’s culture

• Meet with local LGBTQ+ organizers, historians, and elders, who will share how they are carrying these histories forward today and invite students into ongoing work for safety, joy, and justice

For many students, this will be a first: first Pride, first archive, first time learning about their own history. Your support makes that possible. As you make your Giving Tuesday plans, we hope you’ll consider including Rainbow Routes. A tax-deductible gift will help:

• Provide financial support, so cost is not the deciding factor in whether a student can join the trip

• Cover key program elements, including museum fees, guest lecture honoraria, and local transit to archives and community sites

• Ensure this first cohort is the beginning of something much larger

Sparking Queer Joy

We usually use this space to look at stories from all over the world that celebrate queer joy. This month, we wanted to share some joy that is closer to home. We recently sent a short survey to students interested in our programs, asking what they’re most excited about. Their responses have been a bright spot for our team, so we wanted to share a few of those words with you.

What are you most excited to learn about, discover, or do on this program?

• “Just getting to do stuff for Pride in general, and history research. I’ve never gotten to do anything Pride-related”

• “I love queer history and the culture I am a part of”

• “Be in the places my people have been before”

• “The possibility to work in an archive is a super huge dream of mine”

• “Learning about history while visiting the actual sites”

• “I am really excited about the trip as a whole, I have identified with queer identities my whole life but never really learned the history”

For us, this is what queer joy looks like in the context of Rainbow Routes: students being excited to learn, travel, and connect with their own histories and communities. Wherever you are reading this from, we hope you find moments of joy and connection this month, in whatever form feels right for you.

Thanks for being on this journey with us!

Until next month,

Lizzy (Founder & CEO)