FAQ
Is this assembly appropriate for students who are nonbinary or transgender?
Yes. This assembly is designed for students who identify as girls or who primarily navigate girl social dynamics, as it addresses relational aggression that is specific to girl peer culture.
Why is The Girlhood Project only for girls?
The Girlhood Project focuses on relational aggression, a form of social harm that is uniquely common and uniquely harmful within middle school girl culture.
While boys tend to show conflict through physical or verbal outbursts that are easy to spot and address, girls are far more likely to use subtle, quiet and deeply emotional strategies like exclusion, rumor-spreading, silent treatment, group-chat dynamics and shifting social hierarchies. These behaviors often go unnoticed by adults but have enormous impact on the well-being of the girls involved.
For that reason, this assembly is designed specifically for students who identify as girls, or who primarily navigate girl peer groups and girl social dynamics.
This includes cisgender girls, transgender girls, and any gender-expansive students who experience the relational patterns this presentation addresses.
Our goal is to create a space where these students can explore, reflect on, and shift the unique social dynamics that shape their everyday school experience, without shame, blame, or calling anyone out.
This is not about exclusion.
It is about accurately addressing a very real, very distinct form of social behavior that affects girls far more than any other student group.
The Girlhood Project ensures that the conversation is developmentally appropriate, emotionally safe and deeply relevant to the students it’s meant to support.
Why don’t you design an assembly that both girls and boys can attend together like other assembly programs?
Real change happens when students feel like the message was made for them.
When an assembly tries to address every type of student at once, the message becomes watered down; too broad, too generic and too easy to tune out.
The Girlhood Project is intentionally niche because middle school girls have their own unique social world, their own rules, pressures and ways of hurting and healing. By speaking directly to their experiences, in their language, at their speed, and with examples pulled from real girl culture, the message becomes more honest, more relevant and more emotionally resonant.
This kind of targeted approach creates:
Higher engagement (“This actually applies to me.”)
More self-reflection (“I didn’t realize how deeply my actions were hurting people.”)
Greater accountability (“I want to do better.”)
Longer-lasting impact (“This changed how I treat people.”)
Being niche isn’t exclusionary, it’s what makes the message stick. It allows girls to see themselves clearly, understand the impact of their choices and take ownership of the kind of culture they want to create together.
What is required of the teachers who run the assembly?
We know teachers are busy so we intentionally designed these assemblies to require little effort and time from teachers and school staff. We want to remove all barriers to this impactful, culture-changing and life-changing assembly. This is all teachers/staff need to do:
1. Hand out the reflection worksheet as students enter the gym
2. Ask students to spread out so they are at least 10 feet away from other students on all sides (see the guide for an explanation of why this is essential)
3. Read the short intro from the included teacher guide
4. Press play
5. When the video ends, read the directions for the reflection worksheet from the included teacher guide
6. Collect the quiz portion of the worksheet
7. Dismiss the students
It couldn’t be easier!