Transforming Education: Max Whitehouse's Authentic Journey as a Trans Man and Principal

Bryan (he/they): 0:27

Teaching While Queer is 2SLGBTQIA+ podcast for educational professionals to share their experiences in academia. Hi, I'm your host, Bryan Stanton, a theater pedagogy and educator in New York City, and my goal is to share stories from around 2SLGBTQIA+ world from educators. I hope you enjoy Teaching While Queer. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Teaching While Queer. Today, I am joined by Max Whitehouse. Hi, Max, how are you doing?

Max (he/him): 1:03

Hello, I'm great, thank you. How are you?

Bryan (he/they): 1:06

I am well, thank you. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, what do you do, how you identify within the community?

Max (he/him): 1:12

Yeah, well my name, like you said, Max Whitehouse. I am the principal of a small alternative school and I identify as a trans man. I've been in school administration for five years now, started out as a paraeducator, actually in the school that I am now the principal of, which is really fun to see the full circle.

Bryan (he/they): 1:34

That's really fun.

Max (he/him): 1:35

Yeah, and I taught in alternative high schools and did credit recovery GDPR most of my teaching career. I also taught middle school math for a few years and really enjoying my job as a principal.

Bryan (he/they): 1:50

That's awesome. Yeah, so you said alternative school. Can you tell me a little bit, like what does that mean?

Max (he/him): 1:57

Yeah, and I'm going to be a little bit vague, just because I want to protect the privacy of my students. Absolutely I'm choosing to not even say where I live, just because I want to make sure that they are protected, because my students are all in treatment facilities. So we partner with treatment agencies in our city and provide education for kids while they're accessing treatment. So it's a K-12 school, we have multiple campuses and so it's alternative in the sense that we partner with the treatment programs to make sure that the kids are getting what they need in their social, emotional learning and their mental health needs. But we try to also keep them moving forward in their school life and keeping them at least striving towards grade level while they're in this really different setting.

Bryan (he/they): 2:45

That's awesome. That's really cool that your community has that kind of resource available.

Max (he/him): 2:53

Yeah, it's really amazing. It's really rewarding work. It's really challenging work. We get a lot of calls from schools all over the region and in other states saying how can I get this kid out into your school? Unfortunately, this is a therapeutic placement so it has to go through either the Department of Human Services or correctional facilities or for insurance placement purposes. But when I tell my team and I tell other people that the kids that we support or they're not unlike kids in other schools and other school districts, a lot of kids right now are struggling with mental health needs. So the big difference is that our kids are actually getting the support and the services that they need. Then the residential programs they get regular meals a day to have a safe place to sleep. They're getting potential medication that's supporting their needs. So we actually yeah, we're pretty lucky that we get to know kids in this play in this way and, while they're in pretty traumatic situations, it's still. It's really rewarding work.

Bryan (he/they): 4:05

That's wonderful. Honestly, you hit the nail right on the head when you said that like there are kids all over, really all around the world, who need something like this program and your students are actually getting the treatment that they need, and also like a caring educational environment, which is just really fantastic. So kudos like fantastic work. I love that and we'll dive more into that, you know, as we go along in our conversation, but I love to take a journey back in time and have you talk a little bit about what it was like for you growing up as a queer youth.

Max (he/him): 4:41

Well, I am of the generation that it wasn't quite as accepting as it is now. I mean, in where I live at least, we have a lot of kiddos who are open about their gender identity and their gender expression is really varies sometimes from day to day. When I was a kid it wasn't, it wasn't really a possibility. There was not a whole lot of language for being trans, it was mostly just really negative stuff. So I, you know, I didn't really have a sense of my identity or who I was. I didn't identify as a queer youth. I did struggle with maintaining friendships. You know, I was expect I was socialized as a, as a female, and I was expected to have friends who were girls. And I, you know, and I kind of flitted in and out of friend groups most of my childhood because I just didn't feel like I fit and so I didn't know that that could have to do with my identity and my. You know, I internalized that a lot around, like who I am as a social being, and so it wasn't until I got to college and was able to recognize that I was, you know, attracted to women. That felt a little bit better, be a little bit more myself than. And I figured if I identify and I present myself more butch, it's more acceptable because I am presenting as a lesbian. So that felt good for a little bit, but but I you know. So it wasn't until I was in my late 30s that I even was able to be comfortable talking about my gender identity. So it's just in terms of my childhood I didn't really feel like I fit in, but I didn't understand why.

Bryan (he/they): 6:24

That's fair. I think there's definitely a period of time not so long ago, where there just weren't the words, and I feel that as an adult, that when I was younger there were no words and and it also all of it had a negative connotation. So what words did exist were not presented in a very wonderful light. It made you not want that, you know that's right and I think you know there's.

Max (he/him): 6:55

there are a lot of people, a lot of trans people who at a very young age recognize well, like you're telling me, I'm a girl or I'm a boy, but I'm not and I wasn't that way. I just didn't really feel like I fit in a lot of ways and without the language around me then it was really hard for me to create that identity of my own. So I think it's helpful for young people to know that you don't have to know when you're four that you're trans. It's just what feels right. And and how do you, how do you connect with your body and your identity? And it's at your own time.

Bryan (he/they): 7:30

Yeah, what I really love about being able to have these conversations with people is that in a previous episode I talked with someone who transitioned really late in life. She transitioned in her 60s. So it was like there there's no perfect time, there's no perfect equation, like you always have the ability to become who you're meant to be. It's not about fitting a specific timeline or the expectation old timeline, and I think that also. I mean there's a lot of that wrapped around in queer theory right about how our timelines for life are a little bit skewed compared to what a heterosexual, cisgender person might experience, because we don't get that euphoria of being ourselves and discovering ourselves until it happens. So I'm really pleased for those kids today who are able to identify this young in life because it puts them more on a typical route for life. But for many of us who made some of these discoveries either as teenagers or as an adult, it really does shift your own maturity timeline because you have to reassess who you are in this new knowledge and how your identity fits within the timeline you've had and what you want to do. So it's really interesting kind of. It's a very interesting time to live in because it is like the in-between between being the ideal situation where someone can be very, very young and know you're saying I'm a girl but I'm a boy To still having people transitioning well into their 60s and sometimes 70s, and so we've got this like in-between realm. That just seems so intriguing. Like I'm a researcher, so I love these kind of things.

Max (he/him): 9:32

Yeah, I think in an ideal world there is no turmoil centered around like your gender identity. It's just like who you are, you know, and we're erasing those gender expectations and those gender norms, without erasing, like, the beauty of femininity or the beauty of masculinity, but that we can just be. It would be great if that's where we could end up someday as a society. You heard it here folks.

Bryan (he/they): 10:00

We're putting it out into the universe. It would be fantastic if that's where we can end up as a society, that this is just a part of who you are. I think that's the most frustrating part for me is that, like I will have family members, I will have people I don't even know being like. Why is this your whole identity? And I'm like. It's really not. Like I'm a father, I'm a teacher, I'm a singer, I love swimming and I do all of these things, and also I'm gay. However, I also, you know, have a podcast that's geared toward queer people. So it's like you know, it is a part of my identity that I hold dear and that I want to express because I feel that it's important. But it's not 100% who I am Like. I'm not. I may be queer 100% of the time, but like I could walk down the street and with the exception of always having outrageous hair colors, like you might not know. You know I'm just a person.

Max (he/him): 11:03

I'm a human Right and I get a lot of questions like that too, especially from family members. It's, you know, as a trans person, you think, like the, the whole point is to pass, for me to pass as a male, and it's great, it feels really good and I love that and I and I want to be able to be seen as who I am. But I also am really proud of my identity as a trans person and I feel like, especially as an educator, it's essential that I'm open about my identity and so it's like this kind of a weird line. I don't want to live in a community where it's not safe for me to be trans. At the same time, it's really nice to for some people every once in a while, for not for people to not know that that just doesn't become who I am for everybody, but I'm just me. It is an interesting place to live.

Bryan (he/they): 11:55

Absolutely. I actually once had a student that wasn't even like my student. It was during the isolation period of the pandemic and that student was homeschooling at the time and had to come in for standardized testing because it was a requirement. Where I was, and they had such a visceral reaction to their dead name being on the roster when they checked in with me, like at the front, because their whole goal was I transferred to a new school. We moved to a new place just so I can be who I am without people having to know. And then what was really beautiful is I helped the student out. I even walked them to their room and changed their names so that nobody could see their dead name anymore, and then instituted a policy at the school where they had to check it, like I worked with the counselors. But what was really beautiful for me is that once they were on campus consistently, they became more comfortable with their trans identity because they had community. And so you're absolutely correct. In some moments you're just like I'm passing and this is fantastic and this is really actually safe, likely, and then other moments where you're like hold up. I just want to be clear here that this is who I am. I'm a trans person and I want to. I want you to know because it's important for me to tell you, and so I think it's such an interesting kind of journey. I read an interesting play this summer for a queer theater class and it was written by a trans man, a one person play, and he has a monologue in there that's from his girlfriend right after transition and she talks about how they were lesbians and she was cool that he was a butch lesbian and now she feels like she has to tell people that he's trans so that she can keep her queer identity. And it's so interesting Just how the interplay of identity and like openness or interconnectedness of the identities that it I don't know, I don't know where I was going with that I just find it really fascinating.

Max (he/him): 14:19

It is. It is really hard and, like the lay, none of us want to have a label, but also our identity is important to us, like who we are is important to us. It's so it's hard to avoid the labeling.

Bryan (he/they): 14:32

Yeah, it's funny because I hear a lot of that like we don't want to be labeled, we don't want to be counted, like they're going to put a serial number on us, or this is like fear of things. I am one of the people who's like. But we need the data, we need to know how many queer people are here. We need to know this, this and that that's how we're going to get more rights. As if they realize that we're a big number and that we're not going away and it's just. It's like a catch 22, because you don't want the label and you also want the privacy, but at the same time, you kind of need to be counted in order for greater society to care, which is really unfortunate because we should be able to care about people For the sake of caring about people. But that's really not where we are as a size, a society right now.

Max (he/him): 15:18

Right, right. And then it also, you know it doesn't take into account the fact that other marginalized folks, people of color, they don't get to decide, like the rest of the world decides how to how to label them because of their appearance. It is hard to hide behind a race. So you know, we are lucky that we can go into a community and be stealth and not have to be pointed out as this other. So it's, yeah, that privilege of it and it's been really hard to reconcile that. The privilege that I've gained as a male and in the spaces, especially as a supervisor the boss, I do have her which is, it was fascinating how easy it was to shit like people actually listened to me and my opinions and the things I thought as a man, as opposed to when I was presenting and living my life as a woman, and it was it's, it's really it's like if you think about data and like the human life, this social experiment of being trans is really, really fascinating because I've lived. I lived in this world until I was 36 as a woman and cool club, you know, of being with men and being able to hear the conversations that happened when it's just men or the people believing me or listening to me and he say and the matter, it's just, it's just really unfortunate. It goes back to just what I was saying earlier about how you know, if we could just eliminate those gender norms and the gender and you know what the expectations are, without eliminating the beauty of our masculinity and femininity, that would just make things so much easier for all people involved.

Bryan (he/they): 17:11

Absolutely. I mentioned before interview that I'm taking graduate course in gender and communication and so, like we this week we're literally dissecting like male activist groups that are all about like it's masculinity, like what is the right word? They're not feminist, they are here for the man. And it's been so interesting to me because there are certain like there are a number of groups out there and they do so many different things and they approach it from different perspectives. And there's some groups that are, you know, working towards almost the same thing, like what is the right word for justice, with how men interact with other genders in society and whatnot, and so they're approaching it from what could be labeled as like a feminist perspective. And then there are groups that are like feminism has absolutely ruined the man and we need to go back to the man being the man and it's all toxic masculinity. It's interesting that, like masculine and feminine can be such a beautiful thing If people just got out of the way of it and didn't have to have an ideal of what that looks like and this kind of cookie cutter that they expect everybody to follow.

Max (he/him): 18:41

Yeah, I agree, I totally agree.

Bryan (he/they): 18:44

So how do you see your experiences as a queer youth, as a person who transitioned in your 30s? How does that show up for you now as an administrator when it comes to working with students?

Max (he/him): 19:00

Well, you know, it's interesting and unfortunate that a lot of the kids that I work with identify as queer, lgbtq plus, specifically, trans and non binary. It definitely puts a spotlight on the mental health challenges of being a queer youth in the work that I do, and so I think for me, one of the most important parts of my job as a trans administrator is that I could be visible for kids and that I can show up and make sure that they see that it's possible to actually live almost, and queer staff and you know other educators feel like it's. My school is a safe school to work at, and so that's really important to me. It's important to the future of, you know, the queer community, and I think that I also. I mean, one of the difficult parts about being a young person is that you have parents, have a lot of control over you and what you do in life, and so when your parents aren't supportive and affirming a view and your identity, it's really really hard to feel like you can go on, and so finding out that other adults exist in the world that have survived the childhood being queer and are now successful adults, I think it's just really important, and so that's what I think, just for me, especially in a large school district, always pushing the other administrators to do the right thing for their students, offering my, you know, not a lot of it's my job to help answer questions and to help educate people about, you know, the trans experience, but I'm open to it and I'm happy to do it because I think for me, the most important thing to move our collective viewpoints and beliefs around being in the LGBTQ plus and especially around gender identity, and one of the hardest ones, I see it, for educators is non binary folks, and being able to acknowledge and represent or sorry, just affirm the identity of a non binary person is, it's only going to happen if people have some humanity behind it. And so, if me, if I show up as a person to say like I'm open to helping you practice using data and pronouns for a single person, I'm here to help you build those tools and I'm open to answering any questions that I might know the answer to research, giving you the right resources so that you can learn and I'm not afraid to to be that person, the clear person that somebody knows, to just answer those questions, because we have to do it one person at a time it's it. I don't think it's going to collectively happen In this society right now. So yeah, I just think, be my. My identity is just the visibility of it is the most important thing to me. I continue to do my job. I continue to show up for all kids. Really trying to recognize the power of my identity is really important for the future of our kids.

Bryan (he/they): 22:29

And I think what what really struck me is, like your focus on non binary students, because it's a relatively new realm, I would say like we have documentation of trans people existing for a long period of time. I shared something earlier today that I just love, which is like a turn of the century American trans man, you know, in a suit, and I just thought it was so beautiful. And what gets me is that, like, non binary is a relatively it's a newer concept and it's so much harder for young people to identify it. I actually had a conversation with someone recently and she said that like she felt that her daughter was exploring the idea of transitioning to mail with a group of her friends at school and it was like a group of people thinking about that. And when she explained to her daughter that there's this space in between where you don't have to identify as male, you don't have to identify as female, you can just embrace your masculine and your feminine as you go, and her daughter just like had this eye opening moment of like, oh well, that makes sense, because I do like wearing dresses sometimes, but also I love having a short haircut and all these things that are archetypally male or female, masculine or feminine, and she's kind of got a blend of it and most young people don't know that you don't have to choose.

Max (he/him): 24:09

And once one kid at the school starts to say I'm I use they then pronouns or I'm not a boy or a girl then it'll catch on like wildfire. I've seen it happen and I really do. I feel like non-binary identities are definitely becoming more and more prevalent. I mean, I live in a pretty liberal city so I have more access to it, but I think it's one of the most misunderstood identities for an older generation of people. But I also love seeing so many kids just embrace it and yeah, it's, it's. I feel like it's a future. But I do think it is important to continue to make sure we're not like eliminating those femininity and masculine like we're not. We can be gender free, like you can. You don't have to identify as male or female. Nothing has to be specifically male or female, but I do think it is important, and my wife tells me this all the time. She's so proud of her femininity and a piece of her that she would never want to get rid of. It doesn't have to necessarily be using the pronoun she, her, but it's about the way that she carries herself and views the world and and how she presents herself, and so I don't want to ever eliminate those pieces, but I do think there's some. It's so freeing to for for anybody to say, oh yeah, I don't, I do want to, like you said, wear a dress, or I do sometimes want to wear a tie, or I do, you know, I have these traits or whatever that just wouldn't fit into that box. So it's, it's pretty amazing and it also is, you know. To go back to something I alluded to earlier, it is really challenging for some people to shift their pronoun usage and and I've been in some really frustrating conversations with people who just say, well, I'm, I'm just, I'm old, I'm not going to change. But I know I get down really into the details of Okay, let's just practice it. Let's just read this picture book and change all the pronouns to they, them, let's. You know, let's talk about everybody using they, them pronouns until you can get used to it, because we're not going to debate it like you have to honor this child's identity. So I think that's the hardest thing for older people to support young identities as they, as they, because it just doesn't make sense and they're not, they don't have a connection to it.

Bryan (he/they): 26:39

So yeah, and I think there's a level of like we do this in everyday life. We just don't talk about it. For instance, I told the story about a student. I use they, them pronouns, for the sake of protecting that student's identity, not because that's how they identified. So we do it for and ambiguity. Ambiguity sometimes, and like that's the point, you know it's it is that this person lives in an ambiguous state, of both masculine and feminine, and so we already kind of have this language for it. It just gets so wrapped up, and you said something that was really important that I want to point out was that it, when it came to your wife's femininity, it's not about her pronoun use, it's about how she carries herself, and I think that's so important because a lot of people right now are getting caught up on pronouns and they are incredibly important. But what I'd love to instill in our non binary and transgender youth is that it doesn't change who you are. If someone misgenders you. It's frustrating and it's something that that person needs to work on, but you carry yourself just how you want to carry yourself, because that's the most important part you be you in in. It's so easy to be angry all the time, because all of these micro aggressions that's such a weird word, but micro aggressions are happening right Of of, like being misgendered and something you know. Someone gives you something that's more feminine when you are a more masculine person is so easy to be angry, but we can also step back and just say like that's on them and I'm still the great, amazing human being that I am. That's right. That's right.

Max (he/him): 28:24

And I do want to say like I don't want to make it sound like I think all people who are of a generation older than mine are this way and struggle with it, because it's certainly not the case. I just rarely have folks who are like my age or younger who have, who push back as much. I think it's just a generational thing and that's okay with I'm I'm. I just want to say I wasn't like overgeneralizing.

Bryan (he/they): 28:53

Fair enough, we love disclaimers. We love disclaimers. Have you ever had to deal with a situation of anti-queerness in the school setting?

Max (he/him): 29:01

Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to try to to tell a bit of a story without giving away too much, just to protect the privacy of folks. But I I did have an experience in which another administrator, with the permission of a member of the LGBTQ community, developed an incentive with kids to that like an intent incentive, where, if they haven't reached a certain percentage or whatever over a certain amount of time, that that he, a cisgender, straight white male, would go to a grocery store dressed as a woman. And I heard about it and it was. I was early on in my admin career and I wasn't going to rock boats by pushing back because I just didn't know who I could talk to about it. But then a couple years later, at a PD, actually during like the shutdown, somebody mentioned it as this was a great incentive, that so-and-so did and I and and everybody else, and it was like, oh wow, that's so cool, that was so brave of you to do that, and I I couldn't, I could. In that moment I was just floored that it was coming up again In a positive light, like in a positive light. Yeah, yeah, right like this is great, this is funny. How brave of you to do that. And I I just didn't have words I in the moment to speak up about it, but I was clearly uncomfortable. Folks said that I they could tell later, but what I did do is reach out to my supervisors who were facilitating that training and I just shared with them like we can't trivialize people's identities in that way, celebrating somebody for, for dressing up as a woman or the gender that's not theirs, and how brave that is when they can just very easily take that makeup off and go about their life. And it also, yeah, and and the challenging thing was that you know, a member of the community, a queer woman, was like, oh, that's really funny, that's a good idea, and so it's just spoke to me to the just the deep-seated, you know, phobias that we have and the and the internalized phobias that we have and just like how we there's just a lack of education of what it means to really celebrate and and respect the trans identity. And also, yeah, the kid I mean the kids thought it was funny and so that's just, you know it's. We just have to educate ourselves. So what I? So I did speak up and I actually got a really good response. I was able to talk to that person, who I fully respect as a as a really great human and a really good administrator, but I and he just didn't know. He didn't know that that was going to be so helpful, and so anyway it was. It was great, we had a restorative circle as a team, but the hardest part was that people came up to me later and said, yeah, I could tell that that was really hard, but I didn't speak up in that moment, and so I think it just it just reminded me that we have to be allies. Even if we don't know what to say. We can say look, this doesn't feel good, and it shouldn't fall on me to be the only one that brings it up as the trans person.

Bryan (he/they): 32:32

Yeah, there's something about bishander syndrome or whatever it's called, where, like people, just will stand by and watch something happening and not say anything. And I just think that, especially in an educational space, we are also close with our colleagues and whatnot and we are working closely together. If you can visibly tell that someone's uncomfortable, then it shouldn't be that person's responsibility to say something, and and so the fact that you've got all these comments afterwards is a little bit disheartening, because it's like what were you waiting for?

Max (he/him): 33:05

Yeah, and I and I maybe to a fault. I'm just really patient because I feel like I mean, I don't know if you I'm sure you watched the, the documentary. I think it's undisclosed, so it's called the disclosure. Disclosure. Thank you that. It really opened up my eyes to all of the like. I, when I was a kid, I loved the movie Ace Ventura and I thought it was amazing, I thought it was the funniest thing and I loved it. I watched it over and over again and I never realized just how awful it is in terms of the way that they represent the trans identities in that movie. And and so even myself as a queer person, you know, have those instances where I don't realize, wow, that's really harmful, and so it's just about committing, continuing to communicate and talk to each other and ask the hard questions and be okay with realizing, wow, I did something wrong there and I caused harm, and I want to go back and fix it because, because you know that this person he didn't know, I mean, he had no idea he was doing something that the kids asked him to do and he got permission from somebody who, you know, also felt like that. That's pretty funny, let's do it, and so it's it. It's just about like repairing the harm, recognizing when you are, you know, doing something that he might not understand, how it's going to impact others, and and he and I had a really wonderful conversation and continued to work together and have a great relationship after that. So it was great and I was really lucky to have supervisors who responded in a way in that way and to have colleagues that were supportive. I think that's also the thing about education. At least on the west coast and probably in like certain states, in New England most educators are fairly liberal and we're in the business of children and helping children thrive and helping them have, you know, successful, positive futures, and so for the most part, you know, I'm surrounded by pretty liberal people that respect my identity, even if they don't understand it.

Bryan (he/they): 35:15

So I guess I'm pretty lucky in that way absolutely I when I first moved to Texas a while back. I live in New York now, but when I first moved to Texas I had introduced myself to the other theater teachers in my district because we would be working together, creating, you know, curriculum that goes all the way through the age groups, and one of my friends had introduced herself and said she was relatively conservative. And then, when we we get to know each other, she started evaluating what that means and realized that, like both of us probably fall into the middle realm though I am way more liberal than she is she finds herself. Actually she's in the middle realm of what and that's what conservatism used to be. So it's interesting because even some of the teachers that I know that like believe that they were very conservative. You're right in that Many of the teachers are more on the liberal side, or liberal side enough to not worry about it, to let you do you and let you live your life and not get in the way of that.

Max (he/him): 36:26

Yeah, I mean I think I've I've met many educators who are pretty conservative, who, you know, trump supporters, very conservative families and and and and yet they still have so much compassion for kids and and our future, and you know. So it's like it's another one of those areas in life it's not black and white, you know. You can have certain beliefs and values that don't necessarily align, but you can still your. We still have, like humanity, and we're still responsible as educators to make sure that the children we work with grow up to be successful and kind of other people.

Bryan (he/they): 37:10

Yeah, as a non-binary person, I'm definitely there for, like, we don't need binaries in general, it doesn't have to be black and white all the time that there is this kind of like spectrum of what you can be in between, whether it's the political spectrum or, you know, watching a movie or having a visceral reaction to something. It's not, but Well, this is what it was intended. It's like there, there are things in between and we have to remember it. I'm studying this right now for class, right, but bell hooks says that we need to be an engaged witness when we are consuming media, right, and that really means critical thinking, like, not only do I see what's happening, but I'm feeling some sort of response to that and I need to understand why I'm feeling that response. And so I think that so much of life Is about in between, as opposed to where we think that, like, it has to be this or that, right or wrong. Um, and there's no kind of wiggle room in there and I just want to like shake people and be like there's space. There's so much space for other things. Yeah, so, as an administrator, what advice would you give to someone who's coming into education for their very first year? They're a queer person and they're not sure about how to be authentic, their authentic self, either in the classroom or in the school building.

Max (he/him): 38:38

Yeah, I, um, it's a really good question because Most important is, you know folks do what they're comfortable with. You know you have to do what feels safe and appropriate for you. I think everybody has their own experiences and their own histories that might Make it, you know, that drive, their desire to either be stealth or or open about their identities. And so I think that's the most important factor is what do you feel comfortable with? But I also just feel like, you know, kids are really astute and and and I know for my personal self, when I was not open and honest about my identity, when I was not Fully embracing who I, who I am, um, I was not fully present, I was not, there were things about me that, um, you know, I had a really hard time Uh, with, and I was, and it was really hard to have authentic relationships with people because I was, I guess you know, essentially not having an authentic relationship with myself. And so kids, kids can see when you're not, when you're holding back, and when there's a part of you that you're not, um, sharing or open about. That's that, that's to say like, if you feel like you want to have those open, strong relationships with kids and you feel like it's a safe community for you to be open about your identity, I would say, um, embrace it really, relationship. But again, it's it's. It's tricky because I'm not here to tell somebody how to, what to do or how to be, but I think that if you feel like you have allies, even if it's just Maybe there's just a couple colleagues, when I was coming out, when I was starting to um medically transition, I was teaching Um sixth grade math at the time and it was like the middle of the school year and I and I had a couple teachers that I always ate lunch with that I felt really comfortable with, and I started talking to them about my identity and I changed my name and I was gonna thinking about doing it at school during the school year, and so they Helped me because every time I would see them they would just affirm my identity. So just that little bit of one or two people find the courage to then Say you know what? I'm kind of tired of being misgendered by all my students, um, and I'd like them to know who I truly am and I and I'm gonna my body's gonna start changing a little bit more drastically. So I just need to have this conversation. So so start small, um, if that's the most important you know comfortable way to do it. Then, um, just listen to your body and listen to your heart and what feels right. Um, yeah, that's my advice. Find an ally.

Bryan (he/they): 41:24

I love that. And then, how do you think that school communities can make schools safer for 2 slgbtq plus students?

Max (he/him): 41:33

Um, I think that it's got to come from the very top. I mean, we have to have policies that support and protect the kids of all identities, but, as we have to have school wide, district wide, statewide policies that really drive um the decision making around how to support kids and how to respond to hate and so and how to respond to any sort of oppressive thing. Because you know you might have a district wide policy, but the principle at this specific school is it's super inclusive and so there's going to be things that come up. But if there's a policy that is Um you know, supported and Pushed forward by, like the superintendent or the, the department of ed person wherever, then that's, I think that's where it has to start and unfortunately that's not always going to be the reality. But we do. Um. You know if, if, if, we can think about ways to create more inclusive environments of communities for kids from. You know all gender restrooms. Um. You know policies around dressing down for PE or not. Um, you know being able to change your pronouns in the database. Um. You know how can you, if, even if your parents don't support a different pronoun for you, how can you make sure that the teachers do Um and that it doesn't get back to the parents if it's not safe for it to get back to the parents. So all those things really need to be considered Um from a policy level. I think um you know the other thing that is really important in in my mind in terms of supporting our lgbtq plus kids Um is supporting the adults and the staff who are also part of the queer community Um, because without that, uh, it's going to be really hard to um push forward any of those policies.

Bryan (he/they): 43:29

I can tell you when you don't have the support, just from my own experience, burnout comes quicker. I think I said somewhere in season one like I would love to see a study of burnout between, you know, queer people and non-queer people and just see or even like any kind of minority versus heterosexual, cisgender people, because oftentimes there's more responsibility, whether subconsciously or consciously, put on those people to protect the students as well as themselves.

Max (he/him): 44:07

It's true, and we hear a lot of that from educators of color and the constantly navigating the not so microaggressions and constantly having to feel like you have to perform a certain way so that you're not seen as you know that person, and it's true for all identities that are not like cisgender's, heterosexual, and it's really unfortunate that it can be so hard. And the other thing, though, if we can have you know if they're so. That's why I think it's so important to support the adults, because then they can show up fully for kids and and then beautiful things happen. Like I know somebody I met somebody at a conference a few years ago who teaches in, I think, colorado, who created this like biology curriculum that is fully embraces the gender spectrum and gender identity and you know all the different animals. One way, you know aren't in a binary system, but also just changing the language that you taught. When you talk about traits being passed down, the changing the language about you know the male or female pieces of biology. I'm not a biologist, so I'm really messing that up, but I think that that's the kind of stuff that can really be. Exciting is that we really are embracing this whole world, and we were talking earlier about how the non-binary identities, in the United States at least, are really new. I mean, there's eight cultures all over the world that have a third gender. Maybe it's not non-binary, but there's a third gender that is recognized by cultures everywhere, and ancient cultures, indigenous cultures.

Bryan (he/they): 45:49

So you know, we have to separate ourselves from this, the whiteness of of the things that we believe and do, and just recognize that this isn't the only way to to live in the world yes, absolutely, um, something you said really struck me and it just disappeared, so that's unfortunate, but, um, I wanted to give you the opportunity now to ask me a question, so I'm gonna turn the mic over to you yeah, um well, and we just met.

Max (he/him): 46:21

I don't know a whole lot about you, but I do. I have really enjoyed this conversation. Um, I am really interested in your graduate program. I'm like what you plan on doing with this um the master's degree, is it that you're earning?

Bryan (he/they): 46:36

was it gender? So my master's is in uh, it's a master's of fine arts and theater pedagogy. Um, however, I am working on a course in communication and gender, um, as part of a certificate that kind of is mushed together with my master's in cultural or a response of pedagogies and universal design for learning. My goal is to create theater curriculum that is accessible for everyone, regardless of ability or disability, regardless of gender and gender expression, regardless of race. Um, there is so much in the theater world that is cisgender, white, male dominated, that, um, like I start getting teary eyed when I read a play that has a non-binary character or a trans character in it. I saw and Juliet on Broadway, um, a while back, and there's a non-binary character and they did this crazy thing because it's a pop musical. They did this beautiful thing where that character saying, um, I'm not a girl yet, not yet a woman and it was so interesting to see a non-binary character that was the world doesn't see me as a girl, and I'm not yet the woman that I'm going to be was just kind of like, really powerful. And there are currently on Broadway three shows that feature non-binary characters, um, and they're really wonderful. I've seen two out of the three of them, and so I just want to see kind of more of that happening. But I'm an educator and a researcher and I love that kind of work, and so my goal is to develop curriculum that I can then go into a collegiate program to teach future teachers how to create an inclusive classroom that really focuses on everybody and that includes how do we subconsciously communicate with different genders differently and how do we communicate the same. This course is not. The course I'm taking right now is not a binary. It's not like this is that you, some men are from Mars and women are from Venus, or whatever it's like here. Here's the gender spectrum that we know of now. You know we have male, female gender, queer, non-binary, transgender all of these people on a spectrum. How do we communicate with them effectively? How do they communicate and, and how does society communicate to them in general? So, like I'll be, I'm going to be doing a project that's basically critiquing advertisements and I'm going after all the crappy, crappy game advertisements that come across my iphone because there are so many misogynistic games, yeah, and I sit here going like I'm so happy that I have, like these restrictions on my kids phones because I would not want them to watch this advertisement where this woman has to completely change herself and the man still leaves her for this beautiful other woman, and I'm like what is this advertisement like? And it's really just about like playing cards. Like what is happening here and why is that even necessary? What is the story that we're telling people? I did a whole talk in a queer theater class about, like the idea of indoctrination, right and, and looking at even just toddler and infant clothing and how much gendered clothing there is and how much targeted sexual gender clothing there is, yes, like daddy's accident and like mama's stud or whatever, or like yeah, like sexualizing infants yes it's never okay.

Max (he/him): 50:38

Yeah, I know we have a. I have an almost two-year-old and we've we've done our best to to have a variety of different clothing, but it's like every store has the clothes separated by gender.

Bryan (he/they): 50:50

Yep it's funny because my, my son, is shorter. Um, he has shorter legs and so for a while we were just like. I know it says male and female. Just go to the women's section and get the pants that fit you, because they fit you yeah, it's about the body, yeah, and that's, and that's that's fascinating.

Max (he/him): 51:11

The way you're talking about this course you're taking because you know so much about how we communicate with other genders is based on the social expectations of those genders. Right, and so if we can just eliminate those expectations that we have, you know it. Yeah, I mean it's not easy, I say just, but it sounds like a really great course and it sounds like an amazing goal to create some inclusive classrooms, especially in the theater. I love that.

Bryan (he/they): 51:42

Yeah, I just feel like it's an environment where we keep tooting this horn that we're so inclusive and I don't think that people have the the resources to truly follow through with that. And what I've noticed as an educator is that Theater tends to be the catch-all for students who Don't want to choose an elective for their fine arts credit, especially in a high school setting, and so you get a ton of students who have ADHD or might have Dyslexia and all of these things that like. Here I am telling you to read this script out loud right now and and maybe students and and pretty consistently my students have severe anxiety, which is wild, because some of them have chosen to like be an actor, right, and so for those of them who don't like, I have all this wonderful backstage curriculum on how you don't have to deal with that. But for those of them where we have some sort of performance requirement, it's like how do you work with this? And I see this question all the time on groups like how do you work with students who have so much anxiety that they can't do the work? And that's the stuff that I kind of want to answer. I also think that like the open source fonts that are out there need to be more utilized in school settings for, especially for dyslexic students, because If we're trying to hold students accountable for reading scores, then they need to be able to read it, and if there are resources we can provide them that are free, why are we not using them? Yeah, so, those. Those are the kind of things that are like going through my brain and it's in. It really is universal. It's not solely on theater, it's just that happens to be what I teach and what I love. But some of the stuff that I'm working on it's like I Could take this and apply it to a math class. Right now, we just need to figure out how to present things in a more inclusive manner so that everybody feels comfortable, and then, if they feel comfortable, they're gonna do the work.

Max (he/him): 53:50

I Love that. Yeah, I mean, so many of my students have disabilities or and have like an IEP or they have never been labeled or, you know, given in any sort of support because they're disability, and so, yeah, we have to be able to create conditions in which everybody can learn, because Far too often don't have high expectations yeah, people that need just as high expectations because we're all capable. So I love that thinking about how to shift. How to shift what we provide and what what, how we access the learning. Absolutely that like the script. If you're wanting to be in a play, you still have to read the script.

Bryan (he/they): 54:31

Yeah, just something as basic as that like and if you struggle with reading, that's gonna be hard and I can give you a calendar, and that calendar might not work for you. You know some stumps students don't do well with calendars and checklists. Like you have to figure out what works with the student, and I feel like the more universal that we are, the more we're gonna catch students who are very good at masculine or masking their their weaknesses, and so we might catch a student who's like a C student, starting to excel because they were able to mask enough to not need an IEP, but they kind of needed the resources. They just were either stigmatized or they did. They were barely passing whatever Test that we're, you know, bringing them into the situation. And so I think that the more universal we can be, the more education will actually work for everybody, and it, once the resources are created, it doesn't take a ton of extra time. So it's really just we need more curriculum writers who are able to come in, who one have experienced teaching it is a must and two who are willing to like Take your year at a glance and be like great here the resources I can give you that are gonna help make this universal for your students, and so that's kind of the work that I'm doing this year. I'm actually writing like a technical theater curriculum for high school that is universally designed. So it's gonna have units in Set and lights and sound and costume and makeup and all the things. But it's gonna have tasks that can be done in a variety of ways. It's gonna have choice assignments, it's gonna have Readings that can be done using open source fonts, so that way we can Really try to hit as many students as possible, because my goal is not to eliminate the IEP needs. My goal is to try to address them up front. So that way I'm not doing the extra work of having to. Then I've written my curriculum and now I have to write another one for this student specifically. I write the curriculum universally designed for everybody to be able to achieve success, and then I have one off things that I need to hit with different students, whether that's Having to read the questions out loud for them or read the answers to them or whatever the situation that pops up from their IEP. It's a lot less work if we just create a better plan to start.

Max (he/him): 57:06

Yeah, I agree. And and that we treat that IEP as a tool and not just a document that we have to follow or that we oh yeah. Document. Yeah, I see far too often it's just, you know well this kids. This here's the thing. Did they meet their girl? Nope, okay, let's. Let's add it again. You know, it's like there's. If this is something we have to put our energy into, like, let's make it useful.

Bryan (he/they): 57:29

I also think like teachers get creative because you can look at those IEP goals and if you teach a math class and they have a reading IEP goal, like, worth that into your class. I had a whole class for four years that was a mix of 50% students with disability and 50% partners that worked with them to put on place and I looked at all of their IEP goals and I said, great, this is how we're gonna work this into their session. So if they were a student who was non-speaking and they had a communication device and their goal was to learn how to use their communication device, I went to the speech language pathologist, had them program the lines into the communication device and then they had to follow the pattern and learn to use their communicator. If I had a student who Needed to focus on reading certain words or or whatnot, they had a word list every week. I Highlight those in their script so that way they know that they're practicing. We're all contributing to the goal, because just because they have a math goal or reading goal doesn't mean that the other classes can't impact that. The student is that the goal is hit.

Max (he/him): 58:36

Yeah, and you're speaking to just how important it is to have the arts in school, because that is a beautiful place and way to be able to help kids with their goals and learn how to read and write and do the math in a setting that's not just that traditional sit and get classroom, so it's really cool. Yeah, absolutely, hey, max, I've really enjoyed our time today.

Bryan (he/they): 58:55

I want to thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Max (he/him): 59:02

Yeah, thank you.

Bryan (he/they): 59:03

All right and thank you everybody. Have a great day. Thank you for joining us on this episode of teaching while queer. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure to subscribe. Wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, leave a review, and that would help out tremendously. You can also support the podcast by going to www. teachingwhilequeer. com and hit support the show. Thanks so much and have a great day.