The Power of Authenticity: An Aromantic and Asexual Educator's Tale

Speaker 1: 0:05

Teaching While Queer is a podcast for LGBTQIA plus teachers, administrators and anyone who works in academia to share their stories. Hi, my name is Brian Stanton, a queer theater educator in San Antonio, texas. Each week, I bring you stories from around the world centered on the experiences of LGBTQIA folks in academia. Thank you for joining me on this journey and enjoy teaching while queer. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Teaching While Queer. Today I have the pleasure to talk with fellow Texas teacher, jean Ann Tai. Hello, how are you doing? I'm good. Thanks, how are you today? I'm fantastic. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 2: 0:51

All right. So, like you said, I am a Texas teacher. I've been teaching for six years now in the North Texas area specifically. I've been here for the whole six years and I identify as ace and aromantic, although in a school setting and just casually and publicly with acquaintances, I default to identifying as gay since it's more easily understandable. I don't necessarily want to have a full explanation and conversation with every single person and child I ever meet. Within the six years of my teaching. I have been publicly out for about five and a half.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Awesome. I love that you opened up the conversation a little bit with identifying how you feel comfortable in public settings versus like your own feelings for yourself, your personal friends and family. I actually had a conversation with a friend a couple of weeks ago who didn't understand the idea of romantics versus sexuality. Would you? Be, willing to give us a little crash course for anybody who may not know the difference between the two.

Speaker 2: 2:14

Heck, yeah, okay. So when we talk about this is actually very funny because I had a conversation in class on Thursday with a bunch of students, not specifically about this, but we are about to read Romeo and Juliet, and so we were talking all about love and can teenagers fall in love, and it's a delightful argument at a time. One of the things we talked about was about different types of attraction and romantic attraction versus physical versus platonic, versus aesthetic versus intellectual. It was cool because they all kind of really quickly grasped that concept. So to anybody who's not familiar with it, when we think about when you meet somebody, when you initially first meet somebody, walk into a room, see somebody across an area, whatever, you have some sort of gut reaction to them, and that reaction may be oh, they look really cool, I love their outfit. Or it might be holy cow, I would really like to go somewhere more private and get to know them in a more physical way. Or it might just be oh, they seem really kind, I want to kind of cuddle with them and just be physically close for it. They seem really nice, I'd like to talk to them, I'd like to see them interested, because I'd like to get to know them in terms of their story better. And all of those different reactions are the different types of attractions that we can have, and so when we are thinking about sexuality, we tend to put romantic and sexual attraction together as a quick little blanket statement, because for most people those align, but they don't always for everybody and they are separate things. So, in the same way that you might meet somebody and think I want to be friends with this person, versus I meet somebody and I would like to be romantically or sexually involved with this person, those are two different types of attractions and in that same way, romantic and physical attraction can also be separate from each other.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Absolutely. I have a friend of mine who is pansexual, aromantic, and I was like wonderful, I think that is so. Uh, it's really a journey of self-awareness to get to that point, because there's so much societal pressure of like in order to be happy, you have to find that other person. And it's so so many like when are you going to get a boyfriend, girlfriend or whatever? And so I think that it's a wonderful kind of journey that I guess linguistics have taken over the past few years on being able to identify these different parts of ourselves and get past just, you know, sexual and platonic, you know, and that's kind of where we had this dichotomy and so much of our pop culture was like. You know, men and women can't be friends because obviously there's a sexual attraction, obviously and it's just such nonsense? Yeah, absolutely, there's such a spectrum. I like to talk often about the idea of ancient Greek words and how ancient Greek had like six different words to describe love and I feel, like this is where we're starting to develop and build that terminology as well to talk about like I've got love for my friends, I've got love for my family, I've got cuddly love with this person and I've got romantic love with this person. And it's not all the same things.

Speaker 2: 5:57

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's really interesting because something that I've been kind of thinking about and working through lately is the way that society places so much emphasis on romantic and sexual relationships means that our friendships tend to be very much secondary, right, and so it's like okay, well, your romantic partner is your person, and then friendships come second. And it's interesting because, since I just don't experience or want romantic or sexual relationships with people, to me friendships are the most important, crucial, valuable thing in my life. And it's interesting then, because whenever I have friends who are prioritizing their romantic partners, it makes me or not it makes me I then feel almost rejected sometimes and I have to always kind of remind myself like no, you just don't experience this thing that other people experience. Our experiences are different. So, yeah, it's really interesting to approach those different types of nuances and help people navigate their relationships.

Speaker 1: 7:16

Absolutely, and I can imagine that's probably real rough, especially because I know that I've been the person in a relationship who's like I haven't seen my friends in months. But I've also been the person in the relationship who's like, bye, I'm going to my friends, so like I can see how that could be real impactful for for a person who's not necessarily feeling the same kind of attractions towards others as is typical, I guess, or considered typical. And I think it'd be interesting because I think that relationship, wise, it depends on the person, what you, what you're going to feel, and for some people you're going to feel no drive and no desire at like yourself. You had mentioned, like I don't have these, these kind of feelings, and then for me, I it's almost like I have feelings for certain people and then like no drive, no desire for other people. And I feel like that it should be an easier thing to understand, because we do have those moments where like nope, absolutely not. We are way compatible, but absolutely not, you know?

Speaker 2: 8:30

Yeah, it's funny because I, for me, like the room. The, I guess, corollary to a romantic drive for me is a friendship drive, and so I'll meet somebody and just be. Like I so desperately want to be friends with them, Like I'm so interested in who they are and everything about them, Like, oh my gosh, I just want to sit and talk for hours and laugh and have jokes and let's go get dinner. Come on and then it's funny because I feel like that's something that's not really talked about a ton and so I don't know like I don't see people really talk about that type of friendship drives.

Speaker 1: 9:07

So it's it's kind of interesting. Absolutely, I think it's something that we all had when we were kids and it just kind of gets phased out as you're an adult and it and your focus has to become finding your partner right. When society is like it's time for you to find your partner, all of a sudden you drive to find friends or your your ability to find friends even can be more difficult, because it's like how do I have this balancing act? And I think some people feel like love is a pie and if I give, if I give some away, then there's not going to be any for anybody else.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Oh, I know and I don't know. It's again going back to that conversation that my students and I were having. They talked a lot. We had read this article called the 12 tests of love, which looks at different ways to determine whether or not somebody really fully is in love, and it's it's a debatable or it's a debatable article, but it's kind of our introduction into these topics. And one of the things it talks about that I very much disagree with but I'm not going to get into that with my students, especially considering that they're freshmen is talks about the test of singularity and about only being attracted to and having these loving relationships with that one person, with your one partner. And it was very interesting because all of my students basically said like, oh, that's an unnecessary thing to include because it's so inherent, because, of course, you shouldn't be attracted to anybody else, you shouldn't be looking at anybody else, you shouldn't be anything and I was. You know I'm not going to sit there and turn that into a polyamory exists conversation especially considering I'm teaching the daughter of the principal and I don't necessarily want that, you know, dynamic to. I don't want to deal with that over what is a very short part of the conversation, but it is very interesting because you know I sit there looking at it going no, we all have so much capacity for love and we all have so much, you know, ability to share that. But at the same time I wonder if my saying that comes from the fact that I do not experience romantic and sexual attraction. And so to me I'm like Well sure, you can have it for everybody, because I have it for no one. So I don't know.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Absolutely Right. If I've got no one, then you could have it for everyone. Yeah, so I fully believe that asexual and aromantic folks have been around for centuries and centuries and centuries. The terminology is kind of catching up with us now so in the fact that like a lot of this linguistic verbiage for our community kind of came out in the last 20 years or so. Did you always know that you were asexual and aromantic, or as a child Was it different? What was your journey in that?

Speaker 2: 12:05

Yeah, so it's been. It's been interesting that I feel many queer people would say because I. It took me a while to come to that language and it's taken me even longer to be comfortable with it, largely because of the way that society puts so much emphasis on these types of relationships. And if you don't have this, then clearly you are broken, you are whatever. You know that's a particular, you know a particularly complicated thing that I feel like a lot of ace people deal with. But to kind of backtrack that, so in high school I had crushes. I fully was like, oh my gosh, I like this boy so much and would have flirtations or, you know unrequited feelings, or you know, blooming, blossoming little potential romances that never really liked to me, where it did anything. And then whenever I got into college I just didn't have anybody or anything. I didn't kind of deal with it or think about it. I would occasionally have these moments of just panic and laying in bed at night going I there's, there's no boy that I like. So I must be gay and I don't know how to deal with that. And I love my friends so much, I clear, I must be in love with her. What is happening? Am I just refusing to acknowledge it in myself? If I am gay, then what am I going to do with this? You know all these, all of the gay panic thoughts, basically. And then I would wake up the next morning and wouldn't even be thinking about it and I was like, all right, whatever, I'm going to go get breakfast. And then I got out of college, started teaching and just started publicly identifying as gay because I know, I knew and I still know that my closest connections are have pretty much always been, with women and that that's just the company that I'm far more comfortable with. And so I was like, okay, I think there might be some sort of you know, a something in the mix here, but it's just simple enough to go with gay and move on, because I wasn't particularly attached to or meeting any label, especially because I didn't want to date anybody, so I wasn't having to navigate, explaining it to anyone. When I was in college I would go home over the summers and I would. It wasn't specific to those time periods that I remember having these conversations with my brother and and explaining to him that I was really wondering if I had some repressed childhood memories of having been abused in some way, not because I thought I had been abused, but because I knew that I wasn't desiring anybody and my framework for that was okay. Well, that sometimes happens, based on childhood abuse, and so clearly that is the easiest explanation for what I am experiencing so then began publicly identifying as gay and then, a few years ago probably three or so years ago I ended up in a relationship with someone and I dated him for about a year, a little over a year actually, and in the process of dating him I realized that I was ace and aromantic, because I was, you know, exploring these parts of life that I had not explored before and just kind of came to the realization like I don't seem to have the same reaction or experience with these situations that other people do. And so I would have these long conversations with my friend one of my friends about, like okay, what do you feel like when you kiss somebody? How does that work for you? Like what, what's in your head? How does your body feel? Like, what is this? Because I mostly just find it really boring and I'm just kind of sitting going like, okay, this is, can we go back to watching our TV show now? Because, like this isn't, I'm bored, and so I broke up with him, or we broke up, and it was a remarkably easy breakup in the sense that I was not sad because I was like, okay, cool, I don't have to like deal with it, it's not something that I have to incorporate into my life anymore. And so since then I've just been single and very happily identifying as ace and aromantic. And then that's been a process that I've kind of talked about with some of my friends and just kind of letting them know, hey, this is a thing, and kind of getting more comfortable talking to them about it Although I do still identify as gay within the school setting and just kind of with, you know, casual acquaintances at the dog park, just because, again, that is the easiest thing to understand for a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 17:12

For sure it's interesting. It's got me thinking. I'm doing a lot of pedagogy work right now. I'm getting my masters.

Speaker 2: 17:21

Oh excited.

Speaker 1: 17:23

It's a second master's but it's actually in teaching, so it's really fun, and a lot of my pedagogy work is focused on access for folks with disabilities and I'm thinking a lot right now about how even the term like atypical behaviors and whatnot and so then we've got a romantic asexual and how folks who fall into those categories do a lot of masking to feel like everybody else, where they put on the I'm gay or I'm going to put on this front and just like you explained, like when the breakup was done, it was like, oh, now I just don't have to do that and it's like, oh see, yeah, it's connecting lots of dots.

Speaker 2: 18:09

For me right now it's funny because that prefix of a is what I use to explain asexual and romantic to people, because I'm an English teacher and so that's my wheelhouse and so I go OK, well, a the prefix, it means not or without, and so you attach that to your root word and you're talking about not having a sexual drive or a romantic drive. And it's interesting also because I feel like and I am now also spinning around this idea of how that connects to atypical behavior and neurodivergence, but at least with the conversation about sexuality, being asexual can sometimes feel very lonely because it is something defined by an absence, right, and it's something that is defined by I don't experience something that other people do, and it can come sometimes have that feeling of kind of being outside looking into the window with everybody is inside at the party with their significant others, and I'm just kind of hanging out here going cool, but I want my friend back, and so it can be an interesting experience, especially because I've been feeling it more lately whenever I have students who ask me oh, do you have a girlfriend, do you like? Oh, my students are remarkably comfortable with their teachers, not just me, with all of their teachers and so they will say things like oh, miss Ty, I know you've got some side hoes, I know you've got some people and I see you blushing and I'm really just going to be going blushing because I want them to stop talking to me about that.

Speaker 1: 19:51

Please stop saying side hoes.

Speaker 2: 19:53

Please stop, please choose a different word. But they'll ask oh, don't you ever want to have a girlfriend, don't you ever want to get married? And they really struggle to understand and I'm like no, I'm very happy by myself. And I have known other professionals who also are happily not married. I don't know about their identity, but as far as I'm aware they identified as straight and so I don't know. It's just, it's an interesting thing that's been rattling around my head lately.

Speaker 1: 20:28

And so you said that you are out as gay at school, so your students are very comfortable. In one night, what was that experience like, coming out in your classroom?

Speaker 2: 20:38

It was a panic attack. It was a full panic attack while I was teaching, which I don't know if you have ever experienced, or if any of the listeners have ever experienced. I certainly hope you have not.

Speaker 1: 20:50

I had one on Santa Monica Boulevard on a trip to Hollywood a couple of months last year. So yeah, okay.

Speaker 2: 20:57

Congratulations. Thank you, welcome to the club. We should give them a picture, I hope. Yeah, I think we should have, like sashes, beautiful, I'm done, sorry, yeah, okay. So it was January of my first year teaching and I had I was assigning them my my I was assigning my juniors an identity project, and I don't remember why or how it was connected to anything. I think it was because it's American literature, and so we had been talking about the American identity all year and I was like looking at them and going, okay, so tell me your identity, something like that. And so I put together a mock-up and it's basically it was a poster. They all had to create a poster with a combination of words and images to represent who they are Pretty standard and I had made one and I had included the word accepting on there as part of my identity. And then, as I was talking them through my example, I talked about how I'd put that on there, not just because I wanted, or I put it on there because I wanted to be accepting of others and because I, you know, could sometimes struggle with other people, except in me as a gay person. And I remember talking about that or saying some version of that and I remember one of my students who sat in the back right-hand corner saying hey, me too, and just being, you know, very happy that I was saying that as a teacher. And then and that's pretty much all I remember, because it was a 90-minute block class, I don't know when in the class period I said that, probably at the very beginning. I don't remember anything else. My knees were shaking and I feel like I blacked out because I genuinely do not remember what I was looking at at any point in that class. I only remember the audio of that student and the nice thing is it went well, other than that one student's response. I didn't hear anything specific. And then I came out to the member of my administration who deals with the English department shortly after, just in a conversation that we were having. I had worn a shirt to school that was like based off of the Dare program visual and it said dare to resist racism, sexism and homophobia. It's a very cute shirt. I love the shirt. Students who did not frequently talk in my class made a point to come up and tell me that they liked my shirt. I was very happy and then I found out that an unknown parent or unknown to me had called not my assistant principal, not my principal, called the superintendent, you can see it coming Called the superintendent and said that they felt that it was inappropriate for me to wear that, not because they did not like the anti-racism or anti-sexism parts, but because they felt that they were being religiously targeted by the anti-homophobia part of my shirt. In retrospect I find that very funny.

Speaker 1: 24:13

In the moment. I'm sure it's frightening.

Speaker 2: 24:15

Oh yeah, no, I saw I was completely. I was a complete mess. And so then later I went and touched my admin and I was like, just so you know I am gay, blah, blah, blah and that it was fine. It later was not fine with my administration. I gave it a couple of years and I left mid-year because of some stuff that happened. But yeah, that was the process of initially coming out as teacher and then with my current administration at my current school, I made sure to ask about how the community reacted to gay teachers when I was offered the job before I accepted it and I was very clear about this I am a gay teacher coming into a very small school district have you had openly gay teachers before? What has the reaction been? And the principal who was interviewing me said we have had gay teachers. It's been a positive or neutral reaction. We haven't had any problems. And I specifically think that it is a valuable thing to have an openly gay person on campus, both for the students who are gay and for the students who are not, so that they can understand somebody who is different than them. That is such a valuable thing to have. And I said I accept the job position.

Speaker 1: 25:40

I had to do a similar thing and I did it during the interview. You know that moment where they're like, do you have any questions? Like, yes, let's chat.

Speaker 2: 25:49

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:50

And it's so hard. So you work in a small district in northern Texas, which is a portion of this. The state is wild and, like the big hubs for people who aren't familiar with Texas, like the big cities are very liberal and welcoming and opening, and then immediately outside of those big cities, all of the small towns are very conservative and core quote unquote family values, and so what is it like for you working with students? Do you have your own core group of like queer kids on campus? Do you have experiences where maybe you have some homophobia from students? What is it like for you working with students?

Speaker 2: 26:43

Yeah, so I was. I'm going to kind of do a compare and contrast. So when I was in my bigger district, so I was in a district that had about about 400 students per grade level that's where I started and now I'm in a district that has about 40 students per grade level, just to give a size comparison. So I'm in a district where, when we like, the whole school is one hallway and the English department is me and one other teacher. We teach the entirety of the high school. It's wonderful, there's so many, you know, teaching, broad teaching, things that make it fabulous. But when I was in my larger district I didn't personally experience any homophobia. It was fine. But I definitely experienced experienced students who would kind of flock to me and I called them my queer babies in my head, not just because I didn't want to, you know, found condescending to them, but they are my little queer babies and they would make a point to come hang out before school, during lunch, after school, whatever, and they would bring their friends who had other English teachers to come meet me. I know it would be the funniest thing because I mean I would be at a football game, you know, being in charge of whatever, and I would have a student come up to me and say Miss Ty, I need you to meet this, this kid, I need you to meet my friend because she's gay too. That was the entire introduction. I don't know this child, and so that was lovely. And then now at my much smaller, smaller, much, much smaller district, I don't have that. I don't have the flocking as much, I think largely because I just teach all of the students. I've been there for two years now, and so last year I taught ninth and 11th graders. This year I still teach ninth and 11th graders. So at this point I either have taught or am teaching every single person in the high school and I think because of that I don't really get the flocking so much, because they're all in our rooms all the time anyway. But I definitely have my students who will come find me and hang out in my room, perhaps more than others. What I think is interesting is that I don't get so much of like I don't have my queer babies group at this school district, but I do have my liberal kids and they are the ones who make a point to come hang out and, yeah, we have lots of chats about whatever, or they just come and sit in my room and do whatever, but that's definitely my core group who flocked to me at the moment.

Speaker 1: 29:30

Awesome, and have you had any experiences where students have been either intentionally or unintentionally homophobic around you?

Speaker 2: 29:38

Yeah. So last year this we okay. So last year my juniors American Lit, we were doing a unit on civil rights and it was, of course, and it's, oh my gosh, so much fun to talk about we were reading the Black Panthers 10 point program which, by the way, I teach the most. I teach far more radical texts in this tiny district that I ever did at my large district. And there's no pushback, and it's fabulous because I'm just like, hey, let's just explore this. So we're talking about the Black Panthers 10 point program. One of the things on there at the beginning is it talks about the black community having control of the institutions in their areas, and so we talked about, well, what does that word institutions mean? We talked about a lot of things, including the laws in the area, and I made a point to point out that at the time that the Black Panthers 10 point program was written I can't remember the specific dates, but it was either I think it was two years before interracial marriage became legal, and so we're just talking about that my students are, you know, their minds are blown. And I had a student who, with no hint of irony, said wow, can you imagine being told who you can can't love? That's so crazy. And I'm like, yeah, I can actually imagine that 100%. And so I said, yeah, I can. I mean I remember where I was when I found out that gay marriage was legal, and then that caused an explosion of flurry amongst my students. One of them very sweetly said I didn't know it was illegal, I just thought it was taboo. And I'm like, oh honey, that's sweet, I think. I think that's sweet. I think your innocence is cute, perhaps. And so they were looking at dates and asking me questions, and the same child who had made the comment about can you imagine being told who you can and can't love had looked up the court case about it and he said something along the lines of no offense. But I just think that I think that I made the wrong decision. I don't think it should be legal and for some reason I mean not for some reason obviously it's a hurtful comment. But that comment, as opposed to any other, really hit me and I said, oh, that's kind of hurtful to hear. And he shrugged and said I said no offense.

Speaker 1: 32:16

That explains it.

Speaker 2: 32:17

Yeah, and I don't think he meant it hurtfully. I think he's just young and dumb, which he has the right to be young and dumb. I think he is young and dumb, but it really hurt. And so I was trying to like not cry in front of my students. I don't do. I'm known as a very sarcastic, you know, nothing is going to bother me kind of person, and I still had 15 minutes left in class so I just kept on teaching as I'm trying not to cry and they can hear it in my voice and they know. And the silence in the room, oh my goodness, my class was never that quiet and between that class period and the next one, the students in the entire school had already heard about it because they were coming in from a next period going. Miss Ty, how are you? I heard about what happened, but what the not the benefit, but something that I hold on to as a very nice part of what was overall not a very nice memory is that I had two separate students who were somewhat known for being homophobic, who came up to me separately later in the day and either offered me a hug or sincerely asked if I was okay, and they each made a comment about how it was really crappy of the other students to have said that to me and it was very moving that those two students in particular made a point to offer comfort in some way. And I will say that the student who had made that comment came back within three class periods and apologized to me, I think largely because his girlfriend and every other person in the school was giving him a lot of grief over it. But you know, whatever it was a nice part to what was not a particularly nice moment.

Speaker 1: 34:02

Yep, I can see that. So you had mentioned earlier that in a previous district you had some struggles with administration. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that?

Speaker 2: 34:15

Yeah. So basically, what happened was or here's the shortened version a student had conservative parents and the student did not like me. I don't know why, or perhaps the parents did not like me Again, I don't know but my administration, as I later learned, was receiving complaints from those parents, complaints along the lines that I was, you know, indoctrinating students and always talking about sexuality in class, and that I was making students feel unwelcome and uncomfortable in my classroom. And I was called down for a meeting with my administration at the beginning of the day, you know, towards the beginning of the day on a Friday, and they laid out or not laid out, that's really the wrong word, as I'll explain but they told me that I had all of these accusations against me and I was completely dumbfounded because I had not heard any problems before that. There was no ramp up to that meeting, it was out of the complete blue, and so I tried to defend myself, I tried to explain why I had a pride flag sticker in my classroom and my principal yelled at me like fully raised himself out of his chair to yell at me and speak over me. I asked for specifics of these accusations and what I was accused of having doing and I was not told. But I was told that if they received any additional complaints against me, that I would have to go defend my job to the school board, and they did. They said that without telling me what the complaints were, so I did not know what to specifically address or fix. And then there were some other issues of other lies that were coming up, and it was a whole thing, but essentially it was. They did not like that I was an openly gay teacher and they, regardless of what their personal feelings were on it they were deciding to side with one, possibly a couple sets of parents who were upset about this or who were just homophobic about it, and they decided to support the parents rather than support their teacher. And so I left the meeting and realized that I did not feel safe in my school at all, and so that was the last day that I ever was there. I went up that weekend it was in October and it was a three day weekend, which I was very happy about because it gave me some extra time and I went up on the following Sunday and packed up my entire room and emailed my resignation and said I'm not returning to school. That began a process of speaking with the then assistant superintendent, who was a very kind person, and he accepted my resignation when he found out what had happened. And then I just kind of moved on because it was a very traumatic situation.

Speaker 1: 37:45

Yep, absolutely. For those of you who are not in Texas, one of the things to note is that when we have a mid year resignation, you can fully have your license revoked and no longer be able to teach. So I'm pleased that your assistant superintendent at least understood the situation and the circumstances, was able to make a good decision that wasn't a negatively impact Everybody involved. I also have a little note for our allies out there, all of you, parents and ally teachers and whatnot. This is common. It is so common that the minority is the loudest voice in the room when it comes to spreading hate. So, like, for some reason, people are able to consistently, daily, hourly, send emails and whatnot to complain about queer educators, and this is happening all over the country. And the voices to oppose them will show up at a school board meeting once every few months to say something, but there's not nearly the numbers or the persistence from the supportive voices. So please get out there and support your queer teachers.

Speaker 2: 39:03

Absolutely A couple of things that I'll add there for anybody who is not familiar with the work situation in Texas in general. We do not have unions. We are not allowed to have unions, and so to any of you who are thinking, oh my gosh, go to your union rep. I would have loved to do that. I didn't have one. Texas does have organizations that are basically non-union unions, so things like HEP or TCTA and I was very dumb and I had let my membership lapse Do not do that. The reason I say that is because they can offer legal assistance, and so I ultimately had to pay for legal assistance myself, because I did put a lot. I did have a lawyer on retainer. I specifically contacted a lawyer based in Austin those of you not from Texas that is about four hours south of me, and I contacted him and made sure that I had his advice and legal counsel on the situation. What was interesting was that whenever I explained to him the situation, he was not phased in the slightest and he said yes, I get calls like this every single hour, every day, so this is an incredibly common thing, as Brian said, to have happen. I feel like people who are particularly bigoted. I feel like they don't have jobs because they take on bigotry as their full-time job and just send emails constantly. I don't know how they have time to work.

Speaker 1: 40:34

It does feel like that, for sure.

Speaker 2: 40:38

What was also interesting was that when I left now keep in mind, my students have no idea what is happening I had a very decorated and colorful room, and they came back on Tuesday to an empty room, which I imagine was very, very jarring, and so it was big news at the school that something had happened. Students thought that I had been fired, and they were very a lot of them were very upset about this, and the kind of heart warming part about it was that I have never in my life received as many messages ever as I did. In the week or so after I left, students and parents were emailing me, finding me on Facebook, finding me on Instagram and reaching out to me to express their support and their outrage at the situation I had. Parents of students I never taught reaching out to me. Parents of students I didn't even know were reaching out to me and I only know that because they identified themselves as such in their messages to say you know, my student, my child, has never had you, but I've heard about you and I think what happened to you was horrible, and so it was wonderful to see that much support. But, as you said to all of the allies out there. I feel like support is silent. Right, you like something so you don't have to talk about it, because it's good. You know you don't complain when things are going well. But if you are in a situation where you like the teacher that your student has whether they're queer or not, for whatever reason, if you like them, email the principal and tell them that you like that teacher, tell them that you appreciate them, because that does a lot of good in terms of securing our favor with the administration.

Speaker 1: 42:39

If they're only hearing bad news, they're only hearing bad news. I had similar things happen with quote unquote appropriateness of like theatrical productions right. And one person complained to the superintendent and thousands of people saw the show and the next show that I did. I had to fill out a form because the one person complained, but thousands of people saw the show and I was like. I struggle because at the same time, the school district is like have you heard of Brene Brown? We're all going to study Brene Brown, right, and we're all going to be the man in the arena and we're going to rumble and all of these things, and meanwhile they're giving cheap, like the biggest opinion to the cheap seats to use.

Speaker 2: 43:28

Brene.

Speaker 1: 43:28

Brown's terminology. So they're allowing the power to be in the cheap seats and it's like, okay, this one person in the back of the room. Who's never going to come see a play? Never had more power than these thousands of people who are actually in paying seats watching the show.

Speaker 2: 43:49

It's funny that you mentioned Brene Brown. I actually showed her vulnerability 10 talk on Thursday. I had never actually watched them or seen them, and then a friend encouraged me to go see them, to go watch them, and I immediately went okay, let me put this into my classroom lessons. But it's interesting because the talk that you're referencing deals so heavily with the topic of shame, and I felt a lot of shame after what happened with my administration. I felt like there had been a situation in a class a few weeks prior where a student came in and very abashedly said that he had heard a word in the hallway and he didn't know what it meant and would I please define it. But he was scared to say it because he didn't want to get in trouble. This was a very good child who asked an earnest, and so I answered. I was like, yeah, sure, tell me he had heard the word transvestite. And I was like, oh, that's not a bad word, hun. So here let's talk about this. I'm like, okay, you know, giving him history and context and explaining and switching him to some more modern language, and that turned into a class period, not a whole class period, that turned maybe five minutes of students asking about terminology, questions and expressing such beautiful curiosity, asking things like well, what do the letters and LGBT stand for? Because they don't even know. And I made sure that the conversation was very appropriate, very grade level accessible. And I had a paraprofessional in the room with me at the time and I made sure to check in with her afterwards and while I was going through, just to get her as I was talking, getting her nonverbal reaction, and then checking in with her verbally afterwards to make sure, like hey, did I overstep, did I say anything wrong? And she was like no, that was wonderful. Oh my gosh, they were so curious. How can we get them to be that curious about English, I know. And that conversation was then referenced in the meeting with administration, not because they knew about it but because I told them, because they were, you know, doing the overlord questioning of is there anything else that you should tell us before you leave, kind of thing. And I said, okay, well, this happened. And I mean their response was just like shock and horror and they were like that is in no way appropriate. I said a student asked me a question, what should I do? And I said you don't answer it, you don't answer, you just know you don't talk about this. This is not appropriate for school and I cared a lot of shame about that, right, because I was like, well, I did contribute to this in some way and genuinely only been in the last year or so that I've looked at that and gone. Brian, do you mind if I curse on your podcast?

Speaker 1: 46:24

Go for it.

Speaker 2: 46:26

Fuck that, yes, fuck that. I did not do anything wrong. I was completely doing the appropriate thing of engaging their curiosity, answering their questions, allowing for in class discussion, giving them the power and this conversation all completely appropriate pedagogical things to do, and so it's taken some time for me to let go of that shame, but thankfully, I have now.

Speaker 1: 46:51

So what you're saying to me is that you were teaching English. Yeah, yeah, we were expanding vocabulary 100% not all of that, but like cultural reference, for like when these people come up in their reading or whatever it was yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:08

So I have to ask what was the production that y'all did that the one person complained about?

Speaker 1: 47:14

Okay, so admittedly it's kind of like it's risque for high school, but it was carried. Carry the musical it's based on the Stephen King novel. However, it is not carry, the movie from the 1980s. There was an updated message about cyber bullying that we were able to include and use projections like we showed, carry being cyber bullied while the bullying was happening on stage.

Speaker 2: 47:41

It was also happening on Snapchat.

Speaker 1: 47:46

And then we partnered with the David's Legacy Foundation, because my previous school was one of the schools where David Molak had attended prior to his suicide in 2016. And so we partnered with them to have pre show talks and to raise money for their organization so they can continue spreading the word about anti cyber bullying. So we did all of this like amazing community work. But one person complained and another administrator was upset by one word, and the phrase in the in the in the play that the administrator was upset with was don't be such a pussy.

Speaker 2: 48:34

I'm sorry if I feel like. I feel like if we have a president who can use the language that I think school should be able to also, I mean like also, have you walked around high school campus?

Speaker 1: 48:49

Yeah, kids are saying a lot worse things and this is a visual representation of what not to do, like the whole point was don't bully people. Our whole message was you shouldn't be doing this behavior.

Speaker 2: 49:08

Just to be clear, I wasn't condoning president 45 doing that. I was throwing in as a reference of like well, I guess we're socially acceptable.

Speaker 1: 49:17

You know, socially accepting. So that was that situation. And it's funny because then parents will be like why can't you do something wholesome, like I don't know Romeo and Juliet? And I'm sitting there like, okay, these teenagers one of them is 17,. One of them is 14.

Speaker 2: 49:37

13 she hasn't turned 14 yet, she's 13.

Speaker 1: 49:40

She's in a relationship with a 17 year old. They have sex and they want to run away from their parents, and so then a lot of people die and they killed themselves, like you know, suicide packed and like that's okay to teach, because Shakespeare and I was like also. It's clearly none of you understand Shakespeare, because he wrote a lot of dirty things to do his plays.

Speaker 2: 50:07

Oh gosh, I mean where my, my honors freshmen are reading the full text of Romeo and Juliet in about a week or so, or like we're gonna be starting it, and we start by reading Act One, scene one together, and I have to sit there and explain to the ceiling tiles because I can't look them in the eye all the jokes about unsheathing of swords and I'm like, okay, so let's think about the metaphor. And these are men who are talking and that are not.

Speaker 1: 50:35

Oh my gosh they're basically like let's just pull it out in front of these ladies folks. Yeah, yeah, Fun times, so wholesome Shakespeare.

Speaker 2: 50:43

I know, and that's our opener, like that's the tone that we start with, and then everything with Mercutio. Oh my gosh, it's a good piece.

Speaker 1: 50:52

It's just like, don't tell me it's wholesome, it's not, no, it's not.

Speaker 2: 50:57

It's so not, yeah, but I need to be fair. This is also a class where, in teaching connotation to them so anybody not listening connotation is the social or emotional meaning of words, as opposed to the dictionary definition. I start off with the classic. It's the difference between house and home Right, the emotional attachment attachments you have to those two words that have very similar meanings. And then, because honors is run as a college level class, I, you know, I'm like, okay, let me give you this example, cause also you're in high school, you're going to understand. I say okay, what's the difference between but dial and booty call? And they immediately burst out laughing. I'm like look, but and booty same meaning. Dial and call same meaning. The difference is connotation, and one very delightful student did not know what booty call meant. Yeah, and so I think I explained it as like a late night phone call when you want to invite somebody over for some non PG activity. That was.

Speaker 1: 52:00

Thank you Put it in the dictionary. Webster.

Speaker 2: 52:06

She was horrified because, since she did not know the meaning, she had been taking it as the same meaning as but dial, and she shared that she had told her mother that her grandfather had booty called the mom and her mom was horrified that she had said that. And she had this sudden moment of realization of oh my God, I said that to my mom. Yeah, yeah you did.

Speaker 1: 52:32

I hope that mom was okay. Oh goodness, yeah, yeah, I learned. Last night grandpa booty called me and all of a sudden she's like wait, why am I having to tell this story?

Speaker 2: 52:43

over and over to a bunch of adults. He just called me, he didn't mean to. Oh my gosh, awesome.

Speaker 1: 52:57

So let's go ahead, and I have two kind of closing questions for you. The first one is what advice would you give to a new queer teacher headed into the classroom for the first year, who may be uncomfortable with being their authentic self or unsure if they should be their authentic self in the classroom?

Speaker 2: 53:17

Yeah, first thing I would say is try to get a feel for your level of safety and your district and in your, in your campus and your classroom. Really, I think that the students are not what you should be worried about, and I say that again as somebody who is privileged enough to have had students had a mostly positive or just neutral reaction I know that that is not always the case but trying to get a sense of if this seems like a safe environment. Some ways to do that are, you know, listening to the way that other teachers talk about things, listening to you know, trying to find out if there have ever been or if there are currently out teachers on your campus or in your district. If there are, go talk to them and say, hey, I'm curious about this. It doesn't have to be framed as you coming out to them and then you know, then them having that knowledge about you, but you can just ask them and, you know, see if they're open to talking about that. So first determine your level of safety and then, honestly, I think it just depends on how much you, if the benefits of those connections will outweigh the potential discomfort of not being your authentic self, right. So I think about the discomfort that I sometimes feel being ace when students say, you know, oh, don't you ever want to have a girlfriend? And like in my head and like, no, I really don't. But, and they don't understand that For me that discomfort is far outweighed by the joy and the beauty of moments of connections with students where they can trust me by telling me that they want me to use different pronouns with them, or a different name, or a student who comes out and tells me, or who comes out to me and then tells me that I'm the first adult I've ever come out to. The beauty of those moments for me outweighs it. As evidenced by my previous district. It's not always going to be that simple, and so my advice for any person who is, you know, kind of looking at it and and trying to decide if they should come out in a school setting is really the non advice of it's up to you. You don't have to feel pressured to do it, you don't have to, there is no Necessity to it. But also there are some really lovely benefits. There are these moments of connection. There are the moments where you are able to understand a student and a student feels comfortable with you. There are the moments when you can make jokes with students that you aren't able to otherwise, just because they don't know the full situation. So there is a lot of beauty in it, but there's also a lot of beauty and a lot of things, and you get to determine what kind of beauty you want to invite into your life.

Speaker 1: 56:18

That's wonderful, because I think that's that's absolutely correct. We all have a choice and you have to do what you're most comfortable with, absolutely. For the final question today what can LGBTQ teachers, or even ally teachers, parents and students, do to help move the needle towards inclusivity in primary and secondary education?

Speaker 2: 56:40

Yeah, oh, my gosh, that's a whole 45 minute talk right there, okay, so, off the top of my head, some of the things I think of and I just to clarify your question were you specifically speaking about, like parents and students, rather than teachers themselves. Parents, students and teachers, okay, and teachers also. So I think I'm going to target my suggestions to different audiences. So for parents, I would say advocate for the teachers that you like. Make sure that you are sending out those positive vibes in the form of literal, physical emails or phone calls, not just you know happy wishes. Tell administration that you like a certain teacher. Ask administration. You know what they're, what they're doing. Ask administration If you feel like there's a lack of diversity in your school. Ask me a principle, why. I mean, like, fully, just do it. There's a really lovely interview that was done with a few different actresses, including Gina Rodriguez and Ellen Pompeo from Grey's Anatomy. Oh, and Gabrielle Union was there also, and she Ellen Pompeo talks about she, her husband is black and she's raising black children and so, even though she's white, she really advocates for the diversity of her, of her children's education, and so she'll go to principles and say why aren't there more black teachers. Like the school population here has black students, why aren't there black teachers here? And like that's something that parents can do. Or you know, just saying hey, why, how is this working? Or why isn't there this offered? Also supporting the teachers and trusting that teachers know what they're doing. And if you feel like something is wrong, then say something. If you feel like you know, if your kid comes home and says, oh, my teacher, I don't know, my teacher said this weird thing about how, like, women shouldn't be allowed to marry each other, and it like goes against God, oh, dude, email the principal. Be like, hey, this happened, I wanted addressed. So parents have a lot of power. Use the power for good. To students, I would say, to the best of your ability, advocate for better language. So what I mean by that is you have power, in a social setting, to use wonderful phrases that can stop Homophobic, transphobic, just bigoted language Things. Like you know somebody makes a comment and you say I didn't know, you thought that way stops them in their tracks, right? Or Huh, I didn't know, you felt comfortable saying that out loud. Oh, it blows up, it blows their mind. Um, that's something that you can do to advocate for more inclusivity and diversity and acceptance. And for other teachers I'm gonna talk specifically to my fellow secondary English teachers we have the beautiful ability to talk about anything in our classroom because as long as we're reading and writing, it doesn't matter what the topic is. Talk about these things. Talk about social issues, talk about Diversity. When you're teaching Shakespeare, teach about the fact that his most famous sonnet, sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day is probably about a dude like Shakespeare was super, not straight. Talk about that. Bring in positive, beautiful, joy and acceptance as examples. You know it's currently, as we're recording this, black history, black history months. Don't just sit there and teach about the horrible things. Teach about the beautiful things. We have so much power as English teachers to talk about whatever, and so if you're going to common lit or you know New ZLA and you're pulling out articles for your students to annotate, find cool things that let you have these fun conversations where you can encourage them to think more deeply about the world around them.

Speaker 1: 1:00:42

I love that. I love especially when you said it's black history month. Don't just teach about the bad things. One of my favorite Instagram handles to follow is black aristocracy, and it is basically just this group who goes through the history books and finds history books. Because, well, history.

Speaker 2: 1:01:03

Yeah, but.

Speaker 1: 1:01:05

Goes through art museums and goes through all these art catalogs and finds pictures of. Black people who were a part of the aristocracy for Centuries all over the place, and then they post them and they talk about the people and I think it is so interesting because the narrative is Oppression but there was also power happening on different parts of the planet and I think the more that we realize that that was going on, the easier it's gonna be to change that narrative. Like I have a student who has a sweat Jacket that says black is power, repeated on the back, and I'm just like Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:01:51

I feel like when we only teach the narrative of oppression, that that's the only thing that people, that's the only thing that white students know, so then they're gonna replicate that right, even if we teach them this is bad, if we only teach them this is bad. So I feel like, from what is bad, then that's the only model that they have. And so when we can invest time in talking about the power and the beauty of black communities, we spend time talking about the power and beauty of queer communities and of disabled communities and of Trans communities, of everything not that I'm excluding the from queer communities, but you know, we talk about the beauty and the power and the majesty and the growth and the support in these communities that gives especially students who are not in those communities the chance to go oh, that's how it can be done.

Speaker 1: 1:02:41

Yep, absolutely. Another thing you had said that I found really interesting is your conversation About how I compare thee to a summer's day, because the summer I had seen a play called born with teeth and it was a world premiere in Houston. And I think it was a world premiere, but either way it was in Houston, and it's about the Romantic and sexual relationship of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. Oh my god, it was brilliant, born with teeth Born with teeth. I will immediately be going to look for that it, honestly, was one of the favorite, my favorite, of the Straight plays that I've seen in my life.

Speaker 2: 1:03:29

Nice.

Speaker 1: 1:03:30

Alright. Well, thank you so much for spending the afternoon with me. It was a really fantastic conversation and I hope you enjoyed yourself on teaching one for you.

Speaker 2: 1:03:38

I did.

Speaker 1: 1:03:39

Thank you very much for having me, and thank you everyone at home who has tuned in or on your walk or wherever you are, and I hope you all have a great day as well. Bye, thank you for joining me for this week's episode of teaching while queer. If you haven't done so already, please consider Subscribing on your favorite RSS feed and sharing the podcast with your friends and family. New episodes will come out every other week during the school year. If you're interested in joining us on this teaching while queer podcast, please email us at teaching while queer podcast at gmailcom. Have a great day you.