Homophobia. Again.

So my background is in anti-homophobia education and now I work training teachers.  Oddly enough, I don’t talk much about my old work, often because it’s not relevant, and often because it requires coming out all over again. While I am by no means in the closet, it’s feasible I’m not (explicitly) out to some of the teachers I work with.  Which is fine.

Until I actually have to come out.  So now I am running an anti-homophobia workshop and feel like a teenager all over again.  I have to explicitly come out and talk about what got me into education and how I now have something to teach you.

It’s awkward on two fronts.  One is coming out and talking about sexuality in general.  Everyone shuffles, even if they’re ok with it.  Sometimes I think I even shuffle a bit.  The second part is being ‘an expert’.  Potentially in something others feel weird about.  I'll let you know how it goes..

Musings from the back row

I was in a science class the other day, and the kids were in various stages of an experiment.  Some of the boys were lounging, waiting for their thingy to boil (note: I am not a science teacher).  The girls were chatting too.  All very lovely.

Now in Australia, most students wear uniforms.  No big deal.  Girls have a dress in summer and shirt and skirt in winter.  Boys have long or short sleeve shirt (sometimes a t-shirt) and pants. Most schools give girls the option of pants, but less than 1% take up the offer.  It’s just not done.*

So looking round I saw these boys in shorts and a t-shirt, and the girls in dresses, and I got mad all over again. Of course I wore the same in high school and while I hated it, it was just what you do**.  But I can see teenagers already so well versed in the way they hold themselves so differently and have such different concepts of personal space.  Even in the supremely awkward stages of adolescence, they have their gender performance down pat.  The boys are slouching and taking up space and the girls are perching and limiting themselves.  Even the weird, shy kids (I say this with love as one of them) perform the gender stuff unthinkingly, because they’re so well trained.  Some are less trained in personal hygiene or fashion, but they know what their gender should and shouldn’t do.

And they knew that WAY better than they knew the science-y thingy they were supposed to be learning.

*A quick fashion segue – the pants are often just the boys’ pants, or the most ugly cut of pants possible.  Sure, the summer dress is just a cotton sack, but at least all shapes and stages of development can pull it off.  The pants they offer girls would make Cindy Crawford look lumpy and Marilyn Monroe look dumpy.  Even a butch would look girly in them.  I don’t know how they do it, but they make every clothing option for girls truly awful.

**Until you leave high school and swear never to wear a dress again and burn all your school uniforms on the last day, cackling and realising it is about to get sooo much better.  Or something like that.

Newbies

I get a bunch of new teachers soon, as the school year approaches.  Bright eyed fresh faced.  I feel young for my job, and I look different.  I spend so much time thinking about that fact, that I think I make it harder for myself.  If only I could let that go, walk into the room unencumbered by my own preconceptions I would be so light.  Free.  And no doubt better at my job.

Teachable moments

I think, perhaps, I’m getting immune to it all.  The other day I was in a class, helping out and a student asked ‘what’s he doing here’.  It wasn’t calculated, it was just a suburban kid making assumptions.  Perhaps for this reason, I didn’t flinch, I just ignored the pronoun and explained what I was doing.  Thankfully the teacher also took it in her stride.  I don’t know if the boy worked it out or not.  We just got on with the class. I could have missed a teachable moment.  But the most important thing for me was that I missed an awkward moment. 

What is homophobia when it's not homophobia?

I work in schools, but I don’t work for them.  I with a team of others who also go into schools, and work with teachers. We meet semi-regularity, and this is what happened last time we met.

It’s never come up before, but one of the teachers we worked with was worried about starting at a news school as a gay guy.  There was some discussion as to what the legal issues were (you can be out, but you have to be appropriate.  Usual vagaries that could protect or screw you, depending on who’s in power).  A senior staff member on this point said.:

“It’s ok (then she screws up her nose) as long as you don’t mention it to the kids”.  Because then you will contaminate their pure minds and recruit them like the deviant you are.

Before I rant, a disclaimer: I don’t get along overly well with this person.  And secondly, I have a post grad thesis with a focus on lesbian and gay teachers experiences in heteronormative environments.  I therefore feel superior in many ways.

That aside, she raises a common trope as well as my ire. She wouldn’t consider herself a homophobe and many observers would not either.  And what she said isn’t – there is no way I could call that homophobic to my HR department without looking like a hyper sensitive queer.  BUT.  But.  What she was implying was the ‘lesser than’ argument.  Or as I like to call it, the borrowed time implication.  For my mind, she may as well have said you are here and that’s fine, but it’s by my good grace, not your own natural humanity and inherent value as a member of society.

It (clearly) enrages me.  The lip curl.  The distain.  The inability to comprehend others difficulty.  This poor guy. He’s going into a straight, white environment.  And he is neither.  And this straight white woman is dismissive of him, and his queer brothers and sisters.  And she’s dismissive because she can be.

That was nearly the end of the conversation.  I said his concerns were valid, everyone nodded sagely.  We've come this far at least - perhaps 10 years ago it would have been a different response, or the issue would not have been raised. But now the overt homophobia is gone, and only it's sneak insidious silent cousin remains.

Jewish butches

It was Jewish New Year the other week, so I did the right thing and went to synagogue.  I ended up going with some Jewish dykes I know.  We made a day of it, as much as you can. 

Despite not being particularly connected to the community, I still knew a few people.  Most don’t recognise me.  Or perhaps I don’t recognise them. An awkward nod seems enough, anyway.  I dressed in work clothes – nice pants, nice shirt, pretty straight forward.  I got introduced to a few people by my friends, one being 80. We had a nice chat about the service, the rabbi and the weather. No confusion on her face, no drama, just an opportunity to have a nice chat. The reason there was no confusion, as it turns out, is because she thought I was a lovely young man. 

At least I have manners, no matter the gender.

Airports

Beyond my gender struggles in schools, I also have a problem with airports.  I like them – all full of possibility and potential.  They don’t like me so much, or at least the security team doesn’t.  I get stopped every single time.  I made a mini bet on my last overseas trip that I would be stopped at every one of the ten or so airports we’d be passing though…and I missed it by one. And that was only because the woman in front of me was arrested for drug trafficking and was being cuffed, so they didn’t look too closely at me.

Why?  I really don’t know.  As mentioned, I’m not the most feminine of women.  Do I look like a ‘terrorist’?  I really don’t know what that means anyway, but I don’t think I fit the profile.  Regardless, I have better conspiracy theory.

In August of 2001 I went on my big, post uni round the world trip, and found myself in Canada on September 11.  Ten days later, as scheduled prior to world events, I was due to fly to New York City.  Air space was reopened in time, and off I went.  Well, by then security had changed and was in a scramble to change even more. Everyone was getting looked at twice, and people were pretty jumpy.  I went to check in Vancouver in their special Canada to USA section and handed my ticket to the woman, then my passport.

It took one glance at the ticket, before the passport.  The ticket had my (quite girly) name.  The woman glanced at my not so girly 21 year old butch/ teenage boy traveller look, and the oh so close to the surface alarm bells went nuts.  She grabbed my passport, she double checked me, she got my hat and shoes off in a heart beat (for those of you who remember, this was unheard of pre-2001) and then got security and went through my gear etc etc.

Where is the conspiracy?  I’m convinced they tagged my passport from that in some way.  It was brand new, so for the following ten years of my intrepid 20’s, I was frisked, patted down, glared at, stared at and generally given a hard time in every airport I set foot in.

Then again, it happens here domestically, where I don’t need my passport, so perhaps I am being a little paranoid.  Then again, perhaps I just inspire paranoia in those who work in airport security.