Armour

I worked with a guy once, he was nice enough, for a PE teacher.  Anyway, I swear he had no armour. He just came in as he was.  You know what I mean, normally you put your game face on, especially when going to work, even if it's somewhere you like.  You prepare yourself, you have a facade of some sort.  He just didn't do that.  He was a bit annoying, but it was all him.  Work didn't tire him, because he didn't waste energy projecting what he thought people should see.  I didn't particularly like or dislike him, but I really envied his ability not to put on a front.  It wasn't conscious, I don't think.  Being a straight white guy he didn't need to do anything more to fit in and not have people question him. But for me, someone who is so conscious of what people expect and the performance of the everyday, he was quite refreshing.  Almost enviable.

Queer colleagues

After my last post and comment, I got to thinking about working in schools with other queer staff, and I remembered something that happened about five years ago.

I started at this new school, got to know the staff etc.  Remember, I'm pretty readable as queer and I was out to whomever it came up with. There was one out dyke on staff, but she was pretty quiet and we didn't have a lot to do with each other, simply due to the nature of our different subjects etc.  After about six months I find out two of the female staff I worked with have been together for a few year.

Huh?

I had clocked one of them (A), but the other (B) I had no idea about.  Not only that, a lot of staff knew about it - they'd gotten together while they'd worked at the school and now lived together.  Sometimes they socialised with other  staff as a couple.  Awesome, right?

Not so.  They were in this limbo land of being out, but not really.  Like I said, a lot of people knew they were together, but they pretended really hard they weren't.  (Just to clarify, none of use were out to students, so when  I say out, I mean to other staff).  Eventually, I got to know them a little better.  This meant I started lending them copies of The L Word, because they had never heard of it (?!).  In this transactional/ gossipy exchange about now mutual friends (the cast) I noticed something strange.

Dyke A was embarrassed to be seen talking to me.  I had clocked her from the start, she was kinda out, but she was awkward about being seen talking me with me - a more visible dyke.  I thought perhaps she didn't like me, but she was fine when there was no one else round.  Nope, it was being associated with a higher level of dyke-ness.  And when we spoke about The L Word, we weren't screaming about it or anything.  Just a nice chat at the water cooler.

Suffice to say, the traffic in L Word stopped (they had caught up to my supply anyway) and conversation with A slowed.  Apart from a bizarre conversation with B about what Shane was doing by the pool in an episode, we had less and less to do with each other until they left the school (together.  To work at another school.  Together). It was kind of disappointing.  But what was really sad to me was them.  They were out, but not.  They were so scared and weird about it.  I'm by no means advocating being in or out of the closet here.  But they were both so uncomfortable the whole time, other people ended up feeling uncomfortable when they were near them.

Others

So, I ran my anti-homophobia session.  It went fine.What was strange was how one queer understood it.  I spoke to a woman about it, and she basically said she was sick of being the only queer in the room.  She’s seen as a lesbian, but she doesn’t identify as one, and all this talk of gay stuff is somewhat irritating to her.

Really?

Yep.  She, on a personal level, is sick of hearing about it and isn’t worried about being a queer teacher.What I got from this was interesting.  I ran the session for all teachers, of course.  But I did consider the gay/lesbian teachers and their 'situation'.  And I wanted to reach out to them.  I love finding community in odd places and banding together. I get a kick out of seeing other queer teachers in schools, and know that we represent in the oddest corners of the straightest places. And I guess I assumed they all felt this way.  That even without acknowledging it, we understood each other. Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe I’m the only one who seeks out my brethren in this way. Perhaps I focus too much on it, perhaps it’s too important to me.  But I really like that idea. Almost like there is a secret treasure in every new place, a sibling you have yet to find. Sometimes they’re hidden and others times they’re visible across a football field.  As one of the latter, I look for support/safety and comradeship where ever I end up.

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.