Being a Gay Teacher

Q: You’re one of Potomac’s openly gay teachers. How did you come out at Potomac, and did you have any hesitation about being out?

A: I had first come out to my students back in 2003 at a different school, where I later sponsored a middle school Gay-Straight Alliance, so I had some experience with being an openly gay teacher. I did have some initial hesitation about coming out at Potomac, but after speaking with many colleagues and administrators about it, I decided to come out publicly toward the end of my first year here. I invited each of my eighth grade sections to ask me whatever questions they had about sexual orientation in general or about my own journey as a gay man, and the discussions that day were enlightening and inspiring. Ever since, the entire community has been completely supportive.

Q: How do you strike a balance between promoting awareness of gay issues and avoiding the charge that you’re “shoving homosexuality in people’s faces”?

A: Well, the standard retort to the “shoving” charge is that we shove heterosexuality in people’s faces all the time; we just don’t recognize that we’re doing it.

Even so, as an educator I’ve come to understand that shoving anything in anyone’s face may raise awareness but ultimately does not support learning. People learn by becoming curious, asking their own authentic questions, and seeking out answers. So my in-school activism, if you can call it that, has focused on providing opportunities for kids to become curious about the topics of sexual orientation and gay rights.

I’ve tried to do this in a variety of ways. For example, my classroom wall prominently exhibits a poster I created featuring over one hundred famous LGBTQ people; it attracts visitors regularly and sparks great discussion. A few years ago, some colleagues and I helped a small group of kids organize a Day of Silence in the Intermediate School; they presented an assembly, and ultimately half the student body signed up to attempt to remain silent for a whole day in symbolic solidarity with “silenced” gay kids in schools across the country.

I also find opportunities to embed gay-related content into my academic lessons. Most people think of To Kill a Mockingbird as a book about racial justice, yet it’s just as much a book about a young tomboy who struggles to conform to the gender expectations of traditional Southern society, and it’s this angle that often leads to the most interesting analysis. Last year, a group of history students simulating the U.S. Congress proposed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage and ended up debating what the government’s policy should be regarding religions and businesses that oppose homosexuality.

Whenever gay issues come up, students become very engaged and involved because it’s not something they get a chance to discuss openly very often.

Q: What about the “It Gets Better” campaign that gained popularity recently? Does it actually get better, and how do students respond to that message?

A: It does indeed get better. Yet, to borrow a phrase from the previous question, if we shove the message in kids’ faces too forcefully, it backfires. They then see it as something adults hope they’ll buy into rather than something that’s authentic and true. The power of the “It Gets Better” campaign lies in the countless gay adults who have begun to tell their own stories, showing younger people through their examples, not just through their rhetoric, that the world is becoming increasingly welcoming to people who live their adolescence largely as outsiders. I try to do my part to communicate my own story to my students both directly and implicitly. For me, it started by inviting my students to ask me whatever questions they had…

Q: What have you learned about diversity and inclusion since coming out for the first time in 2003?

A: I’ve learned that diversity work is messy. It’s difficult, and anyone who thinks that all we have to do is be nice to one another, or look past each other’s differences, doesn’t get it. The hardest part is acknowledging that you don’t understand something. As a white guy, I can be deeply involved in conversations about race and gender but never be able to understand fully the experiences of women and people of color. Yet it’s still important for me to be involved in these conversations, just as it’s so important for straight people to engage in conversations about sexual orientation. Through this messy and difficult work, we become better at listening humbly, seeking out alternate perspectives, speaking up for ourselves and others, and critiquing the status quo, which often means advocating for changes to the school’s own policies and culture. This work empowers kids and adults to be the kind of complex, genuine, empathetic people our society needs.