A college professor comes out to her students.
A Friendly Face on Mysterious Gay America
I view my choice to come out to my students as a way to teach tolerance. It turns around our power dynamic: While I might "own" them for 14 weeks, affecting their fortunes with grades of A or D, as voting citizens these same 18-year-olds can support laws that would keep me out of the classroom forever. And that reality usually hasn't sunk in before I bring it up in the classroom. Few students today know about the ill-fated Briggs Initiative of 1978, which would have kept all gay teachers out of California schools. Similar proposals today, referenda that deny equal rights to gay and lesbian Americans, may not interest my heterosexual students -- unless they know that such sweeping, homophobic reforms might remove their favorite teacher from her chosen work. So I come out, putting a friendly face on mysterious Gay America.
"How many of you were smart students in high school, getting lots of letters from colleges interested in recruiting you?" I ask. Most hands go up; after all, they've been accepted here at Georgetown and GWU, competitive Eastern schools.
"Me, too," I tell them. "I was a National Merit finalist and had shoeboxes full of recruitment letters from prestigious colleges, talking about my future. Everyone seemed anxious for me to fulfill my potential, assuring me I was destined for greatness. I thought I was destined for greatness, too. But that same year, state and federal initiatives proposed that someone of my abilities should be kept out of the teaching profession."
This hits most students hard -- the reality that prejudice is wasteful of talent, of human resources. I continue, "As a gifted kid, I had these mixed messages to deal with when I left high school. One set of authorities told me I had important contributions to make for my country's future; and another set of voices -- the burgeoning Moral Majority, back then -- wanted me to have no role in influencing other people. Can you imagine how confusing that would be?"
Sure, they can imagine it. Many of them are struggling to come out themselves -- afraid their parents will throw them out and disown them, cut off the tuition payments they depend on for schooling. Maybe, up until now, they've really thought they were the first generation to struggle with these problems. But my story is theirs, too -- lived back in 1980.
I tell them I appeared on local talk shows to defend gay rights, though men in my own college told me I was "sick" and needed psychiatric counseling. I was out in college, out in graduate school, out as a professor since gaining my Ph.D. in 1989. I enjoyed the privileges of a generation of young scholars whose world included women's studies programs, the first gay studies courses, and university clauses protecting both students and faculty from discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Ivory Tower had been, for me, a liberal, protective, tolerant workplace. But Matthew Shepard's murder shook me awake -- reminding me of my gay students' constant vulnerability off campus and my own vulnerability to prejudiced attitudes.
"You Could Make That Difference"
"You know I care about you," I told my Western Civ students last fall. "I worry when you're absent, hope you don't abuse alcohol, listen when you're depressed. If someone tried to hurt you because of racial hatred, I'd be furious and take action. But what if I were targeted -- just because I'm gay? In some ways, you're more privileged than I am. You can marry, be assured of custody of your children, serve in the military, be Scout leaders, long after studying with me is past. I don't have those rights, by law. But you could make that difference."
When we start debating gay and lesbian rights, I have to still my instincts. It doesn't sit well with me to hear my rights debated, and it doesn't occur to some self-righteous students that their remarks basically defend keeping their professor in second-class citizenship. But has anyone made them connect the dots like this before? Knowing me, they get a chance to feel -- well -- tolerant. "Sure, I have a lesbian professor," they can boast. And a few begin to see that it might have been me pinned upon that cold fence in Wyoming.
After coming out to my students, I can usually count on several of them to risk coming out to me. The E-mail flies all week: "I was the only one in my town." "I was the first to bring another girl as my date to our high school prom." "I think you are so brave." "I want my Mom to meet you." E-mail makes discretion possible, for the frightened students still in the closet. But nothing beats my own visibility -- as a resource for both gay and straight students.
I tell them that I'm Jewish, too. With looks inherited largely from my Nordic surfer father, I can easily "pass" as both Gentile and straight. I tell my students that the ability to pass has simply made me a better witness: ignorant folk tell gay or Jewish "jokes" right to my face and are amazed when I inform them I'm insulted. Again, because I hold the power of the grading book, my students are deeply affected by the idea that anyone might diss the professor to her face. This candid assessment of the risks I, too, face in the Real World makes them see me differently.
Our Goals Remain the Same
Unless you can count on the support of your department chair and colleagues, coming out in the classroom isn't for everyone -- especially K-12 teachers, who bear the brunt of referenda launched by overly protective and/or fundamentalist PTA boards. What is remarkable about American education is its regionalism: few people blink at gay-tolerant curricula in Berkeley, but the fate of out teachers in Mormon-controlled Utah is a very different story. Western Massachusetts has been committed to greater gay tolerance; voter initiatives in the Pacific Northwest continue to call for bans on positive depictions of homosexuality in schools. It's wise for teachers thinking about coming out in the classroom to make sure they have legal and emotional support, from co-workers, local and state laws, family and friends. The junior high teacher sweating over a gay history lesson plan, thinking "I'm going to get fired for this" can seek support from GLSEN -- the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network -- but is in a different position than a professor at a private university.
Yet our goals remain the same: enlightening young people. We trade an hour of calculated risk for the chance to enlighten 30, or 300, teenage minds forever. In the future we will honor, as righteous martyrs, those who spoke the truth and lost their jobs.
Bonnie J. Morris teaches women's studies at both George Washington University and Georgetown University and is the author of five books, including the Lambda Literary Award finalist The Eden Built by Eves.
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