Each year, the school I teach in has a Day of Dialogue to discuss LGBT issues. I usually get asked to speak, as an out teacher on the faculty. I always feel a little ambivalent about it. This is what I am thinking of saying this year.
I never know what to say at these assemblies. You put a teacher in front of students and he thinks he has to give a lesson, or share some wisdom. I’m not sure I have a logical lesson to share today.
Each year at these events, I think I’m supposed to be some sort of gay role model. I hear my colleagues introduce themselves, and they almost all tell the number of years they have been with their partner. “I’m gay, and I’ve been with my partner 16 years!” “I’m a lesbian and I married my partner last summer and we have two kids.” Thunderous applause. We all (including me) love to cheer our friends and teachers who have loving supportive relationships and/or families.
Then it’s my turn. “I’m gay, too . . . I’ve got a cat?” Courtesy applause. With no husband, no partner, no engagement ring, no kids, I wonder what kind of gay role model I turned out to be.
When I was in HS, out gays and lesbians were much more on the edges. They had fewer legal rights, fewer community resources, and less mainstream acceptance. They were carving out their spaces in society, sometimes in traditional, but oftentimes in nontraditional ways.
In the last 30 years, Gays Lesbians Bisexuals and Transgender people have worked hard to get a place at the mainstream table. Now, some of us join the military and others send our kids to schools like Brookline High. We pay taxes, we work “normal” jobs, and we fit in. We’ve come a long way, baby. But I wondered if we were trying to hard to fit in. We are just like everyone else, right? We’re NORMAL!
I got so paranoid about this, that one year I imagined my colleagues were saying “I’m gay, BUT I’ve been with my partner for 16 years.” Or “I’m a lesbian, BUT I married my partner last year and we have two kids.” I imagined that we whitewashed our difference and emphasized how we were like straight society- we have partners! We have families! Look, we’re just like you!
But coming out as gay and lesbian also involved saying- guess what? I’m not like you, and that’s ok. I’m going “to do me”, thank you very much.
And “doing me” may mean different things. It may mean living on your own or finding a life partner or several life partners, simultaneously or one at time. It may mean raising children or not. Maybe it will mean owning hundreds of cats! But it doesn’t have to look one certain way; there are lots of ways to do it. Sometimes I want to take the mike at these assemblies and say, “You don’t have to get married. You don’t have to raise children. It’s ok to live differently.” It’s ok to be whatever you end up being.
Time for a true confession- When I was your age, I thought I would be married and raising children at this point in my life. I’m not. It may happen; it may not. I don’t know. It’s possible what makes me uncomfortable when my colleagues talk about their partners and families isn’t that we’re appearing too normal. It might be jealousy. I know part of me wants what they have.
But part of me doesn’t, or I probably would have gotten it for myself by now. I know it’s complicated, and my explanation is a little messy. Sorry. I told you I didn’t have a clear lesson for today.
Do you, whatever that means. Figure out what kind of life works for you, and live it
