SOME GAY HISTORY
History, for many, is what has happened in the distant past, but, in reality, is not really always all that far away.
It was 2001. In some places, like Massachusetts, New York, and California, it was history, while in Oklahoma it was a current event.
It was the beginning of the Twenty-First Century and, along with jet packs and flying cars, we were supposed to be at the point of humanity’s maturity reflected in what we thought would be the dated progressive ideas on Star Trek. It should have been a time when no student would feel unsafe at school because they were harassed and bullied by students acting on misinformation that could be dispelled with facts and an inclusive educational environment.
I was sitting in the principal’s office as he denied that the school gave advantages to Straight kids. He had just finished forbidding me under pain of charges of insubordination leading to possible dismissal from putting anything in my classroom that was identifiably Gay whether it was a poster, book, or any information that might point out that something or someone in the curriculum was Gay.
If Gay students wanted affirming and positive information, they could go to places off campus, unlike the straight kids who could get information on campus from teachers, the library, the internet, or the school traditions. He had forbidden me from “advocating”, which at the time meant making positive information available to Gay students and their friends that countered the popular misconceptions while telling me I had become a caricature. Unlike the Gay teachers who were not known to be Gay, I didn‘t know how to behave and not force Gay on people. I was too open, and he wanted me to know that some teachers, after all, did not like my openness, and some kids laughed at me because I was Gay.
The good Gay teachers were the silent and unknown ones?
I felt he was attempting to shame me back into the closet.
He countered my pointing out that we had school activities that promoted the “heterosexual model” by explaining that a Gay male could always be Homecoming King, and a Lesbian could be the Queen, they would just look like a heterosexual couple. He did not see that their participation meant they had to look heterosexual and hide themselves or had to play the role of straight kid to survive and be able to enter a contest where people would be choosing a fantasy for either role while the reality hid. All the announcements and procedures for nominating the candidates called for a girl for Queen and a boy for King. I suggested that instead of being directed to choose a male and female as candidate for Homecoming and Prom Royalty, the students, instead, be instructed to pick a student for each. If the majority chose a heterosexual model, that was their choice, a choice essentially eliminated by the very directions for nominations. If they chose same sex royalty, perhaps that would reveal the students’ attitudes do not follow the mindset of the powers that be.
The students would choose according to their tastes.
His explanation for why it was done the way it was, was simple and dismissive of many of the students under his care and that of those who shared his attitude. It was done that way because that was just how it was; just the way the world was—Male and Female.
I tried to explain that, as he was heterosexual, he took things for granted, whereas the Gay students were denied information and role models that he didn‘t necessarily need, but they did. He continued to deny that we regularly celebrated heterosexuality while closeting Gay information even as the school promoted Homecoming and Prom Royalty as well as the annual Best Couple contest. If a straight man had successfully impregnated a female teacher, we had a party and gave gifts. When a student got pregnant modifications were routinely made to accommodate this condition. If I put up a Gay positive poster, the poster came down or mysteriously disappeared, and I got reprimanded because somehow sex was involved.
In one of his more annoying non-sequiturs, he compared the “divisiveness” of my advocacy for Gay students to bringing pro-life and pro-choice debates into the classroom.
The State Standards for the Conduct and Performance of Teachers in Oklahoma stated,
“The teacher shall not on the basis of [among other characteristics including]…..sexual orientation grant any advantage to any student” .
If we had so many heterosexually modeled programs; if heterosexual students could get affirming information on campus from the library, teachers, and the school internet system, while the Gay students were told they needed to go off campus for similarly relevant information for themselves; if students could not access any Gay information from that same internet system because the filter used by the district labeled anything Gay related as “sex”, “in poor taste”, “sexual in nature”, or simply “of Gay and Lesbian interest”; and if only one teacher out of eighty-six teachers at the school made any self- affirming information available and was silenced for doing it either by a reprimand or threat of termination, it would appear that the straight students had an advantage because of their sexual orientation.
In light of this and the principal’s forbidding for the Gay students what he took for granted for himself and those like him while holding me to also give this advantage under what was clearly a threat to employment, we were in violation of those standards. To my way of thinking I was clearly being threatened continually for simply following the State Standards, and this was confusing to someone who had continually been reprimanded for not following policies.
The fact that this meeting had taken place before any students had reported to school for the year, or I had hung anything in the classroom to which I had been assigned made it appear to be his warning shot across the bow.
This may have been an attitude universally held by many in charge of school systems in the past, but it was only 20 years ago and, in this case, would take 8 more years to right the wrong.
History is not always way in the past.
.
.
.
.
.
.
