I was standing in a crowded Tramps as Miss Patty Melt was busy tossing tortillas around the bar during her rendition of some song involving them. It was back in the days of shoulder to shoulder audiences, and Patty was a draw. I turned to reorder a drink and, as I did so, the patron next to me did the same, but, rather than looking into the eyes of the one whom the cosmos meant me to be with, I was facing an assistant superintendent of the school system in which I had recently begun to work.

I was recently arrived from Los Angeles where Gay Activism had me mixing with all kinds of people in Gay bars with little surprise, although sometimes a won bet, but this was Oklahoma City, and reactions were a little more protective. I had not seen the shocked look I saw on his face for quite some time and, being familiar with it, knew to respond appropriately to someone whose closet door had just been ripped off.

 Up until that point, the bar, apparently, had been a safe space for the man but with it  being a little naive most likely due somewhat to an unrealistic assumption that being the only Gay person you knew it meant there would be no one in a Ga bar who might know you, and I instantly assured him that If I saw him there, he saw me there as well and, according to the attitude at the time, we both would suffer if we told on the other. How would either of us know the other had been there if we had not been there myself?

I had yet to begin my advocacy so I was a non-person, inconsequential, and equal vulnerable. I immediately pointed him out discreetly to a friend to have a witness that he had been if he were to take any action against me in a panicky attempt at self defense by offense.

As I was walking through the central administration building and he and I passed in the hall, he called me into his office. We spoke of the awkward moment, I filled him in on my activism vitae assuring him his secret was safe with me unless he did something bone-hearded. In exchange he informed me that by his estimate at least one quarter of the school district’s personnel throughout the system were Gay and Lesbian but had to remain quiet about it. They survived in the system by playing along as he did.

I understood their need for the closet in the Buckle of the Bible Belt and that they were, in a sense, role models for the Gay and Lesbian students who figured it out while contrarily supporting the idea that there was something wrong with being Gay ot Lesbian if, in order to be that, you had to be secret and only become known to those who needed them as such by accidental discovery. 

Interestingly, although during the advocacy I got a lot of secret and invisible thumbs up, but little if any actual support going beyond the subtle.

I have mentioned before that there had been some initial reluctance to hold any meeting to discuss the inclusion of Gay kids in school district policy and it was made clear right away that while discussing the needs of other students was educational the same for Gay kids was political. 

At the meeting finally called by a different deputy superintendent than the one from the bar at the insistence of the local Union President who understood the importance of inclusion, this was stated by the deputy at the meeting when he admitted that after hearing the facts and the results of studies and reports that he had originally allowed the meeting just to get it over with but had learned that when it came to the Gay kids it was educational too.

He pointed out that he was a fat, Italian kid from New Jersey who was bullied for being “big boned” and always had his immigrant mother ready with some comfort food that really was not helpful. He realized when he had cried to his mother, unlike many Gay kids, he was not rejected even if the sign of acceptance was unhealthy. He saw how his being pushed away by his mother when he needed her the most might be how it is for Gay kids. He saw the horror in that.

A few days after this meeting, as I was again in the central office building, this deputy superintendent handed me a hard copy file of a court case from 1985 that was little known but which made it illegal to fire a teacher merely because they were Gay but, like a Heterosexual teacher, could be for defined moral turpitude under which definition being Gay did not fall. He was confused why the many Gay employees continued to ignore this ruling upon which I relied heavily for protection and cited often in future district actions and in the District Court case.

He went from a definite knee-jerk ‘no” to the original request for in-services for teachersabou he existence and needs of Ga Sudens to slipping me a paper I wasn’ meant to have before moving on to being a highly respected superintendent in Texas where he was conscious of diversity in that district.

Just before students returned each year, the school district’s legal department went over the most recent court rulings that might have a bearing on the upcoming school year with district administrators. I had been called to the district’s legal department who wanted to see some documents I had, and when we finished with that matter the attorney handed me some legal papers. 

A case had been filed by a student in Fayetteville, Arkansas, that had extended Title IX sexual harassment protection to Gay students. There was a legal ruling relevant to inclusion. 

In the case of Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services Inc., the Supreme Court made same-sex sexual harassment suits possible. If the district was to enjoy any protection in relevant cases, blissful ignorance would have been its only defense which it lost when the attorney did her summary of applicable case law.

Along with the reports and studies I continued to supply to the Board, I had included a press release about the case of Jamie Nabozny from Wisconsin who had successfully sued his local school district because nothing was done about the verbal and physical harassment he constantly faced as a Gay teen in school. In my correspondence throughout the previous year, as well in future ones, I reminded the district about the possible litigation that a student could initiate against the district if it insisted on doing nothing.

These rulings bolstered my case and gave me strength, and they were papers that would normally be filed away somewhere out of sight of teachers, yet I had them and would use them all the way to the District Court case.

I was approached initially by Joyce, an administrator in charge of the Minority Student Affairs office and known to many people the world over without them knowing it. In high school she had been at a civil rights rally in Oklahoma City and is seen in one of the many grainy, B&W stock films of the protests and law enforcement’s treatment of protesters as she is being dragged away by a police dog. She showed me the teeth marks on her arm. I would thereafter burden her with my dropping in and unloading with her patiently encouraging me and, by comparing notes, gave me strength.

She introduced me to Clara Luper with whom I remind a friend

Unbeknownst to the administrators who were attempting what they thought was a clever use of information had no idea that I was being supplied information and encouragement from within and this also led to information from without.

Because of these court rulings, teachers were informed verbally in 1998 by yet another deputy superintendent who, unfortunately, was an extremely Gay-presenting heterosexual who was obviously bothered by this confusion,

“Recently there have been same-sex sexual harassment complaints. And, more and more we have to realize that among our children there are some of them who have not determined, fully, their sexuality, and there are some of our children that may be Gay. Regardless of what

you think, let me tell you one thing that is an imperative. Those children must be protected. If we don’t pay attention and protect those children we are in violation of their rights under Title IX, and we could be liable.”

Although this was said vocally, it would take another eleven years of fighting before Gay students were protected in writing and the importance of writing it down was clearly illustrated when my principal, who had not been at our school’s in-serv9ice when this was said, explained as he had not been there and did not hear it, he had no proof it was said, and denying it’s having been said,  would only honor it if it were in writing regardless how many people I could have come to him and say they, too, had heard the statement.

By a certain point, from Gaydar mainly, I became aware of who many of the Gay and Lesbian administrators were, but none ever stepped forward to support me in any visible way, and this became a tool for those objecting to inclusive language because the play-along-to-get-along attitude ran deep in the system.

The most supportive people from the beginning and throughout the advocacy while in the district had been four Heterosexuals in positions of power, five counting the Union Prsesident, with no Gays or Lesbians in similar positions visible. They may have been supportive over the dinner and cocktails to which I was not invited, but none ever spoke before the board at meetings, voluntarily attended any meetings, or spoke out in any situation until the goal had been reached and they wanted to let people know they had been there all along when in reality they hadn’t.

The condition of the insulting and demeaning tolerance was so ingrained in the system that the visible or verbal support was so lacking from the Gay and Lesbian administrators that it was seen as evidence that I was out of touch as things certainly did not bother the Gays and Lesbians already known in the system, usually administrators unwilling to take the chance of losing the high paying job. I was even accused officially at a meeting of not looking Gay and was most likely a political operative attempting to create a political issue just to cause trouble.

At my school there was an openly-secret Gay teacher who was used as a counterpoint as he was a “Good Gay” man who knew his place and was no militant. An open acknowledgement was considered militancy.

The belief was that my advocacy was out of place because none of the Gay and Lesbian administrators were speaking out and this belief was clearly illustrated when the principal, desperate to prove this point, brought a woman over to the school with whom he had worked as a vice-principal at the school where he been before being assigned principal at this one, and she, being a cooperative Lesbian kept her job because she allowed herself to be controlled as an open secret whose denial prevented waves kept her in the job and career is he could have lost if she did not keep her place.

This is the vice-principal who stated to me in her office,  while neither of us was aware that another teacher was standing by the open door waiting her turn to enter to deal with her own business, that “there are no Gay kids in highschool. They experiment sexually and then settle down one way or the other when they get older.”

The principal had his ally and he assigned her to be the person in charge of all the nonexistent Gay students and the information that was given out based on her and his beliefs

Since no school district would admit that No Child Left Behind was a scam but they all fell over each other to show America that they were in total control of a system based on smoke and mirrors and so had no actual substance to grasp with the universal solution to all education problems, those invented by politicians as they ignored the reality oi the classroom, the Oklahoma City Public School hired someone from Texas to be superintendent who brought with him a number of Texas administrator, all of whom left in a short time as applying the scam with the same fervor that made it seem to work in Texas. 

It was obvious that the superintendent wanted a friend in the principal chair and, while squeezing out the principal, he did allow him to bring a new assistant principal over from the school where I had worked with her and had been a friend both at school and socially. As a Lesbian perhaps, she could offset the one who denied the existence of Gay kids in high school. It was clear that while one was less competent than the other, both hoped to get the Principal slot and vied with each other to get it. One sought it by always backing the homophobic principal but that was not the best approach. The other got it because she was the better person and I was glad of that because she was open minded and open enough to offset the machinations of the other and add to the progress we were making.

She would have made a better principal had she, having gotten the position, stayed true to herself and had not played some of the games she employed to secure his position and move further away from the classroom where the real money is.  

There are documents on file at the University of Central Oklahoma that contain emails I received from both about each other revealing the competition and how the advocacy to add inclusive language in school policies was playing into that when both found treating it like a tool for them to use against each other, to hell with the kids. They wanted the job, the prestige, and the money.

At a meeting when the future victor was sitting in for the Texas principal who was on a medical leave for a week or two, I was asked by her to remove something from the Union bulletin board that she decided was negative information about the School Board during contract negotiations.  The bulletin board belongs to the Union by contract and over which principals had no control as they were no part of the bargaining units involved. It would really make her look good if I, as a friend, would betray my union members on campus so she could impress the principal and get the job because she showed she was a team player, backed their homophobia, and she was the one who got things done while the other merely complained a lot.

She wanted me to do it as a friend, and I had to explain that a friend, especially one who knew my dedication as a union representative who had once successfully represented her when she had a contract related problem in the past, would have never asked me to do that for that reason.

Times were changing but the district leadership was stuck somewhere in the past, and, as this inclusion thing was becoming more uncomfortable, if the message could not be stopped on its own, it might end if the messenger was eliminated. Thus began the process of having me dismissed from my job.

They wanted to do this right, so, going over the head of their inhouse legal department the district began to spend thousands of dollars on a private firm whose draw was that the situation would be handled by a Lesbian at the firm and, from phrases used by the administrator who evaluated me, she was directing them to create the case she could win. By this time I had been representing Grievances to close to quarter of a century and was familiar with a lot of the legal lingo that would simply be legal jargon to the people I was dealing with so their constant refusals to answer substantive questions that could not be safely answered with smoke and mirrors became “Asked and answered” followed by silence or a question to me as if I had npt asked one.

“Did Trump win the 2020 elections?”
“Asked and answered.”

As became clear at the eventual Circuit court trial, they should have at least formulated answers as that response did not please the judge when exercises before her bench.

I marched in my last OKC Pride Parade as the Gay teacher the year after I left the district but before heading back East. Two former students came from the spectators apologizing for what role they might have played in what happened surrounding the whole dismissal business. They had been students in my class and were burgeoning Lesbians at the time and they knew the principal was one too. She had also been a phys. ed. teacher and coach and these girls, being athletes, saw her as a role model and hat is who they would report to on my actions and words used in the classroom as because, as was explained to them,while this principal and the district were working to make schools better than they were, I was obstructing that and if I was found to be worthy of dismissal and eliminated, progress would be made. Assuming they were on the side of right, they would report things to the principal and get friends to also report. and would create situations that would put me in difficult to handle situations so they could do what they assumed was the correct and moral thing to do for the greater good.

It was only when they went to community college and mixed with kids from the other city high schools and mentioned my name, that they learned from those kids what had actually gone on and how they had been used.

Although I accepted their apologies, because of the realities of high school and adult machinations, I let them know they were not at fault for being used for the selfish benefit of an authority figure while not only getting nothing in return but preventing anyone like themselves from any benefit.

They were used against themselves.

During the advocacy, in spite of the deputy superintendents statement of the number of Gay and Lesbian administrators, no such administrators helped beyond allegedly invisible moral support. While two Lesbian administrators were obstructing any progress and were joined by a third using her law firm to end the advocacy for including the Gay kids openly in school policies on bullying, harassment and nondiscrimination, the rest of the gays and Lesbians in the syrem who could have been effective for the sake of the kids did nothing. They continued to play their roles.  

Meanwhile, straight people in the central office were slipping me legal documents, and assembling the case that reinstated me to my position and got the inclusive language while Mary, Mona, and Jaqueline did what they could to deny the kids their rights so as to get a promotion and a big payoff for the law firm.

The kids got their rights and the district had to pay the lawyers for their services and the Union’s legal bills when I won my case.

For most of the twelve years from the first request for attention to the existence and needs of Gay students in the district, the addition of the words “Sexual Orientation” and”Gender Identity” into district policies, and my dismissal and reinstatement.

The consistent and supportive people were the Straight ones. Obstruction came overtly and covertly from within ourselves and they had no problem costing the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars to impress in order to get a higher paying position and to prevent the students from getting the protections afforded to all other kids. I know how much these three worked to prevent the inclusive language for their personal advantage because, as the main plaintiff in the Trial de Novo, I had to sign over the settlement and Union court cost checks.

This is GLBT History Month and not all of our history Is good if we are as honest about ourselves as we want others to be.

This is sad history.

.

.

.

.

.