Told in alternating voices...

It’s a Thursday night in late September. We gather for happy hour, some sipping un-spiked cokes and others, apple martinis, in a predominantly lesbian bar. We are a weary lot of New York City public school teachers and respective partners, representing grades 1, 2, and 3; a librarian, and a science cluster teacher. We don’t talk politics, or sex, or anything terribly exciting. Conversation buzzes around lesson planning, bulletin boards, problem students and the dreaded superintendent walk through. At some point, as the liquor flows more freely someone will say, “Is this what you imagined your elementary school teachers doing? Getting trashed at some crappy dyke bar on a school night?” This inevitably leads to a rattling off of the names of those spinster teachers, who, in retrospect, probably fit the profile.

As mentioned already in my introduction, I graduated from SLC in December of 2000 and immediately took a job here on staff. It seemed like a good idea at the time, it paid the bills, and it gave me a chance to think about what I really wanted to do with my life. (For the record, I’m still working on that one.) Perhaps it was the subway advertisements with the catchy slogans like: “Your spreadsheets won’t grow up to be doctors and lawyers” that seduced me; or perhaps it was that spirit of wanting to do something meaningful and purposeful in the world impressed upon me during those idyllic years spent at Sarah Lawrence – none the less, I applied and was accepted to the radical “New York City Teaching Fellows Program” where I was promised the tools to change the world. Yeah. I was placed in a fortress of an elementary school near Fordham in the Bronx, assigned to the educational giant that is Mercy College for my master’s work, and after a whirlwind six weeks of training, received my first batch of 30 third graders and a classroom infested with mice.

Like Lady M, I graduated from SLC and joined the New York City Teaching Fellows program, fully aware of what I was getting myself into. Two weeks after graduating, I reported to the Mercy College campus in Manhattan to begin my summer session. I was assigned to a group that was called MC1... essentially a group of soon-to-be teachers placed together based on the geographic location of their school. Teachers who would be in my school, or near my school, were part of my "Summer Group."
That summer group was, for all intents and purposes, a homeroom class- 21 people expected to function as a peers, supporters, therapists, consultants and confidants for one another throughout the insanely hectic and emotional first year of teaching. As the first weeks of the program wore on, a queer little group, so to speak, began to emerge. It turned out that, out of 21 of us, 7 were gay, lesbian or bisexual.

My cohort was far less colorful than Puck’s. My mentor was a gem (she single-handedly talked me out of quitting my post during that first prep period, my first day of school). The rest of my fellows group was comprised entirely of teachers from my school (there were 9 fellows hired that year, enough to initially make up a class). We would meet every week for a de-briefing. My mentor served as my professor. We were given the ongoing assignment of scribing “Moments that Matter” throughout our teaching days and sharing them in a fuzzy, therapeutic way during class (we actually got graduate credit for this!) With my colleagues, I was cordial, but decidedly closeted. I did the unthinkable. I spent the first months of school referring to Puck as my roommate. Roommate. It made my face flush every time I said it. I avoided social interactions. I was evasive and mysterious. It was hell. It wasn’t until the “G-word” surfaced in my classroom that I had the gumption to face the issue. One of my darlings had adopted “gay” as his all purpose slur. He used it at least a half a dozen times a day, everyday. This became a “Moment that Mattered.”

(Read Highlights)

While having a gay-old summer with my admittedly young, white, upper middle class, well educated liberal arts cronies, I was assigned to student teach for several weeks before the school year began. The cooperating teacher with whom I was to work was what they call in the NYC School system a "seasoned teacher..." namely, someone who is either over 40 or has stuck around for more than 5 years without injuring themselves, a child or an administrator. Ms. Diaz was both. Within minutes of entering her classroom, I was pretty sure that she too fell somewhere on the gay spectrum, but it took a full two months of daily interactions before my cooperating teacher conceded, through euphemism, that she too was "family," a phrase I would come to abhor with little actual reason. In a hushed lunchtime conversation, Ms. Diaz cautioned me against telling anyone, ANYONE at our school that I was, as she perpetually called it, "family," and was shocked that I had already, with little hesitation, outed myself to the retiring kindergarten teacher. "Don't you tell anyone else," she told me, quite fiercely, "Or else I'm not going to be spending any time with you. I don't want people to see you with me and think I'm like that too." Needless to say, I didn't take her advice, and I slowly came out to the majority of my floor- primarily other Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers. Ms. Diaz, for her part, did not stop spending time with me and even found herself letting her guard down a bit more with teachers she had already known for more than 4 years.

By the end of my third year of teaching third grade, only two people from my original cohort remained employed at the school. The rest had fled to the other schools, or other professions, sensing the impending burnout that accompanies teaching in the trenches. At this time I was out to a handful of my colleagues, particularly those who were “Teach for America” or New York City Teaching Fellows. My payroll secretary had become aware of my “situation” when I’d boldly asked for the UFT negotiated day off that I’m entitled to receive so that I may attend my “registered domestic partner’s” graduation. She suggested, “Why not just write that she’s your sister?” To my administrators, and even to the reading teacher who shared my classroom every day for a year, Puck was still my roommate. This was not a mistake that I would repeat. When I accepted a position at a suburban school in Westchester, I made the choice to be “out” to my colleagues, and to any other supervisory adult who happened to inquire. During my interview with the school superintendent, as we negotiated salary and discussed my benefits package, she asked – “Now will you be needing single coverage or family coverage?” Without missing a beat I asked – “That depends; do you have domestic partner benefits?”
While I consider myself “out” at work, there’s still a degree of discretion required for my job. As I later learned, a whopping 750 qualified candidates applied for the position I was hired for. It will take me another year before I am tenured – and tenure, in the suburbs, is serious business. Aside from the usual sycophantalism (if that’s a word) that is required from all tenure tracked teachers; I feel the added weight of my “out-ness.” I’m compelled to overachieve. While I know, technically, that I can’t be dismissed from my job or denied tenure based upon my sexual orientation, I feel that I can’t give them any other reason for letting me go. I’ve heard rumors in my school; about a pair of so-called lesbian teachers who were carrying on an illicit affaire the year before I was hired, how they were denied tenure and vanished (I think to Oregon). And then there’s the nearly decade old story of the middle-aged male teacher who’s mother had died, who’s partner had left him, and who was using the school computer to search a gay personals web sight. He was fired, days later, and his successor is now one of my dearest friends.

By the end of my 3rd year, I spoke freely about my relationship with Lady M to just about all the teachers on the first floor, and many other teachers throughout the building. She attended get together with me outside of class, came into my school to help organize my classroom and appeared once on the afternoon before a walk though to help me conquer the impossible task of bringing my learning environment up to code. She was a familiar face to most of my co-workers, though should my principal or AP stroll in she got introduced, jokingly, as the "hired help" or my "interior designer." They knew who she was. I knew they knew who she was. It was simply better left unsaid. Over the course of those three years, Ms. Diaz and I had a number of memorable conversations, ranging from veiled comments during professional development meetings about the extreamly attractive Australian consultant to a screaming match over the use of the word "queer." In the end, Ms. Diaz found herself far less guarded around our coworkers and had outed herself to a core group of 5 teachers, including myself. Last year, during the final week of school, Ms. Diaz called my classroom and insisted that I come and take over her students for a few minutes while mine were in science. I arrived to find her in tears, leaning against the doorframe, our principal across the hall, eyes fixed on the floor. Ms. Diaz left then, with her bag and jacket, and 10 minutes later a substitute arrived to cover her class for the remainder of the day. In the New York City Schools, holding back a child who has not met promotional criteria is next to impossible. It requires mountains of paperwork, leagues of documentation and undeniable proof that you did everything in your power to reach that child during the school year. By the end of the first week of school, a teacher needed to identify which students they believed would need to be retained and begin keeping copious notes on every interaction they had with a child. For one little boy in her class, Ms. Diaz had done just that. Charles's mother, however, did not agree that her son needed to repeat the first grade. After not showing up to any of the scheduled parent teacher conferences for the year, she arrived, unannounced in the principal's office after receiving word that her child's promotion was denied. Ms. Diaz, who lived in the same community where we taught, happened to also live on the same block as Charles and his mother. Ms. Diaz, the parent informed the principal, lived with another woman who looked like a man. She was not going to let this dyke prevent her son from being promoted if she had to go to herself to the superintendent and explain to the superintendent just what kind of people we have working at our school This year, Charles is in the second grade. I am fully aware that race, class and age play largely into the way that this situation was handled. For the 22 years that Ms. Diaz was a teacher before I arrived at our school, she was completely closeted, out not even to the teacher with whom she had worked and been close friends for 4 years. She had worked, in a way, to be rise above her status as a single, older, working class Latino woman; bringing her sexuality into the workplace had not even been a consideration. She was not about to let it ruin her career any further by resisting what was quite clearly this attempt at blackmail by a vengeful parent. She wanted it to be over with as quickly and quietly as possible- and I honestly can't blame her. I'm also aware that it is primarily a class advantage that prevented me from finding myself in the same situation. By grace of my race, age, background and education, I was not living in down the street from any of my students, and able to conduct myself as I saw fit in the privacy of my own community. Similarly, the grace of my race, age, background and education would have allowed me to stand up to the accusations with little fear of reprisal.


A certain degree of discretion is required for this job – no matter how “out” you are. I’m not in a place right now where I feel comfortable discussing my sexual orientation with parents. It was hard enough coming out to my own parents, I don’t feel it necessary to come out to my students’ parents. Granted, the occasion hasn’t come up – if a parent were to ask me directly, of course, I wouldn’t lie. As teachers, we’re highly visible members of the community. I run into parents at Whole Foods, at CVS, even at the beach. I don’t make any dramatic introductions. In fact, Puck has been known to scamper off before the opportunity for an introduction presents itself.


I must admit, that I avoid formal work-related bring your significant other events – I joke to my colleagues: Maybe next year, when I’m tenured. But the truth is that such events tend to exceed my comfort level regardless. While I contribute to my school’s “Sunshine Club,” (Sunshine is a teacher funded group that throws wedding and baby showers and sends flowers to teachers in the hospital and that sort of thing), that fact is, that I am quite sure that some sort “Civil Union” party for me, down the line, would be all but out of the question.

Student questions are a never ending source of amusement. After changing schools this year, I returned to my old school to visit with teachers and students for the day and the first question any of my former 1st graders asked me was, "Ms. O, you got yourself a man?" "Ms. O, why do you wear that ring if you're not married?" "Ms. O, do you cook dinner for your husband?" "Ms. O, can two girls get married?" "Ms. O, why don't you get have a boyfriend or kids?" "Ms. O, who gave you that marrying ring?" "Ms. C, are you a tomboy?" "Ms. C, why don't you like to shop?" Answering student inquiries into my personal life is a double edged sword. You do not want to discourage students from connecting with their teacher, from exhibiting their natural curiosity or make them suspicious of your answers, though, at the same time, you don't, as an educator, want to our yourself to a roomful of 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 year olds. So how do I reconcile my queer persona with my teacher persona? Like all other gay teachers I know, somewhere in my classroom is a bulletin board outlined with rainbow boarders. Gender inclusive language and a lack of gender stereotyping and classification are omnipresent in our classrooms. I don't have a boys line and a girls line. I don't tell students to take their work home to their mom. Books that we read aloud, particularly during the ever-popular elementary school "Family Unit" are inclusive and depict children from same sex families along side children from every other familiar make-up I can find in a book. Purple crayons are given to boys and when some project does necessitate the division of students along gender lines (as many elementary math programs tend to do) they are not assigned to use the common gender-associated colors of pink and blue. Working with older children, Lady M's read alouds include strong female characters like Charlotte Doyle and Elizabeth Blackwell and she has the opportunity to get into the nitty gritty of why genders receive certain stereotypes and what students can do to work against them. And yes. Students are told that in some places, two girls CAN get married. As Lady M mentioned earlier, one of the most maddening aspects of teaching can be confronting students who use what is commonly called the "g-word," much like the "f-word" the "s-word" and the "b-word." Many, many teachers respond simply with, "That's a bad word. I don't want to hear it." For obvious reasons, I've taken a different route. I've started with students as young as first grade, discussing the idea that "gay," in and of itself, is not a bad word or a bad thing to be. What is bad, I have intoned over and over again, is when you use any word, be in gay, hamburger or lampshade, as a teasing or name calling word to make another person feel bad.