thoughts on national coming out day

an unedited ramble. With student names changed.

I taught a literature class at Louisiana State University this summer. As I chose readings and wrote my syllabus, I had the same two things on my mind that I always consider when planning a class: first, what are the most enriching and potentially transformative texts I can put in front of students? And second, how can I be utterly certain that I am not pushing a personal or political agenda? I guess all the talk of the liberal academy has got under my skin, probably because it’s not nonsense. For this reason, I hesitated before assigning Gloria Naylor’s story, “The Two.” It’s a beautiful, thoughtful and powerful text, but it is also clearly about the persecution of lesbians by everyone from outwardly violent young men to “harmless” old gossiping women.

When I began teaching, in 2000, I was even more paranoid. I wouldn’t say I tried to conceal the fact that I am a lesbian-- that would be a pretty impossible task; the dyke runs very deep in me, for some reason--but I came pretty close. I bought a wardrobe that was entirely uncharacteristic: long skirts, women’s shoes, blouses. I grew my hair longer than it had been in decades and I wore a little bit of makeup. All of these things were not only new but deeply uncomfortable; I felt more like a schoolmarmish drag queen than anything. But I was teaching high school in the South, and I had my notions. On some level I feared violence, but much, much more than that I feared ridicule and contempt. My personal life was out of bounds in classroom discussion—no anecdotes about my weekend, for instance, lest I accidentally say “we” and invite questions from always-curious students. I am ashamed to say that once, I even told a flat-out lie.

An amazing ninth grader with an apparently underdeveloped gaydar, Terence, had taken a liking to me; he wanted to go with me to work out afterschool, to take me to the movies, all sweet stuff that I of course declined. He said “you must have a boyfriend, huh?” What I should have said is “no” and then reminded him yet again of teacher-student boundaries. Instead, I said “yes,” in that kind of lie that feels like nothing more than convenient shorthand: rather than tell you the complex truth, let me tell you a simpler lie that will get us to the same understanding. It never works out that way, of course. He asked questions about my boyfriend’s job, hobbies, looks, favorite foods…and I answered all of his questions accurately--about my girlfriend’s brother. I never told Chris that he was my imaginary boyfriend that school year. Or that a kid named Terence knew everything about him short of his social security number.

The next year, a young woman named Zalia started spending lots of time in my classroom. She was one of those kids, all-too-rare in my opinion, who was a little enamored of all teachers. She was also an incredible person: diagnosed with mental illness, in large part due to childhood trauma that exceeds my powers of description, she was pretty well ostracized by the mainstream of students at our school. She had straight As, was a high-ranking member of JROTC, and constantly counseled her ninth-grade brother in the ways of nonviolent resistance to bullying. This was a strong kid with an incredible amount of integrity. I was her IEP teacher, so she came to my classroom pretty regularly during lunch and after school to get help with algebra. There were a few times when other kids were absent and she was alone in my room; she must have noticed how on those days the table was directly in front of the open door and I interrupted our tutoring to call out "hello" to every single passerby. Beyond reproach was the only place where I was comfortable in that situation. Sitting across a very wide table from Zalia, I learned to read algebraic equations upside-down so I could coach her when she got stuck.

One day she asked me. Point blank: “Miss Jones. You gay?”

Fuck. Oh, Fuck. I had never played this scenario in my head because I never dreamt a kid would have enough guts to just ask it. I had ready-made comebacks for whatever smartalec hints they might drop, for any possible innuendo they might tease out of the poems and fiction we read, but this? No prepared remarks. Just like that: "You gay?"

“Yep. So look: is that a quadratic equation, number 8?”

Forgive me for bragging, but I can maintain fake nonchalance better than anyone I have ever met. And she rolled with it. “Um, yeah I guess so. So I should factor it?”

I was pretty sure I would lose my job. I knew her mom; in fact we had regular long conversations not only about her and her brother's progress and struggles, but about poetry. And about Jesus. I was pretty quiet about the last topic, but according to Zalia’s mom, Jesus was probably a pretty big fan of her children's teachers. And although I had learned that many Christians here in South Louisiana took seriously Matthew’s advice to “judge not, lest ye be judged,” I was still skittish around them. I had grown up in Focus on the Family country. As a college student, I worked parking at the very first Promise Keepers convention in Colorado. Still, that is entirely my bad; it is a fear and a prejudice I am still working hard to overcome. Anyway, her mom never said a word to me about it, and we still had our weekly conversations about algebra, poetry, and Jesus. I doubt Zalia ever told her. 

Months later, as the school year ended, she apologized for asking me such a “rude” question. She explained that she had been wondering if the reason boys didn’t like her was because she might be a lesbian. She had since realized that this wasn’t true, that she was straight, but she said this: “I was so scared of being gay. I thought I'd have to run away or kill myself. But you...are a nice person. You regular. You changed my heart.” I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to give a kid a great big hug that badly. I didn’t. But I think the look on my face must have been pretty much like an embrace.

It’s probably obvious what I learned in that moment: I will never, ever again lie about who I am. It’s not just a question of my own self-respect, but more compellingly, it’s a question of giving kids what they deserve: the truth, and the respect to believe that they can handle it. Sometimes, of course, they can’t. But that is a worthwhile and necessary risk, one that I feel ethically compelled to take. I’m pretty sure of what Terence would say if I ever tracked him down to apologize, and it would definitely be very generous and funny. I still don’t talk about my personal life, my girlfriend, or anything like that in class—maybe out of fear, maybe because it’s not my style, probably both—but I’ve quit wearing skirts and makeup, at least. And I taught a story with gay characters. Sad how that felt like such a risk.

The day after they read “The Two,” students were enraged and despondent. They took this story to heart, and it hit them very hard. If you haven’t read it, I will promise you this: it is more heartbreaking and brutal that you can possibly imagine. Whatever you are thinking right now, it is exponentially more intense. The same had been true of Harriet Jacobs and Ida B. Wells, though, so it felt like class as usual with some unusually thoughtful and ethically-minded students. We argued about who was responsible for the violence: only the person who committed it? That vague monster they love to call “society?” The community that had gossiped about the lesbian couple? Or even (I was a bit aghast to hear the suggestion) the couple themselves? We came to no conclusions.


A few weeks later, on the final exam, I asked them to name a text that had been most important to them and explain its importance. 75% of the class chose “The Two” and the overwhelming explanation was the same: it made them realize that when they called someone a “fag” or a “dyke” or speculated recklessly about another person’s sexuality, they were paving the way for violence against gay people. This was, let me remind you, Louisiana State University, which has got to be one of the more conservative state schools around. I mean, I regularly have to explain to students why the Bible might not be the best or the only source of evidence for their persuasive essays. Sierra said this:

“As a Christian, I believe that violence is always wrong. Yet I have gossiped about gay people around me all my life. The story made me realize that my words were just as violent as guns or knives, because they helped to make a climate that accepted and created violence against gays.”

This is a nineteen year old student in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition. And I have only one question: if she can see this so clearly, is it too much to ask that a person who runs for governor of one of the most populous states in the union get it, too? If she can allow a short story to open her eyes so wide, to let literature do what it was meant to do, why do we tolerate a church elder’s stubborn refusal to do the same? Sierra and her classmates see that the reason gay kids and adults (Matthew Sheppard being only the most iconic of a much larger number) are tortured and killed is because we tolerate rhetoric that is itself deeply violent. I am not asking that we legislate against such rhetoric; that would indeed violate the Bill of Rights and would be, for lack of a better word, un-American. But we all know, if only because Thoreau and Gandhi and Dr. King pointed it out, that just because something is legal doesn’t mean it is ethically right. And we should also know that outlawing things is not the only way to change them. Even if it were ethical, censorship is just not effective. So what can we do?

This is where I get stuck. Because if you are reading this, then you are probably doing exactly what I am doing: saying publicly, and repeatedly, that anti-gay rhetoric is not okay. You are refusing to vote for anyone who engages in it, refusing to watch media that perpetuates it, and doing your level best to help the people around you think a little bit more about the connection between their words and their fellow citizens’ violence and victimization. The problem is, The Washington Times doesn’t expect us to subscribe in the first place, much less does the right wing media expect us to tune in. Carl Paladino doesn't want our votes anyway; Pastor Eddie Long has bigger fish to fry than our outrage; and thousands of kids who might have grown up to rectify the situation are dead, victims of physical and/or verbal gay-bashing. Ignorant films don’t influence us, nor do children’s books, but we’re not their target audience (though many of us are targets in other ways). The people who have the power to change this are the people who are the hard sells on this point. They so often label these ideas "PC" or cry "thought police" when someone suggests we ought to take language seriously that the conversation is halted before it gets anywhere.

Today I’m feeling an odd mixture of hope and despair. Despair for the victims of violence, and for the people who continue to think that they can say there’s something wrong with homosexuals and can also say that they love us. Hope because people are talking about this stuff, because of student groups like Spectrum at Louisiana State University, and because of people like Dan Savage and his “It Gets Better” campaign. I feel the urge to jump on a soapbox and shout out instructions: "So let's all go and…!" But that’s the thing about language. It doesn't respond to fast action. It's glacial.


I believe with all of my heart that violence more often than not begins in language. And I also believe, accept, and ask pardon for the fact that my language is violent more often than I realize. How else could words work, if they didn't violently reduce the infinite nuance of the world down to single syllables? Richard Wright discovered as a young man that language could be used as a weapon. He was right, of course; and we too often deploy that weapon only to claim innocence, or love, or righteousness. These fights we fight with words, they defile the sacredness of our relation to one another. And we have, we always have, the option to reject them outright, to refuse our consent. I don’t know what it would look like, and as I search for a way to wrap up this ramble, I am desperately trying to envision it--if only in the name of a satisfying conclusion. But those tend to be violent as well, cropping as they do the complexity of things. So today I sit with complexity, I retrace my steps and missteps in language and in teaching, I give thanks for the lessons so many people have taught me, and I hope like hell that we are all learning something here.