The "Coming Out... as What?" Question

So far this year I’ve been occupying the role of a cisgender, straight male LGBTQ ally in my classroom. It feels completely bizarre since I don’t think of myself or aim to mark myself as “straight” in my everyday life. But even though being perceived and treated as a heterosexual male is still foreign to me, I’ve been surprised by how comfortable and effective I’ve felt broaching issues of social justice with my students from this subject-position. Having been immersed in particular queer communities that tend to valorize “outness” and equate it – problematically – with radicalism, I’m currently fighting against an ingrained impulse to self-flagellate for being “closeted.”

But what closet am I in, really? “Coming out” as trans is different from, and often does not parallel, queer “coming out” narratives. In terms of gender, my “passing anxiety” has heightened considerably since I began physically transitioning and living as male in my work life. (I imagine this is not an uncommon trans experience.) I’m still dreading the day when I am outed as trans to all of my students. I dread, both at work and in my personal life, having to justify my presentation as though I am somehow “deceiving” people by “masquerading” as a straight man. Self-identifying as queer” seems like it could be a helpful and defensive buffer now, in the sense that it could ease some of that tension in the moment I become out as trans to my students.

But what would it mean for me to come out as a queer man to my students right at this moment in time, when they are not aware that I am trans? Throughout my past I have been sexually and romantically involved with men, but I’m currently in a relationship with a woman and have always been more interested in women. In my social life I am inclined to identify as queer, but even that is complicated at this point – what makes me queer, now? I get uncomfortable when people rely on trans identity to prove or authenticate queerness, because a person’s trans history does not necessarily mean that he or she is queer or queer-identified. Assuming an inherent connection between “trans” and “queer” identities feels like Step One in invalidating many trans people’s genders. The suggestion that my designation as female at birth automatically makes me queer just perpetuates the faulty notion that I am not really a man.

Ultimately, my point is that the “what does it mean to be queer?” question is something I need to grapple with in my personal sphere, not in my professional life or with my students. As “Ms. K” the past two years, I happily and openly identified as “queer” with my students - often in response to the constant questions that arose because of my visible gender non-normativity. I’ve learned first-hand that it can be extremely valuable for students to see queer teachers out and visible in their schools. But there is no need for me to get into the complicated inner workings of my sexuality and desires with my students; and if I were to do open that door it would be coming from a place of self-absorption. It would be more about me than about my students.

I choose to look at it this way: Straight male LGBTQ advocates are often hard to come by, and they – we? – can play an important role in any push for LGBTQ-awareness. So I’m resolved to be happy where I am for the time being.

Transitioning on the Job: Part One

This past week, I made the decision to begin identifying as male. The decision to be male-identified and start hormone therapy hasn’t been a sudden one for me, but it’s been building for the past several years. Anyone who has known me over the past few years is probably not particularly surprised. I’m harboring relatively few serious concerns about this transition, mostly out of awareness that I have an incredibly trans-aware and trans-identified group of friends and that my girlfriend is the most supportive person in the world. Opening this door makes me feel as though a huge weight has been lifted off my chest, and I’m very excited to be undertaking this process.

This past week, however, I began to worry about returning to my school in the fall as “Mr. K” and going by male pronouns. Ultimately, my school is not a bad place to be a transsexual, especially relative to many public schools I’ve heard about. “Gender identity and expression” are protected in the employment non-discrimination laws of New York City. I have a vocal and strong support base among my colleagues, several of whom are queer-identified. I’ve begun conversations about how best to handle my transition with a few colleagues for whom I have tremendous respect as educators and as individuals. Two colleagues have offered to accompany me in my “I’m becoming a man” meeting with my principal. After communication has been established with administrators, we’re hoping that Respect for All can eventually direct conversation towards the general school climate with respect to LGBT awareness. My transition is simply one of several examples illustrating the need for education and dialogue around LGBT issues in our school.

Though these factors clearly fuel a great deal of optimism and hopefulness, I’m beginning to feel the onset of a few anxieties that are, perhaps, inevitable in this situation. These anxieties have to do with the increased scrutiny and potential threats to my job security brought on by such an unavoidably public and visible transition (two thirds of the school next year will have known me as “Ms. K”). I’m not particularly concerned about what the many members of what I call the “frat boys club” and the “old boys club” at my school personally think and feel about trans issues. It seems like a given that some of my colleagues will believe that they have never met a transsexual before, and that I might be a story they tell their buddies at happy hour. Their potential to incite suspicion about me and my teaching as a result of my identity seems like a more pressing matter – and in my mind, it has everything to do with the obligation of teachers to demonstrate basic respect for others’ identities on a daily basis.

Education and professional development around trans identities and the rights of trans people are crucial in ensuring the respect and safety of students and employees in our school. The nervous and pessimistic part of me worries that my school will fail to encourage thoughtful conversation about and inquiry into LGBT issues, and will instead pretend that they do not have a tremendous affect on the daily lives of many of our students, faculty, and staff. Students in our school are coming out or on the verge of coming out as LGBT, teachers and staff in the school are LGBT identified, and many people in the building have family members, friends, and neighbors who are queer or trans. The encouragement of respectful, thoughtful conversation about LGBT issues must become inextricably linked to professionalism for teachers in our school – and I’m worried that a core group of my colleagues will attempt to prevent this from happening.

I hate to border on paranoid, but my teaching career began with an unpleasantly transphobic experience with the Department of Education that has left a lasting impression. I was slated to begin my first year of teaching at a middle school in Brooklyn in the fall of 2006, and the day before I was to report I received a phone call informing me that a) I had been “excessed” and therefore had to start the search for a new job and b) there was a rumor circulating around the district of my original school that I was going to have a “sex change operation.” I knew that it was no coincidence that I heard about these two facts in the same conversation, and I set out to get to the root of my being excessed. When I approached the principal of my original school, he offered me a position teaching science in a clear attempt to cover his ass. Needless to say, instead of expressing gratefulness about the scraps he tossed me, I decided to take my chances in the job search. In what I still consider to be a stroke of luck, I landed at my current school.

This first experience with the Department of Education and trans issues makes me a bit hesitant to trust that my administration will not seek to find ways either to excess me or to dismiss this transition in a way that allows my colleagues – and as a result, my students – to disrespect my identity and the identities of any gender variant people in the school. All it takes is one teacher, or one parent of one student, to spark controversy and confrontation. I incorporate many radical and queer pedagogical methods into my classroom, and I believe in opening discourse to push students intellectually instead of closing it down. In the back of my mind, I fear that the aspects of my teaching that have led me to invite students to learn about and discuss the deaths of Lawrence King and Sean Bell, for examples, might quickly become suspicious in an atmopshere of heightened scrutiny.

I know several trans teachers, but right now I’m searching for educators who have had a similar experience of transitioning while at their schools - if you know of anyone, kindly send them my way.