Out in the Mountains

 

Report from the Closet: Elementary Education.

Sage Russell

At the recent hearings on the Gay Rights
bill, a number of right-wing funda-
mentalists opposed it because they wanted
to make sure their kids weren't being
taught by homosexuals. They feared that if
the bill were passed, they wouldn’t be able
to get rid of these negative influences in the
public school system.

Surprise. Gay men and lesbians in large
numbers are already in the public school
system where they come into contact with
children every day, children on whom they
exert a positive influence, as they attempt
to teach them tolerance and open-
mindedness, along with reading, chemistry,
or Spanish. The personal price they pay,
though, is high.

For many heterosexuals who hate, their ha-
tred is expressed in terms of fears for their
children, with the result that the closet be-
comes an unfortunate reality for many gay
and lesbian teachers. OITM decided to take
a look at gay and lesbian elementary school
teachers in Vermont. We chose the ele-
mentary level because of the common
myths that gay people recruit children into
homosexuality and that gay men in par-
ticular are child molesters.

We do not lay claim to any sort of sta-
tistical validity here. We simply talked to
two men and one woman who face this is-
sue every day in their working lives and
have found different ways of dealing with
it. They have certain things in common. All
of them are experienced teachers. All of
them like their work, derive meaning from
it and feel they are good at it. They all like
worlcing with this age group. And they all
requested that their real names not be used.
(Along with the names, some identifying
characteristics have been changed.) These
three teachers’ stories are strikingly differ-
ent. Here then, is a report from the closet.

‘ Martin

Martin has taught third and fourth grade for
more than 10 years. He does not live in the
town where he teaches. He maintains a rig-
id separation between his personal and his
professional life. He doesn’t feel that his
personal life has any bearing on his work
and vice versa, and says that this would be
true even if he didn’t have a secret “I don’t
discuss it with people, any more than I
would ask another person about their sex
life. I don’t think it’s anybody’s business
what I do. And I don’t think it’s my busi-
ness what anybody else does -— what a het-
erosexual person does in their private life
either. I don’t think that has any basis in the
workplace.”

With two exceptions, Martin is not out to
his colleagues. He is out to a woman he has
taught with, who is also a good friend. And
he didn’t exactly tell her. She finally asked
him point blank, saying, “I need to know. I
want to know.” His relationship broke up
this year, which affected his job per-
formance, as well as every other aspect of
his life, and led him to come out to his prin-
cipal, who was supportive and under-
standing. He suspects that many of his col-
leagues already know, or at least have
guessed, and this doesn’t bother him.

In fact, he has allowed them to guess. Al-
though he doesn’t talk much about his per-
sonal life, he doesn’t always go to enor-
mous pains to hide it either. He and his
former partner once had a Christmas party
at their house, to which they invited the
staff at Martin’s school. On another occa-
sion, they both went to a Halloween party
at school.

Martin prefers to be closeted at work. He
feels the community he teaches in is rel-
atively tolerant, but he can’t predict what
would happen if he did come out, and he
doesn’t want to risk it “I don’t know how
big an issue that would be for other people.

I would rather not go through it.” He]
wouldn’t want to put the school through
an ordeal either. “I don’t want to become a 1
problem for the community or for the;
school. The schools have enough trouble]
as it is, with all the pressures that are on 5
education today. I don’t want to be an-]
other issue that’s going to create probj
lems.” ;
I
Discrimination on the basis of sexual or- .
ientation is prohibited in his union con- 1
tract. Martin believes that the union would ]
fight hard on his behalf if his job were ;
threatened for that reason. But if he were 1
to lose his job, he doesn’t think he would
teach again, partly because of his sexual ‘
orientation and partly because his years of l
experience would make it too expensive :
to hire him. »

One reason for Martin’s relative comfort 1
in the closet is that “I wouldn’t do any- ‘
thing different if everyone did know. I’m ;
just not going to show up at school in chif-
fon and high heels. I wouldn’t dress any
different, I wouldn’t cut my hair any dif-
ferent. I guess for being gay, I’m rel-
atively conservative in a lot of those re-

spects.”

The kids he teaches aren’t particularly cu-
rious about his life outside school. They
mostly want to know if he’s married or
has children, but they don’t react much to
the news that he isn’t. Nine and ten year
olds don’t really understand what sexual
orientation is, and unlike high school stu-
dents, they are not dealing with it in their
own lives.

Martin is content for things to stay the
way they are, and he can’t foresee any
event that would change them. Any dis-
turbance to the equilibrium would have to
come from outside. “As long as there’s no
crisis, then it (his sexual orientation) is a
non-issue.” As long as it doesn’t hit the
surface, he’s fine.

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