I didn't have any openly gay teachers. (They could have been fired because of it.) There were two who I now suspect were gay but I'll probably never know. I also had two professors that I would have liked to be gay.:rolle:
I had a gay language arts teacher, he just wasn't out to us because there were a lot of religious kids.
I had a swim coach who was gay. He was the coolest and nicest guy I've ever met. He helped me a lot and he was a better coach then any of the others. He made it worthwhile.
I had a gay language arts teacher too. He wasn't open about it for the same reasons. I honestly didn't even know he was gay until someone told me sophomore year and was honestly kind of surprised, but then it made sense. I came out to him though, and he was supportive. He was one of my favorite teachers.
I just love how you guys feel comfortable enough coming out to your teachers. Hopefully, some of my students can do the same (if they need to). It's also really awesome that the LGBTQ teachers were some of y'all's favorite teachers. This thread really assured me that I'm gonna love my career and have a great time teaching students.
It really wasn't any of my parents business since I was in college. They didn't ask many questions as long as I was getting decent grades. Mostly my parents blamed me for lack of discipline if I got a bad grade.
On the "know your rights" side of things, many school districts have non-discrimination policies that are worth checking out, and some even have "safe school" advocates and resource groups for teachers as well as students. It's nice to know if/when/how you're supported as an LGBTQ teacher...
I was home-schooled from the fourth grade on, but I joined youth choir at church when I was twelve and found out my choirmaster was gay. He doesn't talk about it very often, but everyone knows and if the subject comes up he's not at all ashamed or evasive. Plus he walks like he's on a runway and loves Madonna ... so ...
I had a lesbian professor (she once gave a whole lecture on gender/orientation but she was never explicit about her personal life) who had a dinner/film night at her house. I felt really bad that her partner left "to check on some friends who are ill" and didn't come back until we students were leaving. It must have been a hard decision since I saw that in her own university, she was very prominent in LGBT activism.
My geometry teacher was a lesbian, and she was really open about it. She even talked to us about her girlfriend sometimes. She was also our GSA sponsor.
No. Not that were open about it. Had a college prof in his mid-40s who looked like a fireman calendar type who had never been married and some of the girls mentioned what they wanted to do to him, and I was keeping my opinions to myself! Yikes. Had a grad school prof who was overly religious, overly conservative, and overly far from masculine too, so ... But, openly GLB, no.
Yep I had a couple in college, and a trans teacher too. None of my teachers were in high school (that I know of) but I knew someone in the faculty that was.
There was an English teacher in high school that spoke with a lisp, had flaming red hair and lectured with his hands on his hips. He assigned books by Pearl S. Buck for a reading assignment. Every time someone yelled "Pearl" He turned deep red.
My science teacher Last year in a public school is gay, and out to everybody. He was a great teacher.
I'm navigating this right now. I work for a school district in a small city, with a Democratic mayor and city council, that has a non-discrimination ordinance. The school district has a non-discrimination policy. But, this is in a state that's very anti-gay. There's 2-3 other teachers I know in the district who are gay, and out, and don't have any problems. I'm not worried that much about how the teachers/administrators/school community is going to perceive this if I ever decide to come out to them. I mean, we have policies in place, and this is the first school district I've worked in that has this many protections. (I used to teach in rural high schools!) I've been known to be a reliable and good teacher. I like what I do. The hardest thing for me is dealing with my personal life - dating, meeting people, and figuring out where to draw my boundaries online. On national sites (like the cupid one), I do have my face picture up on my profile, but I have myself listed as being in the huge metropolitan city that's 2 hours away. I figure there's more dateable guys there anyway, and if I want to message someone locally, I can hit them up. On any of the geo-apps (like the one that starts with G), I just have a torso pic up, looking kind of athletic-ish, but you can't tell its me. I usually don't share my face pic until I feel someone is trustworthy. That's awkward sometimes because a lot of guys won't talk unless you have a face pic up. I don't think its good to be an object of attention when you work in a school district and there isn't a very large gay community... I don't like the idea of my face showing up on someone's phone app every day and someone thinking/saying, "oh, he's a teacher." Sometimes I really filter myself too. If a guy is local, I'm just really careful about what I say, even if I'm interested in him. It's not that I represent the school district or anything, but I just don't want anything to come back to me if I say something sexual or something like that. I also worry about how much harder this would be if I advance my degree and become a principal. Even if I chose to be out, I don't think I would be able to date in my own community at all because of the drama it could cause. I suppose I could take the high road, drop all the online interactions, and just try to meet other gay singles by being involved in organizations, or start to frequent the small number of gay-friendly hangouts in the community... but like I said, the dating pool in this city is really sparse. I would feel very cut off if I didn't have an online outlet. Even now, I feel most comfortable and able to be myself when I'm away from home. I take a lot of weekend trips to larger cities.
i had one who was very camp, and everyone made fun out of him. there was an openly lesbian teacher, and everyone accepted her.
That's great that you like your job and that a district has policies in place to protect their teachers, irrespective of their personal lives.
I'm a gay teacher! I teach English at a local high school. I'm out with select members of the staff who i'm friends with, and i'm fairly sure that a number of my students have their suspicions I do try to keep my private life private from my classes for the most part though!
