Chapter 8: Coming out Again, and Again, and Again

Dear Future Colleague,

I came to teaching later in life, in my thirties. I’d been in the hotel/ restaurant industry, the banking industry, and now education. To a certain degree I think it has been quite beneficial for me to enter teaching later in my life. Being a bit more seasoned, I fight different battles in my classroom and in my day-to-day interactions with teenagers. Also, I am more comfortable in my own skin, which is incredibly important when you have to come out to a new group of students each fall.

It’s not as if LBGTQ individuals haven’t had plenty of practice coming out; we always seem to be in some process of coming out, but it never occurred to me that students would be so bold as to ask me if I was a lesbian. However, one spring I found that exact thing happening. I found I answered truthfully, as if I’d been asked what I was eating for lunch.