Chapter 36: I Wish I Had Read The Faculty Manual: Tips for Queers in the System

Dear Brave Ones,

I’ve often wondered what I’d say to you. I’ll begin with “Welcome” because you’ve chosen the most marvelous profession and that’s something to remember at all times.

When I began teaching 37 years ago I was in the closet and teaching at a Christian high school. Back then in the throws of religion, wholeness was about playing the role of the good Christian and presenting a persona of being Christ-like at all costs; it was about lying. I taught for years in that setting and being inauthentic is a painful journey. I had grown up in an abusive setting and placing myself in a Christian school as an in-thecloset gay man was simply trading in one abusive setting for another abusive setting. Time after time in church and Christian school settings I bore the brunt of the “You’re going to hell” sermons. It took me some time to leave dogma’s clutches and move to a more spiritual life. Religion taught me to deny my humanness. Spirituality taught me to embrace my humanness. What I learned in those years was that truth telling is the core of wholeness.