Tonight's Poet Corner: Introspection
This week has been, for lack of a better word, eventful. I've been getting to know my students, getting to know my mentor teachers, and getting to know my credential peers. I'm being encouraged to start lesson development, even though it's extremely nervewracking and I still have to finish Cannery Row before I can start doing anything reasonably academic for it. I've worked with my bookstore manager to reduce my hours, and I've picked up new students at my other teaching job. And to top it all off, I've realized that I still have a long way to go in order to truly accept my genderfluidity.
While my post on May 15th earlier this year, in which I officially came out as genderfluid, is fairly to the point in regards to how I feel, there have been times in which it hasn't been that simple. Yes, genderfluidity does mean I occasionally feel more female or male, and it also does mean I can feel like both. It also kind of means I can feel like neither. It really depends on the situation that I'm in. Over the past few months, I've been opening up more and more about my gender identity, but it hasn't exactly been like when I came out as gay back in 2011. When I came out as gay, I was all in; I just stepped out of the closet, felt the cool air on my face, and embraced my sexuality like it was a nice coat that I'd always wanted to wear. In terms of my gender identity, it was different. I opened the closet door. I could feel the breeze coming in. I sort of pushed my way, I don't know, halfway, two thirds out? And while I did allow some people to see into my little space and figure out who I am, that didn't change the fact that until this week, I still had a good portion of my body and my mind still in that closet. I was only partially out. It was easy for me, around certain people, to deal with being occasionally misgendered because they weren't technically wrong, even though emotionally, it didn't feel right. But I did not have the guts to correct them, especially when I did not know them. To this day, I still flinch when I am called a "lady," though that's more of a dislike of the word being attributed to me due to its sound rather than its gender implications.
I kept up this sort of halfway out of the closet charade for quite some time and knew that, as a teacher, it wouldn't be as smooth letting the students know that maybe I didn't quite identify in the binary. When I first started student teaching in August, I told my mentor teachers to have the students call me, "Miss Roddie." I didn't mind it as first - again, it wasn't incorrect. But it didn't really sound like me. Again, I can get kind of picky with the tone or structure of labels, names, and words. When one of my mentor teachers would accidentally call me by my first name - a name which, again, I want to keep and do use in my other teaching job and everyday life - I would have to remind him to call me by this gender-specific title that ultimately, I didn't necessarily like. I was leaning more and more toward the idea of just being called, "Roddie." I like my last name, a lot. It's a good one, solid, very Scottish. One student of mine this week even commented about how much he liked that last name, how much he liked to say it. He was the first student to ever call me just "Roddie," and it felt good.
Now, obviously, anyone can access this blog, and I in no way want to out anyone who is not myself, so all names are redacted for the sake of privacy and for, well, seeming like a decent human being. But last Tuesday, I learned that one of my students had come out as genderqueer. They wanted their name to be changed, and they wanted to go by they/them/their pronouns. When I first heard about this, I was so ready to be some sort of super special awesome role model or mentor to them. I let them know via a post-it note that I was genderfluid. I congratulated them on being true to themselves and offered them a high five. I kept thinking about this skewed idea that I was "going to be there for them," to remind them that "they weren't alone," as if I was so comfortable in my own skin that I was going to enlighten this young person somehow by merely being me.
But it didn't turn out like that. In fact, it became more of the opposite. That student's bravery in coming out and using their preferred name and pronouns in class finally gave me the courage to be completely open about who I am. I emailed my mentor teacher and told him that I no longer wanted to be called "Miss Roddie," but instead "Roddie" or "Mx Roddie," a gender-neutral title. I didn't care about what the students thought. If I was going to be authentic, as I've always wanted to be for my entire life, I had to go all the way.
I obviously had reasons for holding back: The skepticism, the questions, the comments. I get it. My own family has sort of taken this part of myself and put it away as something we don't really talk about. That's not an insult to them; I understand that it's a really difficult pill to swallow, especially when some of my family members hate labels (perhaps justifiably so). Even now, I am still debating whether or not to tell my second mentor teacher to refer to me by the same pronouns I want my first mentor teacher to refer to me as. They're two very different people who have very different reactions to that sort of thing. I still will be vague about my pronoun usage to any letters I send home to the students' parents. I still wonder to myself whether or not I want to go by just "they." Again, I don't mind "she;" "she" is fine. It's part of my identity. But the tone of professionalism that I was expected to take on threatened to clash with who I am as a person, which should not be what's happening here. I understand that I need to maintain my own personal privacy, but when it comes to allowing the students an environment to be open and true to themselves, I can't hold much back, or I would be a hypocrite.
I want to let all of you know that I have openly wept about my gender identity. The confusion I have dealt with throughout the years and the continual skepticism from my family did not help matters, and there would be times I would be crying in my fiancée's arms, wondering aloud why I couldn't just be happy with identifying as simply a cisgendered masculine woman. I wanted it to be simple, but it wasn't. And this student reminded me that just because things aren't simple, that doesn't mean that they're bad.
I owe the youth of the world today a lot for their honesty and audacity to be themselves. Yes, they're fortunate to live in an age where you can get married regardless of your sexual orientation and people are more open and tolerant than ever, but there are still a lot more problems to tackle. There's still discrimination and massive transphobia and violence and hate and all these hurdles that we still have to deal with, and yet people are still coming out. They're coming out as gay or bi or trans or non-binary or genderqueer or asexual and it's just one of the most amazing things to witness. It's getting to the point in which coming out as gay at the age of twenty-one and as genderfluid at the age of twenty-five seems like you took forever to do it! It wasn't like that when I was a teen. Not back as recently as the early 2000s.
This whole week reminded me that the students aren't the only ones learning from me - I'm also learning from them. And I hope that remains a pattern that continues in both my work and my relationships with others. I am finally living an almost fully open life, both sexual orientation-wise and gender identity-wise, and I am getting closer and closer to feeling like I can be myself at all times. It's a journey, but if one high schooler can do it, so can I.
Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.
While my post on May 15th earlier this year, in which I officially came out as genderfluid, is fairly to the point in regards to how I feel, there have been times in which it hasn't been that simple. Yes, genderfluidity does mean I occasionally feel more female or male, and it also does mean I can feel like both. It also kind of means I can feel like neither. It really depends on the situation that I'm in. Over the past few months, I've been opening up more and more about my gender identity, but it hasn't exactly been like when I came out as gay back in 2011. When I came out as gay, I was all in; I just stepped out of the closet, felt the cool air on my face, and embraced my sexuality like it was a nice coat that I'd always wanted to wear. In terms of my gender identity, it was different. I opened the closet door. I could feel the breeze coming in. I sort of pushed my way, I don't know, halfway, two thirds out? And while I did allow some people to see into my little space and figure out who I am, that didn't change the fact that until this week, I still had a good portion of my body and my mind still in that closet. I was only partially out. It was easy for me, around certain people, to deal with being occasionally misgendered because they weren't technically wrong, even though emotionally, it didn't feel right. But I did not have the guts to correct them, especially when I did not know them. To this day, I still flinch when I am called a "lady," though that's more of a dislike of the word being attributed to me due to its sound rather than its gender implications.
I kept up this sort of halfway out of the closet charade for quite some time and knew that, as a teacher, it wouldn't be as smooth letting the students know that maybe I didn't quite identify in the binary. When I first started student teaching in August, I told my mentor teachers to have the students call me, "Miss Roddie." I didn't mind it as first - again, it wasn't incorrect. But it didn't really sound like me. Again, I can get kind of picky with the tone or structure of labels, names, and words. When one of my mentor teachers would accidentally call me by my first name - a name which, again, I want to keep and do use in my other teaching job and everyday life - I would have to remind him to call me by this gender-specific title that ultimately, I didn't necessarily like. I was leaning more and more toward the idea of just being called, "Roddie." I like my last name, a lot. It's a good one, solid, very Scottish. One student of mine this week even commented about how much he liked that last name, how much he liked to say it. He was the first student to ever call me just "Roddie," and it felt good.
Now, obviously, anyone can access this blog, and I in no way want to out anyone who is not myself, so all names are redacted for the sake of privacy and for, well, seeming like a decent human being. But last Tuesday, I learned that one of my students had come out as genderqueer. They wanted their name to be changed, and they wanted to go by they/them/their pronouns. When I first heard about this, I was so ready to be some sort of super special awesome role model or mentor to them. I let them know via a post-it note that I was genderfluid. I congratulated them on being true to themselves and offered them a high five. I kept thinking about this skewed idea that I was "going to be there for them," to remind them that "they weren't alone," as if I was so comfortable in my own skin that I was going to enlighten this young person somehow by merely being me.
But it didn't turn out like that. In fact, it became more of the opposite. That student's bravery in coming out and using their preferred name and pronouns in class finally gave me the courage to be completely open about who I am. I emailed my mentor teacher and told him that I no longer wanted to be called "Miss Roddie," but instead "Roddie" or "Mx Roddie," a gender-neutral title. I didn't care about what the students thought. If I was going to be authentic, as I've always wanted to be for my entire life, I had to go all the way.
I obviously had reasons for holding back: The skepticism, the questions, the comments. I get it. My own family has sort of taken this part of myself and put it away as something we don't really talk about. That's not an insult to them; I understand that it's a really difficult pill to swallow, especially when some of my family members hate labels (perhaps justifiably so). Even now, I am still debating whether or not to tell my second mentor teacher to refer to me by the same pronouns I want my first mentor teacher to refer to me as. They're two very different people who have very different reactions to that sort of thing. I still will be vague about my pronoun usage to any letters I send home to the students' parents. I still wonder to myself whether or not I want to go by just "they." Again, I don't mind "she;" "she" is fine. It's part of my identity. But the tone of professionalism that I was expected to take on threatened to clash with who I am as a person, which should not be what's happening here. I understand that I need to maintain my own personal privacy, but when it comes to allowing the students an environment to be open and true to themselves, I can't hold much back, or I would be a hypocrite.
I want to let all of you know that I have openly wept about my gender identity. The confusion I have dealt with throughout the years and the continual skepticism from my family did not help matters, and there would be times I would be crying in my fiancée's arms, wondering aloud why I couldn't just be happy with identifying as simply a cisgendered masculine woman. I wanted it to be simple, but it wasn't. And this student reminded me that just because things aren't simple, that doesn't mean that they're bad.
I owe the youth of the world today a lot for their honesty and audacity to be themselves. Yes, they're fortunate to live in an age where you can get married regardless of your sexual orientation and people are more open and tolerant than ever, but there are still a lot more problems to tackle. There's still discrimination and massive transphobia and violence and hate and all these hurdles that we still have to deal with, and yet people are still coming out. They're coming out as gay or bi or trans or non-binary or genderqueer or asexual and it's just one of the most amazing things to witness. It's getting to the point in which coming out as gay at the age of twenty-one and as genderfluid at the age of twenty-five seems like you took forever to do it! It wasn't like that when I was a teen. Not back as recently as the early 2000s.
This whole week reminded me that the students aren't the only ones learning from me - I'm also learning from them. And I hope that remains a pattern that continues in both my work and my relationships with others. I am finally living an almost fully open life, both sexual orientation-wise and gender identity-wise, and I am getting closer and closer to feeling like I can be myself at all times. It's a journey, but if one high schooler can do it, so can I.
Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.
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