Running for Home - 59. February 24, 2022

February 24 2022

So today was the big day. We did it. We gave the Big Gay Talk.

There were a couple big surprises, which I’ll get to, but I think it went over well. Emma and Sean were pleased. I’m glad, because it was a lot of work to put that thing together and if I am being honest I was nervous as fuck. Maybe Bobby and I were stupid to reinvent the wheel and not just use something we could find on the internet, but we wanted to make it more personal and relevant to the mutant situation we deal with here. We wanted to address the intersectionality. I think we pulled it off.

Working with Bobby on this took on a very different dimension now that I a) know that he’s gay, and b) am in a relationship with him. Suddenly he wasn’t the ‘ally’ demographic anymore, so I had to reframe my personal approach around that. To be honest, I kind of wish we had a third person on board for that. Preferably a woman. We probably should have involved students too, but that sort of ended up happening anyway… well, I’ll get to that.

Anyway, we started out with a discussion of what sexual orientation and gender identity actually mean, because Bobby and I both decided that is probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks. It shouldn’t be, really, but for some reason it is. We talked about how sex and bodily exploration in and of themselves are not a bad thing, as long as all parties are consenting and all actions are done with mutual respect. We talked about how for some people the picture can be very clear, while for others things can be quite murky. We talked about how that murkiness can come from the way we were raised and how the people around us behave, how it can come from falling into somewhere on the spectrum between the poles of exclusively gay and exclusively straight or strongly cis-gender to strongly transgender, somewhere in between, or something not on the spectrum at all. We talked about how some people can be late-bloomers as far as sexual feelings go, even if all the parts are already in working order. We talked about how some people are demisexual or asexual. We talked about how people can have a romantic orientation that isn’t completely sync’d up with their sexual orientation - for example, someone who is bisexual but homo-romantic.

The next segment of the talk was really the important part. We got all of the basic information out of the way, and now it was time to humanize it. Story time. Xi’an and Piotr had volunteered to talk about their experiences, and I was going to talk about mine. I went first, talking about how I realized I was gay when I was fourteen and how scared I was. Without naming names, I talked about worrying about popping a boner in the locker room after gym or a Danger Room training session. I talked about how scary it was to share a room with another boy, a boy who was my best friend, a boy who I was in love with. I talked about how wrong I was not to reach out and talk to anyone about it, whether it was one of the teachers or to any of my close friends. But I talked, too, about how scary it is to take that step.

Xi’an was next. She talked about some similar fears, issues of unrequited love of a straight girl. Bobby, Piotr and I now know was this girl was Kitty, a fact that made Piotr joke that Xi’an had dodged a large, princessy bullet when she admitted it to the three of us while we were prepping for the talk. Xi’an knew from the start that it was never going to go anywhere, though, and had made peace with it even before she made it through her first year of university in Chicago. In her case, the most difficult thing to deal with was whether or not her feelings about her sexuality and gender identity were real or the product of her victimhood at a young age.

Something I never knew was that Xi’an killed her twin brother Tran using her powers during a struggle, accidentally absorbing his psyche and leaving his body brain dead. She did it defending her younger siblings from him. Tran had kidnapped them and was trying to use them as leverage to get her to follow him in working for their crime-lord uncle. Xi’an was only thirteen. She had arrived at Xavier’s a month and a half later. It was a long, complicated story that Xi’an promised to tell me the entirety of someday, but we had work to get done at the time. Anyway… for the purposes of the Big Gay Talk, she just left it as ‘an accident’. The students here know all about those.

Xi’an told everyone how, even though Professor Xavier helped her sift out the remnant psychic debris of her brother’s mind, she was never sure how much of her feelings about some things were her own, or were from remnants of his persona. Her gender and sexuality were deeply troubled by this problem. Xi’an identifies as female, but leaning towards a sort of ‘grey gender’ place on the spectrum. But she’s a lesbian, through and through. The lesbian part was rather easier to figure out and accept.

Piotr’s talk was, obviously, about being on the bisexual spectrum. He had some really good insight for the students, I think. He talked about having feelings that he didn’t really know how to place as a teenager, but not really thinking much about them because he had a girlfriend and they had a strong sexual relationship that he was completely satisfied with. He talked about internalized homophobia for a bit, because it’s something that can be very subtle. He’s not sure if it was something that kept the blinders on him, or if he was just genuinely unaware of himself. He discussed the fact that sexuality and gender identity can have a degree of fluidity and for some people can change over time, and how that is okay and normal. He mused that maybe that is what happened with him - his place on the spectrum shifted as he grew older. Piotr told the students that he identifies as a sexually female-leaning bisexual male in a strong romantic relationship with another man, and he’s perfectly happy to be that way.

I was about to start moving into the closing section of our talk when Bobby unexpectedly stepped up next to me and took my hand. And then, right there, in front of everyone, he came out. Our relationship was made plain, in that moment, and rather than looking nervous or unsure Bobby started talking about what it was like to actually have that strong internal homophobia that Piotr briefly touched on. To go through years and years of denial, and then years of self-loathing. He talked about how much he struggled with the fact that he was a mutant, and being gay on top of it just seemed like it was too much, too unfair, too cruel of the world. He talked in a bit of a vague sense about making bad choices and hurting people unintentionally as a result of his internal homophobia. Then he started talking about the value of truth, both to yourself and to the people around you. Suddenly it was like I was hearing an echo. I don’t know how he did it, but suddenly he was channeling so much of the conversation I had with Connor on Boxing Day. It was amazing, and unexpected and I was so proud of him. Proud to be with him. Proud to be his man.

But the surprises weren’t finished. When Bobby had finished sharing his thoughts, I announced that the school was going to be starting a Gay-Straight Alliance group that students would be welcome to join, and invited Xi’an back up to give it a plug since she - thank God! - volunteered to be their mentor. She stood up and came to the front, but suddenly Connor was standing and following her up.

There was Connor, sweating and subtly shaking, standing before the whole student body. He took a deep breath and began:

“Uh… hi everyone. I… Uh, I think you all know me. Connor Jackson, tenth grade. You might remember that in the fall I… I… I did something really stupid. If you were paying attention at all during this talk, you know it was stupid. I bullied someone for being gay, and got us into a lot of trouble. It was bad enough that I did it in the first place, but it had a lot of unintended consequences, for me and even more so for the person I bullied. I… I really fucked up. Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t swear, but I did…

Connor swallowed, briefly meeting my eyes. “The worst part of all of it, of being a bully like that, was because I was doing it out of that internalized homophobia stuff Mr. Drake and Mr. Rasputin were talking about. I… I’m gay, everyone. I’m gay, and I hated myself so much for it and I was so scared of it that I took it out on someone else, someone who didn’t deserve it, especially since that person is someone I care… about… I… Daniel? I’m sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry. I know it won’t ever make this better, and I don’t think I deserve forgiveness, but I want you to know I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused, both between us and for all the bad things that have happened since, all because I was a stupid, scared little baby.

I looked out into the crowd to see Daniel, tears streaming down his face, struggling to get down one of the aisleways and then away, out of the auditorium. I sighed, wanting to go after Daniel, but I couldn’t. I had to get through this goddamn presentation first. I saw Connor swallow hard, then shake his head to clear his thoughts. He looked like he was about to cry, himself.

“Anyway, you guys should all see why we need to have this group. It’s tough enough for all of us to have to deal with being mutants and all the different things that means. But some of us have these other things to deal with too. I want to ask you all to really think about what you’ve learned here today and take it to heart. The LGBTQ community is all around you. It is you. We are your friends, your family members… I don’t want anyone on this campus to have to go through what I’ve gone through, to have what I’ve put others through because of fear and self-hate. I want us to have a place to go and talk about things, to give one another support. So I’m working with Ms. Mahn to start up this group. It’s for mutual support, and everyone is welcome, whether you are LGBTQ or a straight, cisgender ally. Thank you.”

With that, Connor booked it back out into the crowd. The students, though, they were applauding him. It didn’t seem to affect him at all. Connor didn’t go back to his seat. He continued down the aisle and out of the auditorium through the same door Daniel had left through.

We wrapped the talk up at that point. I wanted to get out of there and go after Daniel and Connor, but Bobby and I were sidetracked by Emma and Sean. They were both happy with how things went, overall. Emma was a touch annoyed with Xi’an that she hadn’t run the whole Connor speaking thing by Bobby and I before she let him do it, but was glad that we ended up having a student face to put on things. Xi’an said she originally was going to ask Victor Borkowski to do it, since he’s been out for a few years now and he’s a well-liked senior, but a week or so ago she came across Connor in the back corner of the library practically hiding while he watched videos on the It Gets Better Project website with earbuds in. I guess my talk with Connor got through to him. He’s taking steps, one way or another, to move forward. Xi’an said he about wet himself when he realized she was standing behind him, but she got him to relax a touch when she showed him which of the videos was her favourite. They’d had a long talk, and then another a couple days later. Xi’an had floated the GSA idea as something she wished they had, and Connor had apparently taken the bait.

Sean was happy, but at the same time somewhat unsurprised at that - apparently Connor had been the leader type but things had devolved over the past nine months. He’d been wondering what was happening, and now it all made sense. He turned to Emma with a slightly annoyed look, venturing that a certain someone probably knew exactly what was happening the whole time. Emma rolled her eyes and told him that it was something he had to go through on his own to learn about himself.

That pissed me off. The kid was suicidal two months ago, and she had just been letting things run their course because apparently suffering like that is beneficial. I’m sure my reaction was completely obvious, because Bobby was there beside me right at that moment, wrapping an arm around my back and squeezing my shoulder. I swear, I feel like a bit of a chump that it was enough to keep me from blowing up in Emma’s face, but it did. I told Emma we needed to have a staff meeting to talk through mental health policy and practice because I am clearly not on the same page as her and I wanted to make sure that everyone was. Sean agreed with me before Emma could even open her mouth to respond.

I’m sure Emma’s position is more complicated than I am making it sound. She’s only one person, and we have hundreds of students. She can’t be constantly monitoring all of them, and most of the faculty and staff here are not telepathic. We only have what we see and hear to rely upon. I mean, I do see a lot up at the front of the classroom. More than my students’ realize. But I don’t really know what I need to be doing, beyond talking to students when they seem to need it and following up with Emma when I think the situation is important enough. I know myself, my own mental health, and the kinds of things that I’ve been prescribed to help me deal with my issues, both in terms of medication and lifestyle practices. But my issues are only a small sliver of the spectrum of mental health problems. So… hell, I don’t know.

I guess suddenly I’m feeling like I need a degree in social work or in adolescent psychology just to do my job well. It’s another one of those moments where I’m realizing how much our society as a whole misunderstands the demands of teaching, and how much teachers are devalued. I’m having another one of those moments where I feel like I’m completely unqualified to be doing this job. With my latest set of issues running rampant in my subconscious mind, it makes me wonder how I’ll ever be able to take care of my students when I can barely take care of myself.

I’m being too hard on myself. I know. No one can be prepared for everything. We all have challenges to face, some of which we are prepared for and others which we are not. I just have to keep my head up and face my challenges with grace, dignity, and the best effort I can give. It might not be fine, but if I do my utmost then it should be easier to forgive myself for failing when I do fuck up.