When I became a teacher, one of the first questions that came to mind was how I was going to discuss my sexual orientation with my students. After several reflections, I told myself that unless there were relevant occasions, I would only answer students’ questions when they ask them, without broaching the subject myself. I operate in this way so that the students understand that my sexual orientation is a component of my person that does not define me on its own, in the same way that a heterosexual would not have to justify his sexual orientation.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
Nevertheless, each new cohort brings its small share of apprehensions. At what time of the year will I be asked the question? Will it be in private or in front of the whole group? How will the group react? How will the news spread?
This year it was in April. I had made a deal with a group that had earned him a batch of cookies. A student asked me if I had made them myself. When I answered “no”, she asked me if it was my wife. Once again, I answered “no”. Once again, she sought to satisfy her curiosity by asking me who had made them. To which I replied “my spouse”.
It was the classic. The surprised look followed by “Ah OK! “. The uneasy smiles in the class. The students who avoid my gaze during the period, as if they were afraid that my eyes would confirm what they had just heard.
And how did I know that the news had spread to the other students in the cohort? The number of students who come to see me shyly without daring to look me in the eye, to avoid letting me know that they know. Some students who simply avoid me, others who come to see me more often, as if the news made me more human. The increase in the number of homophobic monikers thrown at those who seek to defy, as if to make sure that it is known that they are not concerned (hard not to notice the more frequent use of the words ” fifs”, “faggot” and “faggot”). Some students who let you know they know, like it gives them power over you. I even have a student who, when my colleague expelled him from his class by asking him if I needed to accompany him to the resource room by the hand, replied that he was afraid that I liked too much that and that I fall in love with him because “I like boys”.
Ordinary homophobia
Why am I bothering to tell this? Because this week, May 17 to be precise, was the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. And I want to remind you that this hatred does not always manifest openly in verbal or physical attacks.
It is precisely manifested sometimes by behaviors as innocent as these malaises which avoid the glances once the image which one made of a person was shattered.
It is manifested by a state corporation that refuses to change its homophobic regulations for blood donation when it no longer has any credible basis.
It is manifested by an emerging party leader who asserts that homophobia no longer exists, then by the people in his party who use their leader’s homosexuality to clear themselves of the homophobic content of their remarks.
It is manifested by commentators, columnists and hosts who allow themselves to attack a politician by questioning his “masculinity”. (We will remember the famous “Capitaine Femmelette” by Dominic Mavais.) Or by a Prime Minister who finds it appropriate to make a mustache joke on an opposing MP, thus ridiculing her “femininity”. And it manifests itself in all the behaviors reproduced by our young people who have assimilated these insidious marks of ordinary and latent homophobia. Because that is the whole danger of the venom of hatred; it manages to infiltrate our daily actions and go unnoticed.
So I can only encourage us to recognize and fight the venom of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.
I can only look forward with hope and anticipation to the day when all of my students will feel comfortable holding my gaze when I tell them “my spouse baked your cookies”.