Championing Queer Leadership and Inclusivity in Academia with Dr. Carla Stephens

Teaching While Queer, Season 2, Episode 36
When Dr. Carla Stephens from Bard College's Bard Queer Leadership Project graces our show, conversations ignite around the transformative power of LGBTQ+ integration in academia. Their insight into the creation of the first LGBTQ+ college within a college paints a vivid picture of a future where queer leadership and representation take center stage, breaking down barriers and nurturing the next generation of changemakers. Alongside Dr. Stevens, I, Bryan Stanton, unravel the threads of my own queer identity journey, showcasing how personal evolution within the community can profoundly impact both our personal and professional worlds.

Navigating the educational landscape as an openly queer school principal offers up its share of challenges and triumphs. I candidly recount the growth and resilience that comes from confronting adversity, including turning a parent's derogatory remarks into a teaching moment about emotional intelligence. Moreover, we delve into the classroom dynamics, where the authenticity of educators and students alike foster an environment ripe for understanding, growth, and acceptance.

Lastly, we turn our focus to the intricate dance of diversity and inclusion within school settings. From dissecting critical race theory to supporting 2SLGBTQIA+ identities, this episode sweeps through the complex experiences of students grappling with intersectionality. We emphasize the crucial role of educators and communities in amplifying the voices of the marginalized and the strength found in standing up for one another. Join us on this journey as we explore the landscape of Teaching While Queer, and glimpse the resilient spirit embodied by educators who are steadfast in championing a more inclusive tomorrow.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Teaching While Queer is a podcast for 2SLGBTQIA+ educational professionals to share their experiences in academia. Hi, I'm your host, Bryan Stanton, a theater pedagogue and educator in New York City, and my goal is to share stories from around the world from 2SLGBTQIA+ educators. I hope you enjoy Teaching While Queer. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Teaching While Queer. I am your host, brian Stanton. My pronouns are he/ they I'm so excited to have with me today. Dr Clar.. Dr Carla Stevens. I was going to call you Clara. That's wild. My apologies, but I'm so excited to have with me today Dr Carla Stevens. How are you doing?

Speaker 2: 1:01

I am doing very well. Thank you very much, brian. I'm so happy, excited, to be here with you. I'm the director of the Bard Queer Leadership Project and you know, as we go through this podcast, you'll hear why this is such an amazing opportunity for me and a good fit for the podcast. Because the BQLP is really about LGBTQ plus youth and creating a wonderful educational experience in a nurturing environment, and it was designed in partnership with queer youth.

Speaker 2: 1:47

So we're at Bard College in Simons Rock, which is in Great Barrington, massachusetts, and it's higher education, so a dual major BA program, so students can get a BA in whatever field is of their passion and then, while they're doing that, they can also have a leadership concentration and I teach some of the courses that are part of that leadership concentration. But our ultimate goal is to one day grow to be the first LGBTQ plus college within a college, and so that's that's really exciting. So, you know, in this climate where we all know that it's, you know, can be so difficult to be a queer student and, you know, to have an opportunity to have a place that's designed for queer young people, with the idea that we want to break the rainbow ceiling by flooding the world with queer leaders. That's, you know, that's what we're hoping to do I'm here for that.

Speaker 1: 3:14

That just sounds so wonderful because I think, not only from a representation standpoint, but also, like for so many of us, when we were younger queer people, there wasn't this like future that was obtainable and I, when I did my undergraduate at San Diego State University, had the privilege of being one of the first people to minor in LGBTQ studies or LGBT studies at the time, studies at the time and I love that because I got to learn more about my culture and my history, which isn't taught, and so there's this whole lack of representation.

Speaker 1: 3:56

And here I think that it's so wonderful that the focus is on leadership and getting people out into the world to really lead from within the queer community, because I think that outside of queer organizations people don't drop that they're a queer leader unless it's, you know, needed or if it's even tokenized, which sometimes it's like oh, look at us, good PR, wink, wink. But I love this focus on leadership. I actually recently found out about a podcast called Queer Success, I believe, and I've only listened to the first episode. But what I love about it is this person is just finding successful business people to interview who are part of the queer community and talking about like, how do you come, uh, overcome some of the things that I think we're missing as a queer culture is there is a lot of queer trauma represented in the world, but we need queer joy and we need queer success and we need queer leaders, and so I love, love, love that BART is doing that because that is so necessary.

Speaker 2: 5:23

Doing that because that is so necessary it is. So I agree, we are working on our own podcast called Leading Queer. We haven't dropped it yet, but we're working on it and we've had four. We've had three so far BARD, queer Leadership Project, queer Leader Forums, and where we've brought in some amazing queer leaders to talk about their journeys, and so we're going to continue to do that. So, along with Queer Success, you're going to have another place where you'll be able to hear myself my provost is also queer have us, you know, in conversation with queer leaders in all kinds of different careers, so that's exciting. Kinds of different careers, so that's exciting. So you mentioned that. You know how important it is to kind of understand history. The four pillars of our program are actually, yes, leadership and theory and practice, but also queer history and culture, queer theory, along with career pathways. So we're trying to hit all of that for, you know, developing, or we agree that all of that is needed in developing queer leaders.

Speaker 1: 7:02

Yeah, absolutely. That's wonderful Just on so many levels. So send all the queer podcasts to me people. I am here for it. I am all about amplifying queer voices and I haven't even told those folks that I'm going to talk about their podcasts because it's just brand new to me. But I love, I just love when there are positive queer voices out there spreading positivity. So, yeah, thanks for doing what you do. Yeah, so let's take a journey back in time, if you will. What was your experience like as a queer student?

Speaker 2: 7:41

Okay, well, first it was, I didn't know that I was queer, so I'm old. Well, first it was, I didn't know that I was queer, so I'm old. Well, okay, I am an elder in a sense. I didn't come to my understanding of myself as queer because I grew up in a culture both you know the 60s and the you know in the time period, and because I grew up in the African American community. I grew up with one of the most important people in my life being my grandmother, who was very religious, and so I didn't even have an idea of what queerness was, let alone the fact that I was part of such a community. That took a long time, and yet I say that when I came out, all of these people kept telling me that they knew that I was queer long before I knew that I was queer. So it's really interesting.

Speaker 2: 8:56

But you know, I had moments when I can remember being 14 years old and being a tomboy. I can remember being 14 years old and all of those guys, because you know, in their minds, the only reason why I'm hanging out with them and the only reason why the guys are hanging out with me is because I'm having sex with them. And then on the same day, I had someone call me a lesbian, and I didn't even know what that meant and I deny it vehemently, even though I didn't know what it meant. And so it's really interesting that both of those perceptions of me were negative, just because I was a girl who hung out with, with boys and and I was being, you know, attacked by girls from both ways. So interesting.

Speaker 1: 10:17

It's like a lose lose situation.

Speaker 2: 10:20

It is a lose lose situation. So what I have, as an adult, gotten out of that is the fact that, because those kinds of things were happening, it freed me to just be me, because I couldn't please anybody. You know, I tried figuring out what it meant to be a girl and I just wasn't good at it. Whatever that, was.

Speaker 2: 10:49

And you know, eventually I was rejected by the boys because I wasn't a boy, and so you know. So you know I can say now that it was lonely, but it was so freeing because I didn't have a choice except to, you know, be myself, whatever it is, because I couldn't figure out. You know, gender didn't make sense to me, race, the way it was applied, didn't make sense to me, and so, you know, through this whole intersectionality that I was embodying, I just, you know, became myself and I once I before the job that I have now, I was first founding faculty and then the principal of a high school, early college in North New Jersey, and as the principal, you know, we had a PD and I did a session on memoir writing and one of the things that one of the exercises that we started with was writing a six word memoir, and my six word memoir was the box is not big enough. So there were no boxes that I fit, and it was really clear to me early on that that was true, and so I didn't blame myself, I blamed the box.

Speaker 2: 12:36

Yes, absolutely Blame the box. Spend their lives trying to fit and failing and feeling like failures and being depressed and and hurting themselves and and it's not. It's not them, it's the box. So so I, you know, I will say it was a blessing. It was. You know, I feel very privileged to have a certain kind of intellect and a certain kind of temperament that allowed me to just kind of live my life and strive my goals as best I could, regardless of the noise.

Speaker 1: 13:25

So I think that's wonderful, the thing well one if you're listening and you don't take anything away from this podcast. But the box isn't big enough and blame the box like that's gold Chef's kiss, like right there, because so many I and I remember trying to fit into all these boxes, like baseball player, which was not a good box for me, and then it was like, uh, star student, okay, fine, I can do that until you know chemistry, ap, and then I couldn't do that anymore as a performing arts kid but performing arts kid, I could fit into all of those boxes and maybe it's not a matter of like finding the box, but realizing there's multiple boxes that you could like dive into for different aspects of things.

Speaker 1: 14:22

But if it doesn't fit, I love that it's not you, it's the box. The box isn't right for you, not you aren't right for the box. And I love that because I think there's so much shame that comes from, especially when you're younger and you're alone. There's so much shame spiraling that happens around. I don't fit in and I don't feel like I'm a part of this community or this community. I'm different, I'm strange, I'm wrong, and that there's so many. I am this thing, as opposed to the world, is different. The world is strange, the world is wrong. The box doesn't fit and I think that there's something to be said about blaming society, blaming the world and moving on from that that if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit for you and if there's something wrong with, uh, a specific box, it's it's the box and it's society's issue.

Speaker 1: 15:30

It's not your problem no, just just know it's not your space and being weird is fine, yeah the best, the best. People are weird.

Speaker 2: 15:43

So by the time I got to high school, I had a group and we called ourselves the Motley Crew, because we were all weird and we found ways of being in community together as outsiders. So that was the thing that held us together, the fact that we were outsiders. So that was, that was the thing that held us together, the fact that we were outsiders. Um, but, that worked.

Speaker 1: 16:34

I love that. I think there's something about and it's it's so funny because I think introverted people do this a lot where you're like with a group of people who, um, you can tolerate enough, especially as an introverted person, right, like you can tolerate larger doses of these people and allow yourselves to be yourself, unconditionally and unquestioning, and then, like, you go break off and you go do your own thing, but then you come back to this core group of people and think that that is so necessary and, um, something that I hope that younger people still do find that group that you can go do your own thing and come back to. I also think that's huge, fantastic advice for like relationships in general. Like, if you're gonna be married, if you're gonna be in a long-term relationship, like you you do things together, yes, but you don't do everything together. Go find your thing that you do by yourself and then come back, um, because you need that me time to be able to then be okay being around other people, right, even if you're extroverted.

Speaker 1: 17:45

I know it might be hard to sit with yourself if you're extroverted, but, like, sometimes you just need to sit in a room by yourself and listen to the air conditioning, you know, or whatever. That sounds lovely, right, it would lull me to sleep. So you talk about these boxes that didn't quite fit and come in like discovering yourself later in life. What box did you create for yourself? How do you identify now as an adult Queer? Okay, great.

Speaker 2: 18:22

So, yes, that's a really good question and that changes often. And I'm at a moment when it's really changing because, you know, for a while I identified as lesbian and then I was in a conference a few weeks ago and Robin Oaks, who talks about bisexuality, was doing her presentation on bisexuality and I'm like, okay, and then we have a queer book club that we've just started. So one of the speakers at our BQLP Vision Forum was Skylar Baylor, who is the first trans NCAA division one swimmer from Harvard who is also a speaker. And I have discovered an amazing writer, so he's written his newest book is he, she, they.

Speaker 2: 19:50

And it talks about transness and I never really identified as trans or non-binary, but I already mentioned that I don't quite understand gender, so I'm like, well, maybe if that's a box that might describe me that might be a box that I fit in. So it's especially as the language changes and as the community understands itself better. You said you were at school. With what was it LGBT?

Speaker 1: 20:33

T yeah, LGBT, and that was it.

Speaker 2: 20:36

That was it. There was no plus, and so one of the superpowers a word that I hear often connected with the queer community and how we are world changers, culture changers, game changers is, you know, being out in the margins, creating new language, creating new ways for humanity to look at itself, creating the movement, possibly, towards non-binary thinking I'm so not good at that yet, because I've spent a long time being programmed in a particular way and I know that the brain works most simply in the binary but all of these things are contributions that we're making to a changing world, and I'm so excited about it. So the box is getting bigger, we're making the box bigger, and what I'm hoping is that, and something that I got out of your workshop when you were talking about. You know the importance of community. I hope that we're not stretching ourselves too thin, that we can still hold together cohesively as a community across difference. Difference. That's hard for humans to do, and so it'd be amazing if you know as we grow we can still remain woven together in community, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 22:42

There's a lot of beautiful imagery that came out of what you just said. The woven together. I really love because it's interlocking pieces that are kind of like different pieces that are fitting together. I love that kind of textile imagery. And then you've got this rainbow flag behind you and, as you were talking about like, I learned about this and I learned about that, it got me thinking about watercolors and how, like our rainbow I mean, your journey isn't going to look like solid lines, like that beautiful flag behind you. It might be a watercolor where like a drop of this is happening here and things just kind of kind of morph together.

Speaker 1: 23:26

You were talking and I was like this is beautiful. What's happening in my brain? But I don't know if I'm explaining it well enough for those of you who are listening, but I just love this imagery that came to me because it really does feel like that water cutler. You drop one drop and it's going to spread until it dries and then this is kind of how things are now and then you go learn something else and that's another little drop that happens and it spreads. Some other aspect and it might seem frustrating to folks that there's no like end point. But the whole thing about life is that you should be constantly growing and learning, and that includes constantly growing and learning about yourself.

Speaker 2: 24:13

Absolutely, and you talked about introverts and extroverts, and I know this, understanding that I'm about to talk about somebody, some philosopher or somebody talked about before me, but when I think about you know other people being mirrors, and so you, you know you. When you're having those moments, when you're with people, you're seeing them reflecting aspects of you and as well as their own, you know whatever their own vibe is.

Speaker 2: 24:56

And then when you say, you go off by yourself and you process that and you make decisions about what the mirrors are that you or who the mirrors are that you have around you. And you know I'm married, I chose my wife. She has a particular understanding of me, like I am now. We're going to stay this way forever and we're going to stay in this relationship forever, which is how relationships get broken, because people don't stop growing. So you know one of the I mean it sounds pretty self-centered to say, yes, I'm in love with my wife because she makes me look good, but part of the reason why she is good for me and the relationship is good for me because she's always challenging me to become my better self absolutely.

Speaker 1: 26:17

I think, yes, we are here for the relationship advice today, folks, because I think that's that really is right on part, because so many of those relationships end with like you don't, you don't love me, you love the idea of me. Well, at some point, that idea was who this person believed that you were. And so, yes, people change and when you're in a relationship, it's going to be difficult, but you are going to have to change and adopt together. Because if you just stay the same person that you were when you got married oh gosh, heaven forbid, you got married at like 18 and you're going to stay that same person for how many every years, like there's no maturity, that happens.

Speaker 1: 27:06

Your relationship, actually, I don't believe can get stronger if you don't adapt and change together. So, yes, I'm here for all the relationship advice. So how do you see aside, you run this like queer leadership program, but when you were working in the Newark school, how did you see your queerness like showing up with working with students? Were you already at that point in your journey or did that come afterwards?

Speaker 2: 27:43

So I have a story to tell. Well, so, if you don't mind me, I have two stories to tell. If you don't mind, we love stories, okay, so. So the first story is the fact that in part because of life know I, I got my PhD and I I had huge anxiety about getting a job. I thought I'm too old, I'm too black, I'm too female, I'm too queer, I am never going to get a job is where I was. The too old part was the highest One of those things that I thought was going to be a barrier.

Speaker 2: 28:34

And before I graduated, before I defended my dissertation, my wife found a job for me. She found she, she saw a job ad for a school that didn't exist yet and she said this is your job. And I said, okay, maybe you're right. And so when I had my first phone interview, I was really blessed that the person I was talking to, I had the sense of this being queer family, and I'm like, oh, that might not be a barrier for me I don't know about all the rest, but but that one might not be a barrier for me. But that one might not be a barrier for me, and clearly none of it was because I got the job and then I was a teacher in a high school in Newark, new Jersey. 85% of our student body was Black and then most of the rest were Latinx and I wasn't worried about the students.

Speaker 2: 29:58

I was worried about the parents and so I'm laughing because it was just so ridiculous. So on the first on back to school night I said you know what I'm going to wear a pink shirt.

Speaker 2: 30:15

Somehow or another, that pink shirt was going to make me look less queer the kind of nonsense that we have to wrestle with. You know, there were students who suspected that I was queer. There were students who had no clue. Even when I came out, they had no idea. They were surprised. Mostly the boys were surprised because I have kind of a maternal vibe, and so I stopped worrying about the parents and by the spring semester, and by the spring semester, I decided I'm just going to be my full self, I'm going to put on a tie and see what happens. And it was absolutely fine.

Speaker 2: 31:18

I had, you know, a homophobic student who came to talk to me and we had conversations. Did I make him less homophobic? I don't think so, but we had a really good conversation. So the question that he asked because one of the ways that I came out to my students was to talk about my family. So I have a birth daughter, and so that twisted some other kids head. Like you had sex with a man, what? And I was like, yes, because I didn't understand myself to be queer at the time. And you know, I and I wanted to be normal and I wanted to be a mom. And so this is how that happened. And so the homophobic students asked me like so what was better, you know, having sex with a man or having sex with a woman? And I said let's have a conversation man or having sex with a woman? And I said let's have a conversation. And so it was good to feel free and to be able to have that that kind of conversation. So that's story number one that you know.

Speaker 1: 32:39

Those are some of the ways that I came out, just talking about my, my family, the clothes that I wore and really trying to not no longer worry about the parents at that point are you okay if we take a pause before story number two, because there's there's one thing I want to point out is one that I don't think specifically white people realize the hierarchy of like intersectionality that other people deal with. You went through a list of like I'm too old, I'm too black, I'm too queer, I'm a woman, like all of these things that intersect in your identity, and they all caused some sort of negative impact on your perception of being able to get a job. And I feel like more people need to understand identity fully, that it's not just I'm a man, I'm a woman, I'm black, I'm white, I'm asian, I'm uh, I'm Asian, I'm gay, I'm straight. It's like all the things, all the things that you are, make up your identity. So it's really interesting to me, because one of the like many things that I've taught at various conferences like we met at a conference conference and one of the things that I taught in October at a different conference is like, how do you show up with your like your full identity in a classroom setting when people are like, well, you can't be your full self and I'm like, okay, great, well, tell me which part I'm supposed to take away, because if I take away husband and I take away dad, because you want me to take away queer. That's three things of my identity I have to take away. So if I take away dad because you want me to take away queer, that's three things of my identity I have to take away. So if I take away queer, then I also have to take away this, this and that, and so it's the intersectionality of identity.

Speaker 1: 34:35

I think a lot of people toss identity into something that's really easy and manageable, into a nice box that fits. The problem is the box is wrong. It's not actually a box, it's an octagon or whatever it is Like it's. It's multifaceted and like. The first thing that popped in my head was like oh gosh, look at all of those hurdles that she talked about. Like you're literally defending a dissertation, which is hard enough, it is hard enough. All those hurdles that she talked about like you're literally defending a dissertation, which is hard enough, it is hard enough, and you are worried about all of these things are going to impact your ability to get a job. So wild and not not wild in the sense that, like I'm not trying to make light of it I mean more people need to realize how this intersectionality plays into life for a lot of people.

Speaker 2: 35:29

Yes, yes, I was going to go on a tangent, but I want to get back to the story.

Speaker 1: 35:36

Do it, let's go, let's go.

Speaker 2: 35:37

Story number two yes, Story number two because because I was again fortunate enough to have to be a good teacher and to love my students and create relationships and and and have.

Speaker 2: 36:02

It was a very hard job creating a school, but growing the school with the students, creating the culture with the students that that made it possibly a little bit easier.

Speaker 2: 36:20

And having a boss who was queered, so he was fellow faculty and then he became my principal and then, when he left for another position, I became the principal of the school. And that was another thing. Because now I have to deal with a district and I'm not thinking that I'm too old or too black, because I've told you, it's a, it's a district in a, it's an urban district and so being black was an asset, being female was an asset, being queer asset, being female was an asset, being queer I had no idea where that fit, and even though my former principal was queer, he was not. I won't say he wasn't out because he was himself, but I won't say he wasn't out because he was himself, but he is a queer white male who went to Harvard in this urban district in Newark, so he had a whole nother set of equally struggles, of equally struggles, Like he was one of maybe two or three white principal you know school leaders in this school district and he just didn't want to add.

Speaker 2: 37:51

You know being out and loud, so he was kind of out, but he was definitely not loud, he was quiet. So he was kind of out but he was definitely not loud, he was quiet.

Speaker 1: 38:02

Yeah, my husband and I used to use the phrase palatable gay, like we're the palatable gays, because at a faraway glance we could look straight and we're white and before I kind of identified as queer, I was a gay male and so because I was a gay male, I was white and male and from a distance I looked like I'm straight and so you kind of have like this shield and I refer to it as, like the palatable gay people they're okay because they look like they're normal. Quote-unquote right.

Speaker 2: 38:35

Well, I don't, and I wasn't trying to. So well, I won't say I wasn't trying to. I actually wore a woman's pantsuit when I went to my interview. Again, camouflaged Didn't really work, but it made me feel better, it made me feel safer.

Speaker 1: 38:58

Safer. Yes, Right, or felt made me feel safer.

Speaker 2: 38:59

Safer. Yes, right, and you know that camouflage helped me to feel more confident than I would have if I had. I'm not wearing a tie today, but I usually do, and so once I got the job at least in the district in my understanding I was the only out loud queer principal and it seemed to be fine. I still was concerned again about parents, because it's a magnet school and I'm thinking, omg, I'm going myself is going to have an impact on our ability to attract students. Our ability to attract students and that's all me. I know I'm owning up to the fact that these are all my fears and there's reasons for the fear, but I wasn't confident and actually like right before I left. So I was principal there for six years. You know I was out in my school and you know my students understood and my parents understood, because I am always authentic. But I wasn't, you know I, and I was going to say I let me finish the story.

Speaker 2: 41:00

So one of my students got into a fight. Her mother came to the school, was in the office, I was trying to deal with the aftermath, the investigation of the fight, and her mother was a little inebriated and very angry and screaming in my main office and one of the things she was screaming is I want to talk to your gay ass principal. And so you know, someone reported to me. You know this parent called you the gay ass principal and I said really that's awesome and they're like Dr Stevens, that's disrespectful. He said her daughter is in my school. Her daughter is in my school. So whatever she thinks about my gayness number one, she's acknowledging that she knows that I'm gay and she has entrusted her daughter to me. So she may have been trying to insult me. I don't feel insulted because I am gay and I am the principal, so that isn't insulting to me, that's just true. But the good thing is she entrusted her daughter to me at the school, knowing that that's a good thing.

Speaker 2: 42:45

So I actually had a workshop with students. Well, we call it a chat and chew, so we had a chat and chew. I had a chat and chew, a chat and chew. I had a chat and chew and the title of the chat and chew we sit around like a brown bag lunch. We sit around and then we snack and talk about things and the was becoming the GAP right and so you know, really having conversation, mostly queer students showed up, but we had, you know, we had this conversation and again they're like Dr Stevens.

Speaker 2: 44:01

That's disrespectful and I just wanted to give them that point of view so that they can understand that you don't let other people define who you are and you don't let other people define how you value. That Yours is not their value. Whatever their value is, they have it. It doesn't. It doesn't, it shouldn't impinge upon my understanding of my value or my selfness because somebody else thinks that calling me a gay ass principal is an insult.

Speaker 1: 44:25

Right. I think like every classroom needs that conversation, because so many things are taken Like the world is so angry all the time right now, and sometimes I just wish people would take a breath and realize like that person can say what they want about you. Why does it matter? Brene Brown talks about this in several of her books, but she talks about like giving the cheap seats.

Speaker 1: 44:52

Like if you're in a big stadium, like a baseball stadium, and the person who's yelling gay ass, principal, or, in my case, like when I was younger people you know fag across the, they're yelling it across the baseball field. Like why am I going to give that person who's way up in the nosebleed section all of the air in the room when there's a whole bunch of people around me who are there supporting me? And so I'm a huge proponent of that, because I think that we do need to have this kind of emotional intelligence to be able to know when it's okay to be like I started responding to people who yelled fag at me with like yes, can I help you? Um, because, like you said, it's a truth, so why am I gonna get offended by it? They want to be offensive, and if I'm not offended by it, then they just didn't get what they wanted exactly they don't have power over you.

Speaker 2: 45:58

And so again, talk to my students about the buttons and because when they get into fights it's like you know, dr Stevens, they said this about me or they posted this about me. I said, ok, why did they post that about you? Probably because they wanted to make you mad. Did they want to? Did they succeed in making you mad? Then they have power over you and they're going to keep having power over you as long as that bothers you. So if you hide your buttons, that doesn't mean you don't have them. That doesn't mean that you don't. You're not hurt by this stuff, because you are, because you're human, but you don't want to give other people power over you by showing your buttons so that they can push you yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 46:46

I. I got the imagery of like those uh little plastic covers that kind of like fold over buttons like my button's still there and you can see it but there's this plastic layer that you cannot push that button right and only you have control over that. And I think that a lot of especially young people, I'm sure it is harder and feels more difficult, especially after isolation and quarantine, to be able to kind of get back into the world and just let things, you know, dust right off or water off a duck's back or whatever that phrase is. Um, but that is one thing with regard to emotional intelligence that I just feel like is so necessary for people to learn. So hopefully some people get little tidbits from this conversation because, honestly, this conversation is pretty fantastic with practical advice for life.

Speaker 1: 47:54

We're winning at this podcasting today, thank you. So I'm talking about how it's a little bit turbulent. You've had experiences where there's some turbulence happening and you had your own approach to how do you handle that. If you have a new teacher coming into a school situation and they're like you, they're maybe battling multiple intersectionalities and they're unsure how to show up authentically at school, what kind of advice would you give them?

Speaker 2: 48:28

So I can't be in everybody's head and so the answer is kind of different for different people. As I said early on, I was blessed to have a particular kind of temperament, so you know. So I can just plow, you know I I just had the anxiety kind of camouflage myself for a moment. Look at the playing field. So this can be advice. You definitely need to check out the playing field and then In the back of your head you always know that being your most authentic self is is where your power lies. So if you're going to be a great teacher, you're going to be your best teacher when you are your authentic self. How you do that may depend on the landscape, right, right? And so how you come out, when you come out, the way that you come out, the way that you are in relationship, who you're in relationship you might be in relationship with the queer GSA advisor. You might talk about your family, as I said I did, and you talk about doing it, and it's not right now. I'm going to be my authentic self and I'm going to talk about my family. It just you're talking about family within whatever the context is of your teaching or of your relationship, and it's natural you watch the response and then you respond to the response. So, as I told you, I had a homophobic kid. I am guessing and I don't know that this is true, but I am guessing that he was actually questioning and he was a Latino and his family and his community probably wasn't going to accept him as a queer male. So he was trying to figure out all of the reasons why he couldn't be queer. I'm sorry for that. I kept giving him reasons why he could be. So showing up can be different for all different people. You know, my wife was in a school where her boss told her she needed to be discreet. And so you know, I know how to be discreet, but I also love my wife. So, like when I came to the school to pick her up or deliver something, I am who I am. We didn't have to say hi, this is Carla, my wife, you know. But we weren't hiding. People who chose to see who we were could see People who chose not to, didn't or wouldn't, and she eventually got really resentful of being discreet and we got another job. So making those kinds of decisions really comes from caring about yourself, understanding yourself and understanding the landscape that you're in? Why did you choose to be in the school that you chose to be in? What are you trying to get out of the experience? What do you want your students to get out of the experience? I told you I was in a school where that was 98% underrepresented kids. I work in a college that is majority queer, also predominantly white institution, and again making the decision to change, I was feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm abandoning these. You know the BIPOC kids. And then I said, yeah, also, what I have to share as a BIPOC leader is important for white kids to see and to experience.

Speaker 2: 54:12

I teach a Cold War civil rights class. We're having race conversations in the Cold War civil rights. Before you know, we talked about the civil rights movement up to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And then we get to Black Power and, you know, white folks get kicked out of organizations like SNCC and there's the you know, black nationalism. That's the moment where we are right now. So in class we have to talk about race so we can figure out what happened, if it was important that it happened or not, how helpful it was. That's where we are now. I get to do that and that's important. So, yeah, I'm also teaching an afrofuturism class, which is also that sounds cool and important.

Speaker 2: 55:13

Ah, and in my cold war civil Rights class. So the school has a Bard Academy, which is a ninth and tenth grade that feeds into the college. So I'm teaching, I'm still teaching in high school because I like it. But so my Cold War Civil Rights class that I'm talking about now, that's ninth and tenth graders that we're having that conversation, ninth and 10th graders that were having that conversation. My college Cold War civil rights course is queered. I queered the course. So you know queer leaders like Bayard Rustin, pauli Murray, lorraine Hansberry, james Baldwin, those are kind of central folks that we're going to be talking about at the college level and reading about them at the college level. My Afrofuturism class, it is Afrofuturism, and also Octavia Butler, samuel Delaney, janelle Monae, so we've got queer authors that we're. You know, jemisin, I get to do that.

Speaker 1: 56:32

That sounds fun.

Speaker 2: 56:34

It is a lot of fun, as fun as your death.

Speaker 1: 56:42

I'm sorry, yeah, I.

Speaker 1: 56:43

I feel like we have been told for so long and by we I mean like I can speak from my perspective that I was told we shouldn't talk about race, we shouldn't talk about religion, we shouldn't talk about money and like.

Speaker 1: 56:54

Those are the things that are like taboo, and the problem is now those of us who are having conversations about race are like sparking fires because people get so angry about it because it's taboo and we should not talk about it. Um, I was defending myself on social media regarding like the use of slang and how slang and colloquial language can actually help students to understand content and that when you take slang and colloquialism away, period not able to use it in the classroom and you expect academic English, you are actually building a wall that says that that student's identity isn't important to our classroom because the words that they use and how they speak outside of the classroom aren't important and they're not allowed, so that child's going to shut down. It's a hindrance, it's a hurdle that they have to get over and had so many self-proclaimed liberal people coming at me about it because I boiled it down to the invention of quote unquote.

Speaker 1: 58:10

Standard English and academic English is literally about classism and race is literally about classism and race, and if you are going to fight so fervently saying that it's not, there's some introspection that needs to happen and you need to go into understanding, like the history of it, and I think what you're doing is so important because, either at the high school level or at the college level, these conversations about race need to happen, so that future conversations about race can happen that are not heated right that are just exploring together and that's what we're doing and and you know I waited until the middle of this semester hopefully created a safe enough space to have the conversation, am as relaxed as I possibly can be when we're having the conversation, can be when we're having the conversation.

Speaker 2: 59:24

So some of the pushback against critical race theory is that it makes white kids feel guilty. I think that when I'm speaking with my students, I think that they are having a hard time. My white students are having a hard time. I can see it in their face. I can see it in their reluctance to speak, some of them because they're wrestling with understanding privilege.

Speaker 2: 1:00:02

So one of the first things that I asked them to do was to free write about the first time in their lives that they, you know, understood race or thought that they understood race. And you know, most of my white students said I didn't have that kind of a moment. I see, have that kind of a moment. I see you know my BIPOC, you know friends struggling with it, but I didn't have much. So my experience is just largely a reflection of theirs. I had one white student who said I understand that part of my white privilege is that I don't have to think about race so I never really thought about it. And then I had my BIPOC students who were telling some of them are clearly trying to protect their white friends by just saying I was in a school and I you know, and some bad things happened. You know they don't even want to use the word white or right. I have a mixed race student and that's a whole nother. Kettle of fish about boxes and not fitting.

Speaker 1: 1:01:35

Yeah, there's that intersectionality again.

Speaker 2: 1:01:38

Yeah, well, she has a. I'm probably going to get this wrong. She has a black mom and a white dad and when she went to school she told the teacher that I think she was like eight, and the teacher said that that was nonsense, that she looked Hispanic. So in the school on her record, it says that she's.

Speaker 1: 1:01:59

Hispanic. What the heck School has done weird things. My younger son was registered as only speaking Spanish, but like doesn't know any Spanish. And I'm like, where did you get this from? Because like, yes, he's Mexican, but like he doesn't know any Spanish. And so it took a long time for me to get that off, Because when you're labeled as an English language learner, it is near impossible to get out of it without testing out of the program.

Speaker 1: 1:02:52

Correct you called me Clara. At the beginning, in third grade, I was Clara Stevens. It was on my records that my name was Clara Stevens, so for a whole year I was Clara Stevens. Uh. So it's so funny to me when, like, typos become reality, cause I've had things like oh, your son's birthday is entered wrong in the system, or you know, that's not the birthday that's in the system. And I was like, well, that's not his birthday that you're trying to use. So, like, someone fixed the typo and they're like here's 17 pages of paperwork. Um, but that's a whole other story for another time. Yeah, we're talking about systems in school. Let's round this out.

Speaker 2: 1:03:23

Yes.

Speaker 1: 1:03:24

What do you think that the school community can do this is parents, teachers, students can do to better support 2SLGBTQIA plus people.

Speaker 2: 1:03:35

So not necessarily call anybody gay as principal, but acknowledging that part of their identity is the beginning.

Speaker 1: 1:03:50

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:03:55

And feeling seen and acknowledged in that way makes a whole lot of difference. It's kind of sad that it would make so much difference. Or you've been harassed about that part of your identity, or your community has been so small because limited, because of that part of your identity. Having a larger community just acknowledge that thing just makes a world of difference. And so you know, having students that you know again, not having to say, oh, that's my gay teacher, that's not what I mean than their lives, than just having that accepted and be again woven into conversations and like organically I'm not talking about forcing anything, I'm just talking about acknowledging, you know, some part of a person's humanity in an authentic way. I don't know what people are going to say oh, you're a lesbian and I know three other lesbians. You know that's not.

Speaker 1: 1:05:56

Do you know each other? I know three other lesbians. You know that's not. Do you know each other? Do you know my lesbian friend?

Speaker 2: 1:06:02

We all know each other Exactly. That's not what I mean. It's the same thing about what you said about not talking about religion, not talking about money and not talking about race. Money and not talking about race, race, class and religion are huge parts of people's lives, how do you not? And I know, again, that it can be a cause for conflict, but that's what we want it to be is a cause for conversation, for growing together, for getting to know each other, for, as I said, understanding each other and becoming community despite difference, across difference. So you know so, just so, again I said that sounds like a really small thing, that I think is a really big thing when there's pushback and things go badly, you know, being upstanders instead of bystanders. That's, that's simple and important. And and maybe not so simple because we talked about intersectionality Everybody has intersectionality and everybody has groups that they belong to and has to make decisions about how defending this, you know, group is going to have an impact on my, you know, connection with this other group. One needs to think about that and make good, conscious decisions about what you're doing and what it means.

Speaker 2: 1:08:08

So we had, in largely Massachusetts, largely liberal, largely liberal, and in the local middle school we had a GSA advisor who had genderqueer as a resource for her GSA students and a parent saw it and went ballistic and called the police. Called the police and a plainclothes policeman went into the school to look for this book Crazy. But what I was really, what I really felt was positive, is that I sat in on some of the school district commission meetings about the incident and there were a lot of parents who defended the GSA advisor, you know, who tried to help the people who were upset to understand that Maya Kobe is a whole human and that this isn't a graphic novel, it's a graphic memoir, it's about somebody's life and it is educational because young people need to understand other people's lives. And so, okay, there's like three or four you know frames that have drawn body parts and talk about sex in a particular kind of way. There are also a lot of frames where Maya Koubeb talks about how excited it was that Aaron learned how to read, like in fifth or sixth grade, and became a bibliophile.

Speaker 2: 1:10:23

Don't you want your kids to read about somebody having that kind of experience? So how are you taking somebody's life apart because of these things that you're afraid of, right? So, even if one has those kinds of fears. Figure out how to be in conversation, kind of. You know, talk to people about the fears before you go, because that parent has control over what their child is reading. If you don't want your kid to read the book, then you can say the kid can't read the book, but you can't say that nobody else can either. That's, that's so.

Speaker 2: 1:11:17

But my point was that there were upstanding community members that said that was crazy and wrong and let's have a conversation about it. And the district was good enough to also let the you know, the angry parents have their say and talk about how it's pornographic. And so there was a bit of a conversation. Because that is something that that we we tend to do on either side, which is shut down the conversation.

Speaker 2: 1:11:51

Don't shut down the conversation, even if you don't think what the person is saying is kind or right, or if you don't allow them to have a conversation, then you're being the same kind of person who's censoring speech. We don't like it. But you can't get, you can't educate anybody by saying you're not allowed to think that, you're not allowed to think that you're not allowed to say that. You can say I hear you saying that your voice isn't more important than mine and we can talk about how we can compromise or you know. But you know, trying to set down the voices altogether ends up in having people exploding, and you don't. You don't need exploding people.

Speaker 1: 1:12:53

No, self-combustion is not on the menu today.

Speaker 2: 1:12:57

No no, no, so. So self-combustion is not on the menu today. No, no, no, so. So yeah, and and we talked about this at the conference If you are a teacher and you are feeling that you're in a dysfunctional or abusive situation, look for community. First, take care of yourself. It's really, really important that if it's time to go, it's time to go and look for that better opportunity. And so that's my three things.

Speaker 1: 1:13:40

I appreciate that At this point I'm going to turn the mic over to you and you get to ask me one question to round out our episode.

Speaker 2: 1:13:48

One question Can I ask about your kids? Yeah, absolutely so so I heard about your, you know, going from California to Texas, to to New York. How's that transition been for you, not only as a as a an educator as a, an educator, but also as a dad.

Speaker 1: 1:14:25

So, yes, so when I moved from california to texas, my initial uh my husband saying we should move, was my initial response was no, absolutely not. Um, and it was for the exact reasons that we ended up leaving texas that worried. But when we got to Texas, the environment politically was more like lavender Wasn't quite red, wasn't quite blue. Things were moving in a good direction and my kids in Texas thrived. They had community, they had activities, they participated in things and they did really well there. In fact, when we made the decision to move to New York City, my oldest son who's 20, stayed in Texas because, after assuring me he was going to hate Texas when we moved, he found it to actually be his home. He feels like San Antonio is his home and that's great for him.

Speaker 1: 1:15:23

And so the thing that we that I kind of saw, is that I worked in a pretty affluent school district for four years. My children went to the school district because it was a perk of working there. My youngest daughter is half black, half white and she had all of maybe six people in the whole school that looked like her. My older kids gravitated towards Mexican community without realizing it. I don't think they, just like most of their friends, were Mexican or Hispanic. I'm from Southern California so I honestly had never heard the term Hispanic until I moved to Texas, because I'm from like. At one point I could see Mexico from like outside my front yard, living in San Diego, so I saw that happening and the representation on campus wasn't great.

Speaker 1: 1:16:41

So when we moved here, the one thing that I love is that the area that we live in, as well as, like my commute, kind of forces me to be the like, the one white person in the room. And my, my daughter said something just in passing the other day. She is wonderful. Right now she's got her braids out and she's like really taking care of her natural hair and she's 10, or almost 10. So she's really like focusing on it. She does work on it at night. She does work on it in the morning before she goes to school and she goes work on it in the morning before she goes to school and she goes. A lot of people in my school have my hair. I think that's super cool and the underlying message was there are a lot of people at my school that are like me and I think that's really cool, and when we were in Texas she was one of a few and so I wanted her to be in a space where she would be a majority, even if it's only at school or, you know, even in our little community of the Bronx, like it's a very Dominican community, but the Dominican community is incredibly diverse. And so again, I walked down the street and I'm like the only white person and I'm totally comfortable with that. I actually was saying this to someone who was doing their research for their dissertation recently about how I feel most comfortable in diverse spaces. I feel more comfortable than when I am in white spaces, because it's the same white supremacist patriarchy kind of business that vilified queerness. It all kind of comes from the same space. And so it's been really nice for me as a parent to see them thrive in Texas and that they loved it and and and going through the process of like how it hurts to have to leave, but remembering you know we have FaceTime now and we have all these things you don't have to leave your friends behind just because you left the state um, and then getting them to a space where they're the majority in their classroom and leading because my kids like.

Speaker 1: 1:19:03

My youngest is the fourth grade class representative. After only have been at the school for three weeks, she met everybody in their fourth grade and she was elected to this position and she's one of the top students in the fourth grade. And my son is one of the top students in his senior year. And my daughter and my middle daughter, my older daughter she is calm Whereas she was trying to do things in Texas and she didn't like any of them and she particularly did not like the heat in Texas, which I will vouch for. There was like three months of a hundred degree plus weather for the summer. So now she's kind of settled into. I'm going to go to school and during the summer I'm going to work and she has friends and she started dating people or trying to date people and she had her first breakup and all of these things. That didn't happen when we were in Texas, even though she had like a little community built up and whatnot. So this is it's good to see that even here they're thriving, and I think part of it is that because we live within New York City, because, despite what people from Manhattan say, all five boroughs make up the city, they have a lot more independence. They take the train to school, they take the bus to school. They have more independence than even driving the mile and a half from our house to their old school when we were in Texas. So I think it's been interesting because, as a parent, I'm watching them grow more, because, just by the nature of where we live, I have to give them more responsibility and allow them to be trusted on their own.

Speaker 1: 1:21:05

My son's starting to look at colleges and we're, you know, trying to convince him to stay in the city.

Speaker 1: 1:21:09

He can live here for free.

Speaker 1: 1:21:10

It's going to be cheaper for us, right?

Speaker 1: 1:21:12

College is expensive and I was like so take the subway, figure out your route. And he's 17 and I'm like so take your subway, figure out your route and figure out which route makes best sense to you. Because, yes, you can move four hours away to one of the state schools, uh, which is really fantastic, but we're not buying you a car. You're gonna going to have to do everything on campus or walk, or you can take your bike, but, like, you're pretty limited on transportation, whereas if you live here, you can get around the whole city in an hour and a half on a subway. So it's been nice to kind of have this extra support, I think, with transitioning them into adulthood, because we didn't have to give that kind of responsibility to our oldest son when he was 16 and 17, because he had a car and he drove to school and it was a mile away and we all kind of were in the same space. So thanks for asking. Not a lot of people ask about, like my kids are, the parenting sides of things.

Speaker 2: 1:22:22

Well, you're welcome.

Speaker 1: 1:22:25

Well, I also want to take a moment to thank you for spending an hour or so with me today. I really appreciate it. I loved, loved, loved our conversation and I hope that everybody listening enjoyed it as well.

Speaker 2: 1:22:37

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. It was great talking to you and maybe I'll have a chance to talk to you again. I have more questions.

Speaker 1: 1:22:46

Oh, I love that. We should absolutely connect again Before we disconnect. Where can people learn about your program at B?

Speaker 2: 1:22:55

you are so good to me, so um the bqlp. If you just google letter b, letter q, letter l, letter p at simon's rock, you will get our, our website and yes.

Speaker 1: 1:23:18

I love that we needed another acronym and now we have one.

Speaker 2: 1:23:22

Right, and if you go just on the Bard College at Simons Rock website, you will also get to the BQLP that way.

Speaker 1: 1:23:33

Wonderful. So if you are a young person who is interested in that program, or a seasoned person who is interested in that program, or a seasoned person who is interested in that program, um, go check it out and thank you all so much for listening. Have a great rest of your day and to you, thank you. Thank you for joining us on this episode of teaching while queer. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did make sure to subscribe. Wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, leave a review, and that would help out tremendously. You can also support the podcast by going to wwwteachingwhilequeercom and hit support the show. Thanks so much and have a great day.