Do you feel a responsibility to mentor younger LGBT?

[stephfromMIT]

If not this year, certainly next year, I'll be TA-ing. I plan to be totally "out". As a teacher's assistant (and later professor) I feel a responsibility to show LGBT student (women in particular) that you can be "out" AND sucessful.

[Bard]

I think of this a lot being a police officer on a university campus I want to show the LGBT students that I am out, proud & happily married. Actually Desd and I were the first Legal Smae sxe marriage held at SU Hendricks Chapel.

I still remember the young lady who tried to kill herself because her family would not support her being gay. I help her bleeding wrists and talked to her till the medical folks arrived I can only hope I helped

[Kobi]

Just my thoughts here, if I my goal was to mentor queer youth, I would get involved with an organization that deals with queer youth.

Try as I might, I cant quite envision what "plan to be totally out" in the workplace means in practical terms.

As a former supervisor of students in field placements, I would be reluctant to supervise anyone who had any agenda aside from learning their craft. In my field, much of what needs to be taught involves maintaining therapeutic boundaries. One of those boundaries involves learning how to be supportive without using personal disclosures which could jeopardize the overall therapeutic process.

Plus, as a supervisor, I would be very concerned there would be unintended consequences for crossing those boundaries. A touch, a hug, even a smile can be easily misinterpreted.

[stephfromMIT]

Kobi-Sorry if I wasn't clear. I only mean that I'll be a supportive prescence for the LGBT students I'll be teaching. I feel that being "closeted" implies a shame at being gay. I feel *no* shame in being true to who I am. Young people are looking for role models, and if I can be that, I'd feel bad about rejecting that opportunity.

[spritzerJ]

Kobi-Sorry if I wasn't clear. I only mean that I'll be a supportive prescence for the LGBT students I'll be teaching. I feel that being "closeted" implies a shame at being gay. I feel *no* shame in being true to who I am. Young people are looking for role models, and if I can be that, I'd feel bad about rejecting that opportunity.

I can understand the supportive presence descriptor. I work to be a model of living as a strong, beautiful and joyous person. What someone, particularly a young person, chooses to remember me as is welcome. In my work I don't actively seek to mentor but "I see you as you are and accept that" moments happen.

Remembering my own young life I had few examples of those around that were lesbian. The one who was wasn't a mentor. Yet in my mind that person played an important role of visibility. Just by being themselves. It took no extra words or actions on her part. I am grateful for that person living and just being.

Within my family and with friends I have offered advice or another perspective. Often referring people to youth organizations.

[Kobi]

Kobi-Sorry if I wasn't clear. I only mean that I'll be a supportive prescence for the LGBT students I'll be teaching. I feel that being "closeted" implies a shame at being gay. I feel *no* shame in being true to who I am. Young people are looking for role models, and if I can be that, I'd feel bad about rejecting that opportunity.


I understand the intent, I am just having trouble picturing the way or ways in which you intend to be fully out. Do you mean announcing to the entire class that you are <insertpreferencehere>? Or to just be you and answer honestly if someone asks? Or to be supportive of students who might disclose that they are queer? Or something else?

I was never closeted in the workplace or anywhere else. Trust me, it would be hard to mistake me for anything but a queer. Among my collegues it never occured to me to not mention my girfriend or to call my partner she or any other behavior that would deny who I was.

It was different with clients. Again, I would never deny it but as with any inquiries as to my personal life, there was a therapeutic way to handle it.

Like spritzer said, it was and is more important to me, in the workplace or elsewhere, to be seen for the person or the woman I am than it is to be seen for the queer I am.

[aishah]

i'm pretty much out about most things in my life and i hope that encourages others to be comfortable being who they are. i don't announce it (unless it's appropriate) but i don't hide things about myself if people ask.

i work with lgbtq and disabled youth and i try to be supportive. i see my role more as creating space for people to do what they want to do...with mutual mentoring. i learn as much from them as they do from me, and i'm not that much older. (i'm 24, which may or may not make me a "youth," depending on the context, hehe.) i also help different organizations learn how to be more inclusive of young people and integrate young people into leadership and decision making.

i think being "in" or "out" means different things to different people and it's important to respect each person's individual decisions about how/when they are "out." what is "out" to me is not necessarily always the best thing for someone else.

[stephfromMIT]

Kobi-I'll be "out" by not lying about the name/gender of my SO when asked about it. I don't plan to start the 1st lab by saying,"I'm Ms. Thompson and I'm a lesbian." If I have a LGBT student (I suspect I'll have at least 1), I want them to know that my "rainbow stickered" door will always be open.

[spritzerJ]

Living "out" is a challenge for me at work. I don't take the risk lightly at work (elementary school teacher). Yet I don't stop myself from just being me, including out, because sometimes what I am worried about is just my own internal issues. I feel a responsibility to hold a welcome space for people at work, home and in the community. I don't take lightly that I interact with others and they have feelings I may not see or know.

Interestingly enough, I find that I have the most impact to viability and acceptance when I am out as a parent. This came as a surprise to me. And I am glad.

[Kobi]

Kobi-I'll be "out" by not lying about the name/gender of my SO when asked about it. I don't plan to start the 1st lab by saying,"I'm Ms. Thompson and I'm a lesbian." If I have a LGBT student (I suspect I'll have at least 1), I want them to know that my "rainbow stickered" door will always be open.


Ahhh ok. This gives a better idea of what "out" means to you.

What will you be teaching?

[princessbelle]

I feel it is important to do anything we can to help our youth. Especially with all of the suicides and bullying that our youth are facing.

In my day, most of us were in the closet, and we would have never dreamed of being "out".

Today, as adults and a changing (hopefully) society, we encourage our youth to be strong and speak out and be yourself. However this can be dangerous mentally and physically for some of them.

I truly would love to help in some way.

A while back, when we had the "wear purple" to support our gay youth day, I wore a purple shirt, pony tail holder and i tied a purple bandana around my wrist and went to the mall and just walked around. I felt sorta silly not knowing what to do or how to help someone.

I will never forget this group of early teenagers talking about 10 feet from me. I was looking at them thinking "does someone need help". I didn't know what to do and was alone without a vision of what i was actually doing.

There was a boy in that group that spotted me and walked around the entire group of teens and smiled big toward me and nodded. I KNOW he knew i was there to help if needed. I KNOW he appreciated that small offering of hope and love and acceptance.

It's something i'll never forget. It is also a feeling i want to have again.

Great thread.

[stephfromMIT]

Kobi-I'm doing a Physics Ph.D, so I assume I'll mostly be proctoring labs for undergrads.

[Tcountry]

I am not sure u would call it mentoring as much as it is just being a presence as well as bring present.
Some of us don't have the ability to be out at work...without the fear of being fired from that job ...so freely answering "what did u do this weekend?" Might not be a considered option.
But...that being said...since it is not currently a fear(of mine).
I think that being a presence, especially in a small Midwestern town is warranted. To at least show that it IS ok & u are not alone...

Just my 2 cents tho
*tip hat*

[jac]

Absolutely! One of my biggest mantras is "Live by example."

When I was at the university and moving along through my degree, many of the courses I was taking opened the mind to this vary thing on many levels. Me being a non-traditional student and sitting side-by-side with kids my own children's age, I felt and do feel compelled to share my life, my struggles and my growth as a member of the community. I tend to be a story-teller and I was usually able to capture the attention of several in the course. Sometimes they would stop me in the hall or pass me later in the day and want to talk. I was a neutral, none-judgemental adult that they could use as a sounding board.

The further along I got with my coursework the more I knew I was doing the right thing since my goal was and still is to run an adolescent homeless shelter for the community someday. I did my internship at our local adolescent homeless shelter and actually got the position because I told the director from the beginning my intenetions. I was hired on after graduation and I am me, living and breathing and succeeding as a member of the community and as a professional.

Mentoring is needed... and I do believe it's my responsability... as a stone, a butch, a lesbian, a woman, a mother and anything else some young struggling someone is needing at the time to; hear them, see them and acknowledge them. That is, however, what I always wanted as a youth....

[girl_dee]

Things have changed over the years. When i was in high school my PE teacher was no doubt a gay woman, we connected, and i wanted SO badly to talk to her. But i couldn't, she couldn't and all the girls were freaked out that our teacher was going to *look* at them.

One of my clients is the clone of my old PE teacher. She tells me how kids come to her left and right about being gay, and that she takes her partner on trips with the kids and parents.

lots happened in 25 years.

When i was in Oregon there was a young gay gal who was a lost puppy. Us old dykes sorta took her under our gay wings and by just showing her that we are NORMAL, gay couples operate like the straight ones! We have the same joys and woes as everyone else. She was out on the mountain but in the closet back home, and by having that experience she gained a great deal. She is still on my FB and we check in regularly. i think she is now out to her family and embracing her identity rather than hiding it feeling shameful.

Sometimes you mentor people by just being an example.

[Kobi]

Kobi-I'm doing a Physics Ph.D, so I assume I'll mostly be proctoring labs for undergrads.



Way cool. Physics fascinates me.

[TWolf]

I'm very fortunate in that my company makes diversity a priority, even providing spousal rights to domestic partners. The support I find there was a large part of my decision to transfer to our new facility in Mississippi.

Several months ago in talking to a new co-worker, I was asked if the picture on my desk were my family. Of course I proudly pointed out my son, my girlfriend, and her son in the photos. I was genuinely surprised when she then asked quietly.... "So.... is it really... OK?"

Through a series of conversations I came to realize that she and her girlfriend were incredulous when they read that portion of the company policy, to the point that she called with the classic "hypothetical" questions to the amusement of the HR rep. Their experiences had led them to feel that this must be some kind of mis-print or a policy that surely was just given lip service and not adhered to.

To me this just reinforced how important it is for me to have the right to be out in my life.. without fear... and to be visible to others striving to find their way.

[boobookitty]

YES I DO!

I do some counceling, help with online suport groups, and some lecturing.
I try to represent recovery, from abuse and trauma, in a positive way.
I am honest open and upfront with every aspect of my life.

The good the bad te ugly and the really really scary.... we can recover and learn to be who we really are, and feel happy in our everyday lives.
It takes work and time... but to have peace inside is so very very worth it!

[stephfromMIT]

June-I absolutely agree we can ALL benefit from mentoring. Whomever is my advisor, they will be straight, so I'll be missing out on the mentoring of an "out" proffessor in my field. I will benefit from their mentoring on a academic, scinetific level, but IMO I'll miss out on the mentoring as a person.

[Girl_On_Fire]

I feel very strongly about this thread topic so I'd like to add my two cents: I spent two and a half years down South and in an area where GLBT youth were incredibly closeted and terrified to tell their parents about who they really were, mostly for what they said were religious reasons.

I worked in a grocery store with some of these young kids and several of them came out to me. I was moved to tears by a particular young gay man who told me he would probably just get married to a woman and live a lie. He broke my heart. I gave him the biggest hug. He really looked up to me and cried when I left abruptly to move back up North. I felt responsible for him. I did my best to encourage him to be himself.

No matter where you live; more conservative parts of the South, more liberal parts of the North or anywhere in between or beyond, I believe the 30 and over crowd is in part responsible for GLBT youth. I offer as much encouragement as I can because so many young GLBT people commit suicide every day.

And I want to make a side note here in case I offend any Southerners: I'm not saying that all Southerners are homophobic at all. My then-partner and I just happened to live in a particularly non-accepting area. Not making judgement at all against any one group of people. (I'm not that kind of "Yankee" ;).)

[Dance-with-me]

Wonderful thread! I am on faculty at a rural community college in an overall very conservative county. As far as I know I was the first out employee (talking openly about my then-spouse, applying for the few domestic partnership benefits that we actually did have) but we only last month were able to finally start a GSA -- for years when I tried to start one, I was told that only a student could start a club, but the climate in this area was just so oppressive that no student was willing to go forward and do so. Finally a coworker who is president of the local PFLAG group fought hard and won the right for us to start the GSA.

So I'm now one of the faculty advisors for the GSA, and it's just amazing to me to watch the students come forward with this look of freedom that they just haven't had before. It gave me the courage to take it a step further and put a LGBT Safe Space sign on my office door, plus an HRC sticker on my office window. As a femme, I don't have the ability to be out to my students just from my appearance and demeanor; if I want them to recognize that I am one of them -- and from that allow them to see that they can live a life that is honest and open even as a gay person -- I have to be more deliberate about it. Fortunately my new boss is a very strong supporter of the LGBT community.

So I really don't know if what I'm doing could be considered mentoring in the sense that I normally mean it. I'm not directly taking anyone under my wing, though if an LGBT student came to me and asked me for advice and assistance I would certainly not turn them away - though it would have to be to some degree with in the boundaries of what we are supposed to do in general in terms of trying to help our students directly with any kind of personal problem.

Oh and YAY for science/physics geeks! I'm a computer geek with roots in engineering, and would have loved to have gone to MIT! In fact, my very first butch lover was an MIT student... ;)

[Massive]

Great thread and I really have something I want to say to join in, but it'll have to wait for tomorrow as it's 6am and my bed is calling to me! I'll be back ...

[Massive]

When I came out and started going out on my local scene, I had the older butches and femmes take me under their wings and they taught me how to be. So, I have always felt that I owed it to all of them to pass it on, since then I've adopted several younger butches and femmes who were either rejected by their parents or simply ignored, they all call me Dad and I am beyond proud of every single one of them, over he years I've watched them all become strong, independent people, and seeing them now is the best feeling ever. I don't have the time to help out now, mainly because I love too far away from the nearest scene, so instead I try to help out our younger members here and elsewhere whenever I can, because I feel we have an obligation to help those who are unsure or just plain scared, to show them that there's nothing wrong with them and that they're not alone, ever.