How does it feel to be prejudged in your own class? This what my experience was like in a pre-GED class. I am a 35-year-old gay man with cerebral palsy. I came to an adult education program for a few different reasons. I wanted to learn about lots of different things. I was pretty sheltered as a kid. I finished through sixth grade, but I left school. I had missed so much school because of my surgeries, and when I came back after each surgery, I felt really lost. I came back to school as an adult to work on my writing and math. I knew I had things to say, but I couldn't put it on paper very well. I wanted to hear about different ideas and approaches to issues, and I wanted to accomplish getting my GED.

Leaving the Program
I didn't end up getting my GED -- not yet anyway. I left my class last year. I didn't want to leave. I thought I could find a way around it or through it. What is the "it" that I couldn't find a way through? The triple whammy of being physically challenged, having a learning disability, and being gay. All these things affected me and still do, but having to deal with homophobia in my class really made me hide within myself. Eventually, it was really overwhelming. I started getting down on myself because of it. I started to think about suicide. My self-esteem was really bad. I couldn't be who I was. I had to keep my guard up and watch what I said and how I reacted to things. That affected my learning a lot. I couldn't put all my energy or thinking into learning. Half of my brain was trying to concentrate on what I was learning, and the other half was on guard thinking, "Be careful of what you say. Don't let them find out." Sometimes other students would say things like "that guy's such a faggot," and it would make me so nervous that I couldn't even think. I would worry that they might say something like that about me. The teacher never said anything about those comments. Maybe he didn't know what to say.

Class Incident
Something happened in class that made me feel even more insecure about myself. One day, at break time, two male students in the class went to the restroom. A few minutes later, the teacher also went to the men's room. Then he returned to the class with the two students. The students seemed really nervous. I knew that something had happened. The next day, we came to class and the teacher brought up the subject of what happened the day before. He said that there was a time and a place for that. He seemed angry and disgusted and talked in a very stern voice. (The two students had been caught kissing in the men's room.) Then someone came in, and we got off of that subject.

The next day, the teacher said something about this situation to the whole class. He said, "J and H had very inappropriate behavior in the washroom. People like them should do that in their own environment." He started to say something else, but I interrupted him and changed the subject because I could see J and H walking toward the door to come in to class and I didn't want them to hear him talking about them like that. A lot of people in the class started whispering "What were they doing?" Some students, especially the younger ones, laughed. One girl made kissing noises whenever they came in the room. Sometimes J and H would leave class and not come back. One older man in the class said, "I hate those f**kin' faggots. They shouldn't be allowed in society." He got really irate about it. He said this at break time when J and H were out of the room. It made me really upset and nervous. It brought back a lot of really bad memories of kids at school calling me and other kids "faggot." My own family used to use that word too. To this day, I can't even talk to my own family about this.

A couple of days later, the teacher brought the subject up again, saying the same thing. He also brought in an article from Readers' Digest about accepting different sexual orientations. He read it out loud to the class and asked if anyone had any questions. He said that different people have different views about this. He said he didn't agree with some things in the article. A few days after that, J and H just stopped coming to class. I never saw them again after that.

Good Experiences
I've had many different teachers in my life and a few different ones in adult education. With other teachers who I've had, things were different. The environment was more accepting and made you feel more comfortable. They let me know it was OK to me and that being gay was not an issue. If we read an article from the newspaper in which a gay issue came up, we could talk about it (or anything else) and feel that our opinions were important and that people would not make fun of you. We could talk about everything. We talked about racism, adult literacy issues in the country, issues about disabilities like the one I have, or different kinds of learning disabilities-whatever came up. No one was made to feel bad because they were different. Everyone was accepted for who they were. Sometimes the teacher would say things in a way that made you feel included-like she would say the word "partner" when she talked about families. It made you feel like you were included and not on the outside looking in.

I had both good and bad experiences being a gay student in an adult education class. I feel its important to write this because it might make it better for other students, so that hopefully they won't have to put up walls that block their learning or feel bad about who they are. I am writing anonymously because some of my family lives in the area, and I don't feel that I can be out to them right now.

Teachers, Please Listen
For the teachers who are reading this, try to put yourselves in our shoes so you might know what it feels like to be judged. You could be hurting people by making comments in class that imply that being gay is bad or wrong or disgusting. You could be hurting your students without even knowing it.