Why aren't there more gay teachers?

How many gay teachers would suffice for you ?

Just more.

It wasn't a troll question. I'm not sure why gay men wouldn't be flocking to the profession anymore than women do. Seems like they could bring a lot of added value.

Why would we want to babysit the children of fraus and douchebros?

Poor salaries, bad clothes, too many bossy fraus around.

There are loads of gay teachers, male and female. But how many concerned parents would harass the school board until those teachers were let go due to “differences that couldn’t be overcome” when it is nothing more than simple homophobia and gay panic? Karens absolutely do not want gay teachers. And there’s even a bill that passed in one state, I forget which one, that allows medial professionals to opt out of assisting LGBT patients and another state that recently passed a law that would allow students to opt out of learning about gay issues. I swear, parents would be more comfortable with pedophiles teaching classes than they would ever be with gay teachers.

I’m allergic to children.

There is not enough money in the world to get me to be a teacher.

As long as they're teaching STEM related courses.

You know why OP so just say it.

Gay men are often (though of course not always) assumed to be predators by a lot of people.

“He is gay?! He is going to have his way with my innocent 7-17 year old son!!!”

It is sad, but that is the reason, especially with elementary schools. What kind of guy wants to spend all his time with young children (and this applies to straight men as well)? Many men enjoy teaching but they will forever get the side eye from parents with an over active imagination.

What R5 said.

My first year as a permanent teacher (many years ago), a boy made allegations against me. Despite being innocent, I was suspended for 3 months while Children’s Aid and the police investigated.

You learn that you don’t give kids and their parents more ammunition to use against you. Some people are still ignorant and think pederasty and homosexuality are the same thing.

Tons of lesbians, 0 gay men.

Lesbians have "crowded out" the field so to speak.

Honey, too many fucking children.

Baroness Bomburst had the right idea.

Because school is a discriminatory institution, even for teachers. Anyone whose "different" is subject to bullying. Ever teach a class full of 8th graders? It'll make you wish you hadn't. They will pick you apart; roll their eyes at you, whisper about you while you teach, start rumours, tell mommy and daddy to call the principal, etc. To make matters worse, consequences are frowned upon. Teaching sucks.

It doesn't have to be like that though.

Maybe they wouldn't bully if it was more diverse.

It’s not true that teaching has no gay men. I’ve met many.

R14, you’re so right. Early in my career I supply taught. I’m qualified K-6, but when schools are stuck they don’t care as long as you’re a teacher. I sometimes got calls for grades 7 and 8 which is out of my comfort zone, but I did it. I heard some boys using the word gay in a negative way one day and spoke to them about it. Of course, every time I supplied they made sure I heard them use that word after that.

As for consequencing kids, this seems to happen less and less. I said before on another “teacher” thread that we have a boy in our school right now who RUNS the school. He is never given a consequence unless it’s an out of school suspension. Our last principal (we’re on our 3rd this school year) told me “we can’t make him do what he doesn’t want to do.” Meaning, if you want him to lose a recess, we can’t make him if he doesn’t comply. This was from a retired 30-year principal. This is what education has come to.

I’m to old for this bullshit. Retirement can’t come fast enough (4 more years, God help me).

Sorry, R5 didn’t write that last post, I did.

I have a friend who is out and has been teaching social studies for 30 years in Los Gatos, California. He is ADORED and considered a pillar of the school and community. Because its a very very wealthy district, with a lot of rich liberal tech types and their kids, he's never had to deal with any homophobic bullshit. Put him in a place like Alabama or Tennessee and it would be a completely different ballgame.

Same for here in NYC. I know of quite a few gay teachers. But most work in schools with well-to-do or woke parents.

I had two openly gay male teachers in high school -- this was in the '90s. They got my respect: nothing simple about teaching unruly teenagers in public school.

The Briggs Initiative put a damper on the idea of becoming a teacher if you were Gay, and even though it was defeated it placed a linger fear that it could happen again in any place or time.

R9, but there are a ton of gay male teachers. Proportionately more us want to be teachers than straight guys, most of whom can barely read

I know tons, OP

I know gay male teachers. I think they upset many posters here because they’re around kids. Same with gay parents. Gay parents REALLY anger people here.

There are plenty of gay and out teachers in the NYC public school system.

I used to attend Project 10 teaching seminars in Los Angeles--project ten refers to the stat (maybe old now) that about 10% of the population was LGBT. It was about educating people and preventing bullying of gay/lesbian students. I knew gay teachers/counsellors, but they kept it on the downlow in the 80s and 90s. Teachers are vulnerable to accusations of abuse. It can be a great profession, though, and I hope will continue to be more and more diverse. Don't know what goes on in the Bible Belt, though.

My 4th grade teacher and the schoolyFrench teacher were both very handsome gay men who married women. I know they were friends and probably hooked up.

I'm a gay man and I have been teaching in public schools for 36 years (three to go!). When I started teaching in the 80s being out in general wasn't all that safe, but being out as a teacher was career suicide. The Knight Initiative... The Briggs Initiative... You could get fired simply for being "accused" of being gay. In all these years I've known many gay male teachers -but none of them were/are out to their students. I think that is beginning to change now, but mostly with younger teachers who come out in their interviews. It's still risky, as principals have great power over getting renewed during your first few years, and they will often give shitty assignments in hopes that a teacher they don't like will quit. In the end, though, it's all about the parents. Gay or straight they talk about you to everyone -and share their opinions. A few homophobic parents can really make your life hell. Why don't more gay men become teachers? They want careers with more money, prestige, and respect.

R25 The Bible belt is very much mostly women.

^ and male coaches.

It's like Don't Ask, Don't Tell in some places.

You can't wear your Gay and Proud hat.

Much of Hebl’s research focuses on how disadvantaged groups are treated in the workplace and in hiring situations. In one study, she asked people to wear hats with either the phrase “Gay and Proud” or “Texan and Proud” and apply for jobs in Houston, which had a city ordinance prohibiting employers from discriminating based on sexual orientation (Barron, L.G., et al., Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2013). Participants did not know which hat they were wearing. Although the two groups reported no differences in overt forms of discrimination, such as being allowed to complete an application, the participants who donned the “Gay and Proud” hats perceived less positivity, had shorter interactions and experienced more rudeness. Their instincts were confirmed by independent coders who listened to audiotapes of the interviews and rated higher levels of subtle discrimination against people wearing the “Gay and Proud” versus the “Texan and Proud” hat.

I had a friend of an ex who is a middle school teacher. The first day of the school year he would tell the kids he was a gay man with a husband, etc. It rook a lot of balls. He even brought his lovable dog to school. He's very tall and personable and will take no shit from anybody.

I wonder how my life would have been if I'd had such a role model?..

Exactly. You don't have to lie about who you are. You can live a perfectly fine life. Don't have to hide and marry a woman. No need to kill yourself. Mr. Middle School teacher had a dog and was happy so I can be too.

I’ll admit, being a “specialist” teacher- art, music, library it is a lot easier to be a gay male teacher than a regular classroom teacher. Even the most intolerant parent can usually put up with their kid just having a gay teacher one period a week as opposed to them being their child’s full time classroom teacher.

It’s because it’s a sad sack job for unremarkable people

What about Mr G?

"It’s because it’s a sad sack job for unremarkable people"

You're a sad sack and an unremarkable snob who trashes people based on their jobs

TikTok seems too have many out loud proud gay teachers, one of the most unapologetic ones is this preschool teacher who I don’t know how he gets away with what he says and does even outside the gay stuff.

Considering how much we admire Mrs. Patsy Ramsey, formerly of Boulder, CO, I'm surprised there aren't FEWER gay teachers.

R37 ♥️

Teaching has always been a homophobic profession. And it still is - for primary and secondary schools.

Straight people do not want gay people around children. End of story.

It's practically impossible not to run into at least a couple of gay teachers in any HS. Are you typing from the 1940s?

You'd think there would be more gay male teachers because being in an environment with mostly women and children makes a workplace romance highly unlikely.

Frau controlled profession that is hostile to all males, and doubly so to gay males. I would have loved some gay and straight male elementary teachers. All I got were ugly permanently-PMSed fucking fraus...awful every single one of them. I think my negative opinion of women in general comes from being victimized by these incompetent arrogant idiots early in life.

Not like your job. R34, trolling DL for a few bucks from Vlady via Paypal. Nobody with any self respect posts the garbage you do.

R43 There really are some big miserable bitches teaching, aren't there?

If they hate the patriarchy they should go run for office, do the work and quit bitching.

R25, wow. I went to a few Project 10 meetings in HS (as a student). That word sure brings back some memories.

I would have loved male teachers as well but an out gay one would have been a dream. I think it’s because by a certain age they might have known.

I think I had a closeted teacher in high school. He taught physics and was the girls volleyball coach. He reminded me of a much much hotter Jeffrey Dahmer, minus the crazy. He snitch on me when he caught me cheating on a physics exam and instead just gave me a zero. Could have had me suspended.

Anyway his lack of a girlfriend or wife, according to the girls on the team, made me wonder. He was also in his 40s so a man that fine should have been married.

Oh I just remembered I had a campy gay French teacher freshman year of high school. The school refused to make him a permanent hire, as he told us, so he stopped giving a shit. Sad to see him leave, he was a hilarious little man.

My teacher did NOT snitch on me. Typo^

I remember sitting in H.S. sociology class in the early ‘80s and during a section on marriage and family relations there was also a discussion on same sex couples and the not so bright girl behind me said there weren’t any people in our town like that and here I am sitting in front of her and also the teacher who was very obviously a repressed gay man not to mention the dyke athlete in the back of the room.

OP, how the hell do you know how many gay teachers there are and aren’t? Why would you even know?

My ex is a teacher. Completely homophobic esp if you work elementary. You better not be OUT either. He thought there would be tons of gay men in teaching but he said it is almost zero out ones in his 13 years. He has shared how he doesn’t even suspect any closeted ones since most are married or get married. Male teachers are pretty homophobic esp coaches. He said it is tough and doesn’t feel safe in the profession. He said it is amazing what female teachers can say about male students- “He’s a cutie. He’s adorable. I bet he gets lots of girls” - that he could never even dare say about those same boys. He teaches in a school with grades 5-8.

Some of the best and certainly some of the worst women are teachers. Type A profession. Gay male teachers, in most areas, tread lightly.

I was pretty close to a gay math teacher at my school--we loved to make fun of everyone and everything, in a witty and harmless way of course. When I didn't go out on strike (don't ask, it was the principle, not the principal), he was the ONLY teacher who defended me. Great guy--Troy Howland. RIP, you'd have loved Datalounge! So bitchy!

Many schools have gay teachers.

Many. There are many gay teachers.

I know, because I've worked in educational research for over 400 schools in numerous states, visiting most of them and meeting faculties.

One of my favorite experiences was spending a couple of days in a school in a middle school in a rough-and-poorer part of the Ozarks. There was an MTF-trans person dressed in a goth-girl-extra-lite way, and there was zero response other than comfortableness and humor in the student's manner and mannerisms.

And the answer, OP, is that teacher pay often is terrible, teaching is rigidly controlled and hideously bureaucratic, quality teaching is not necessarily supported, and often gay men (as men and as being fabulous) have other options to avoid a sense of failure and burnout. So do women, but I see more "worse" teachers among women because women teachers frequently have fewer options. They usually have children at home, may be the custodial parent without a partner of spouse, or stay because their husbands have (better) jobs they don't want to move or add the stress of change. Gay men more often have mobility and capacity.

And teaching is a true vocation.

Speaking of gay teachers, what became of Ernest of Ohio with the tall husband?

Being a gay male in middle or high school isn’t as much of a problem especially high school. Elementary? Be careful.

I have two teacher friends who are gay males and they have only met three other gay males over roughly 8 to 10 years who taught at their school. Both middle school.

From what they’ve said- teaching has a lot of perks but a lot of drawbacks. Time off is a perk. But they always work more than 8 hours with no overtime. You have to be on emotionally, mentally, physically the entire time or those sharks smell blood in the water. Dealing with students, other teachers, adults, the constant change in standards, direction and the shorter and shorter attention spans makes burn out high. Plus you can’t piss, shit or fart when you want.

True story from my local high school: a lesbian teacher who was not out to students got outed by another teacher in her department. Then her classroom door and windows started getting defaced with homophobic graffiti. Then she started getting hate calls at home. One night she came home and found "faggot" painted on her garage door, and her house broken into and her dog killed. Investigation showed it was done by a group of students, who got the teacher's address and phone number from one of the school's custodians. She sued -not for money, but to force the district to put in explicit policies to support LGBTQ employees. The district instead offered her a cash settlement to resign and go teach elsewhere. In the end, the lawsuit moved up and the teacher did take money and leave, but the district committed to annual sensitivity trainings for all staff. Of course, they never, ever did that... And you think more teachers should be out??

Teachers don't get "time off." They are the only job forcibly laid off for 2.5 months a year and are barred from unemployment insurance. My district divided up our nine months hourly wages into 13 payments. Every time I opened the envelope it was a shock to see the measly amount. AND yes I begged for and got summer school, but they can't give it to you every year. Movie workers can file for unemployment every time a movie they are employed on wraps and they have no job lined up. Shows you who has power.

We had gay teachers, but it was the 70s and they were closeted. Some crafty, vicious students would out them to everyone and the whisper campaign would begin- complete with nicknames. They often lived in nearby, bigger towns where they didn't have so much scrutiny.

I'm gay and I substitute teach. I'm not a flamer and people assume I'm straight. Obviously, I never bring up my sexuality anyway because it's nobody's business. I've seen fem obviously gay full-time teachers. They don't seem particularly happy and aren't taken too seriously by students when they try to be authoritative and I'm certain their parents aren't very cooperative, as many homophobes are rampant.

I agree that good teachers get burnt out and pushed out of the system. Most quit after a few years. If you're smart and ambitious, you can get any type of better job with teaching experience and bachelors that is not in teaching. So you get left over by angry frau teachers who are mediocre and hate their jobs but have little options because they got an education degree and they end up phoning it in. Being dictatorial towards students doesn't help them want to learn or be excited to go to class either.

I haven't seen any stats showing that gays are underrepresented in the teaching profession.

A close friend of mine was a modern languages teacher for many years in a school in London. The kids had him worked out immediately and were fine. The management gave him a hard time for no good reason.

My family thought I would be a teacher. Or perhaps a professor. I like showing people how to do things. It never occurred to me as an adult because:

1. I hated school

2. I hate children

3. Have you seen how Americans feel about gay people, particularly those who might come in contact with their children?

4. I might have fallen in love with some poor, pathetic gay 16-year old who was having problems like I had at his age, problems that made me hate school.

The more logical question might be "Why would any sane gay person want to be a teacher?"

R63 It makes sense. I'm told I'm intelligent but I never liked high school and found it very boring and dull and prison-like. I started subbing this past year at a public high school for money because they are so short-staffed and it's pretty easy. But I completely relate to these kids who seemed bored out of their skulls and don't care about what is being taught. A lot of the full-time teachers are old white people and far from intellectually curious and clearly resent their jobs. I hate going to the teacher's lounge because it's like a high school clique of bitching nonstop. There's some teachers who seem a bit sadistic and like being totalitarian towards and insulting the teens who just laugh at them. These type of teachers were the ones who I disliked in my school years and we all liked making them angry on purpose. It's really not a forward-thinking environment.

R63

[quote] I might have fallen in love with some poor, pathetic gay 16-year old

It's very, very good that you did not become a teacher. FFS.

OP, the rightwing, lunatic fringe are calling all gay people groomers, and being out to students is called indoctrination -or worse. I post signs in my classroom that it is a safe space; I wear a badge designating me as a safe person to talk to about LGBTQ+ issues, and I have gone to bat for the rights of my trans and gay students. I'm sure many students know I'm gay. But after forty years in the classroom I see nothing to be gained by making announcements that will only stir up some of the parents and students who would make me even more of a target than I already am.

There are tons! I live in Florida and at the last middle I work, a quarter of the staff were gay. Mostly lesbian and bisexual, but 2 gay males.

I’m a gay elementary school teacher.

I work with kids from conservative families - all immigrants - and I have never had an issue, but I also never announce the fact that I’m gay. I’m certain some parents know, but none has ever made any problem for me.

I feel only slightly conflicted. I wish I’d had some gay role models as a kid, but children today live in a world - largely virtual and in mass media - that is saturated with people from all over the alphabet . And the contemporary queer mania just isn’t me. I’m kind of relieved to be distanced from it.

I will say that being a man - maybe even if I were straight - in elementary education means always keeping a guard up. I try not to be alone with one student and I hate having to use the boys’ bathroom in emergencies.

Do I sometimes wish I could bring my whole self to work? Yes, but I also really love maintaining a firm boundary between professional and private lives.

I’ve been able to accomplish a great deal during the pandemic because I’ve earned trust fro familiesover the years. I spent many hours in kids’ homes, meeting with parents and troubleshooting tech issues with iPads and wifi. I have a deeper appreciation for families and how hard they try with their kids, at least the ones who I work with. I need to be able to do my job.

[quote] Teachers don't get "time off." They are the only job forcibly laid off for 2.5 months a year and are barred from unemployment insurance. My district divided up our nine months hourly wages into 13 payments. Every time I opened the envelope it was a shock to see the measly amount. AND yes I begged for and got summer school, but they can't give it to you every year. Movie workers can file for unemployment every time a movie they are employed on wraps and they have no job lined up. Shows you who has power.

This is qualified people leave public school teaching profession or go into administration, private schools or tutoring. Or if they have an MA, go teach at a university. The school system seems desired to push intelligent people with actual promise out and leave behind mediocre and dull teachers who hate their job and are often dicks.

I'm a straight woman teacher and I like the job. You have to keep your private life separate. Yes, the pay is not great, but you do get a lot of time off. (I have a Ph.D. and teach on the side at community college.) I think when you're not a teacher, imagining what it would be like, you imagine that teachers share a lot of their personal life and identity with the students. But as the responses from gay teachers in this thread show, that's not really how it is. You develop a persona that is professional, warm and at the same time a bit distant. It takes a while to get the hang of it, but it's not that hard. The great thing about teaching is that kids really do look up to you and seek you out for advice. It might not be the kids you imagined you'd relate to, but that makes it all the more interesting. As a teacher, you can have a huge influence on others, without baring your soul.

I would add that I have read r66's replies in other threads and I think he must be a great teacher. He always makes great contributions.

My ex is a teacher.

I went to high school in the 2000s in a small hick town. We had an obviously gay male English teacher who was also the drama teacher. I don't remember anyone caring. I heard one trashy hillbilly kid make fun of his voice and he was promptly told to shut the fuck up.