some thoughts on mentoring
May 19th, 2008 maggieA while ago I was hanging out with some queer and queer-supportive middle school teachers, and they loved to talk about the gender-variant, visibly future queer kids, girls who played sports and boys who played the lead in musicals. They loved those kids, and looked out for them especially. Teaching ballet, I have very few such students. I get a very self-selected group, mostly girls, who are inspired by the pink cotton candy vision of ballet they see in picture books.
I was listening to the middle school teachers and thinking that I didn’t have any baby dykes lining up at the barre in black leotards and pink tights, but then I remembered that I had been a baby dyke ballerina, awkward and shy and the worst in the class at first, then confident and loud, rainbow and pro-choice stickers on my makeup case.
I’m glad my friends who are teachers are looking out for the visible potential queers, but I wonder how we can look out for the invisible ones, the baby femmes and the baby queers who aren’t so gender variant in childhood. Read the rest of this entry »
