A co-worker shares

I am a teacher. Various in-service opportunities are offered at our school. One day, a co-worker in the administration area of our school offered a diversity in-service workshop on herself–her life as a lesbian. I can’t imagine what courage it took for her to stand up in front of 30 of her co-workers and tell about what it was like to grow up knowing she was different from her friends or anyone she knew…wondering what it meant that she dreamed about girls instead of boys…never even hearing the words “homosexual” or “lesbian” and not knowing others felt the same way she did. She shared her pain, her confusion, her feelings as a child and a teenage. I was so grateful to her for being willing to share this with all of us; certainly, if anyone who was in that audience that day now learns that a niece is a lesbian, or a son is gay, they will have a beginning of an understanding of what that might be like, thanks to this gift from our brave co-worker.