by Stacy Horn

      UVM’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Allies Center hosted events throughout National Coming Out Week. Events on Monday and Tuesday evening, facilitated by LGBTQA Center coordinator Dorothea Brauer, brought students and faculty together to discuss LGBT issues in the classroom and curriculum.
      Monday night’s “Coming Out as a Scholar” panel featured Valerie Rohy, Assistant Professor of English specializing in queer studies, 19th and 20th century American literature, critical theory, and women’s studies; and UVM scholars Peter Blackmer, Assistant to the Dean for Administrative Services, completing his doctorate in leadership and policy studies; Glen Elder, Associate Professor of Geography, specializing in race and sexuality and urban geography; Rhonda Factor, a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology, completing her dissertation on gender diversity; Clinton Nichols, a doctoral student in geography; and John Sama, a Ph.D. student in educational leadership.
      In front of a small, responsive audience, scholars discussed LGBT studies as a field of research. Panelists addressed the question of whether scholars in this field must identify as queer, agreeing that the answer varies across disciplines. Sexual orientation might be more relevant for social science researchers than for scholars who study constructions of queerness in literature and culture. Rohy cited a line she remembered from Tom Robinson’s song, “Glad to Be Gay”: “You don’t have to be gay to sing this song, but it helps.”
      Members of the panel expressed comfort with the LGBT-affirming climate at UVM. Audience members raised the question of how scholarly LGBT research works to affect social change. Panelists agreed that the classroom is an important place to raise these issues, foreshadowing Tuesday’s faculty/student forum.
      Brauer called Tuesday’s “fishbowl discussion” about LGBT issues in the classroom and curriculum “the most powerful event of the week.” Sixty-three students and faculty attended, including President Fogel and his wife, Rachel.
      Brauer explained the event’s format but did not introduce the participants. Instead, she asked the students, who sat in a circle surrounded by faculty, to begin. Students discussed hetero-centric ideologies they often face in the classroom, such as the assumption that marriage and children lie in most students’ futures. In addition, transgender students have not been able to change their names on class rosters, so they must choose between answering to their non-preferred name, or outing themselves to professors, often in front of an entire class. As the conversation shifted toward the question of being out in the classroom, students noted significant differences across disciplines, observing that some classrooms are more comfortable than others and asking, “Is it as relevant for students and faculty to be out in math as it is in social work classrooms?”
      Students then traded places with faculty, who emphasized that UVM is not a place where people endanger their jobs by coming out. Faculty asked, “How do we come out in the classroom?” Some faculty said they choose to come out at a particular time in the course such as the first day, the last day, or National Coming Out Week. Others said that coming out “just happens.” Faculty discussed the issue of losing credibility by coming out in the classroom. Will students interpret the class through the lens of the professor’s sexual orientation?
      Some faculty who identify as straight allies said they choose to “come out” as heterosexual in their classrooms in order to raise students’ consciousness about assumptions of sexual norms. Discussing the question of students' coming out, faculty said they have the power to control the climate of their own classrooms, but they cannot protect students outside of class, and coming out has serious implications in academia as well as in the larger world.
      After the discussion, students and faculty lingered to continue talking with one another. Brauer said, “The universal response from faculty was “I’m so glad I could be there. I’m so glad I could hear what the students had to say.”