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Professional Development: LGBTQ+ Workshop

One of my favorite things about the Education program at Saint Michael's is the incorporation of different professional development opportunities as a part of my course work. Earlier this month, my Adolescent Development class attended a workshop on transgender teens run by Outright Vermont, a local organization that aims to build safe environments for LGBTQ+ teens. Knowing that my future students will be members or know members of the LGBTQ+ community, I was extremely excited to learn more about transgender teens. Even more, I was eager to learn how I can make my future classroom a safe and welcoming space for all of my students.

Source: http://images.thecarconnection.com/med/lgbt-rainbow-flag_100375401_m.jpg

Rather than post a lengthy description of the workshop and how I plan to nurture a tolerant and accepting classroom in the future, I decided to post a poem I wrote in response to the workshop instead. I think the most important thing I learned at the workshop is that everyone has so much more to learn about gender, sexuality, and tolerance. My poem is an attempt to express this understanding:


Hide and Seek
By Allison Cullen

Who is counting, you or I?
All will seek, but who will hide?
Can we choose which role we play?
I don’t think so, that’s half the game.
One
First grade, First signs
Something about those pink bows and buckle shoes
Just isn’t right
For digging in the sandbox.
Girls can’t play the little brothers of the playground houses,
But Boys won’t let me drive Tonka trucks
As if yellow were the new blue.
Two  categories. Is that all there is?
“Boys and Girls,” “Girls and Boys,”
Everything seems to be sorted in terms that do not describe me.
I do not understand why I don’t like pink,
But everyone assumes that I should,
That I do.
I do not understand why I want to like blue,
But on the playground I feel a cowardly yellow.
Three  schools and it is clear that
The only place I can hide from critical eyes
is within the dresses my mother bought me,
Under the make-up I despise,
Following the social constructs that define how I am perceived
No matter who I am inside.
With each passing day, the pressure to shrink within myself
Really just makes me want to explode,
But I can’t find the answers I am looking for if my outside is as
Broken as the world says my insides are.
Four  years of high school
Characteristically ruthless and unforgiving,
But it does not have to be.
Why do I have to hide within the
Terms and Restrictions of “female,”
When the only box I can check honestly is that
“I am not a robot?”
When did everyone else decide that they were the
Gender they wanted to be?
Five, six, or seven?
How many times must I ask myself
“What is wrong with me?” before the world
Shows me that I am not a mistake?
How long do I have to hide from others while
I search for myself?
Eight  types of sexuality and counting,
But I am left waiting for a bathroom sign
That welcomes someone who falls between the cross and the arrow,
For someone who fears being found by someone else who does not understand
Nine  times out of Ten.
One day the words
Come out, come out, wherever you are
on the spectrums of gender and sexuality will ring true.
But until then, coming out requires the rest of the world to
Come in.
Into my thinking, into some level of understanding
That I am the only person who determines what
box I check, what label I chose, what shoes I fill.
And when you start your search for comprehension,
I will stop hiding.
Ready or not,
Here I come.
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