9-Year-Old Girl Writes Sweetest Letter to Gay Teacher

Photo courtesy of Pink News

A 9-year-old girl in the U.K. has declared her gay teacher “brave” and “awesome” in a poignant letter, written to him after he came out to the entire class during an anti-bullying lesson this week.

“Even though you’re gay, I will always treat you the same way as I do now,” wrote the student, identified as “A,” according to the U.K.’s Pink News. “I still think about you the same way as I used to. You’re a great teacher and these are just some of the words that I would describe you as: great, amazing, fantastic, brilliant, awesome and brave.

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“The reason why I say brave is because you shared a personal secret which was very brave. You don’t have to feel scared because I know that everyone in the class feels the same way as I do. From A …xxx P.S. We are all proud of you.”

The teacher, identified only as “Mr. R,” told Pink News, “Reading it brought tears to my eyes, and it took me a little while to compose myself. When I thanked her she just shrugged and repeated something one of the boys in the class had said during the lesson: ‘It’s just your life’. Then she went back to her maths.” He added, “For my class it was a surprise, sure, but to them it was just something simple and easy to file away as another piece of information. There was no judgment, no follow up, just acceptance.”

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Mr. R explained that, “as a primary school teacher, I’d always worried about mentioning my sexuality, despite the fact that my colleagues talked about their husbands, wives, and significant others all the time.” After holding conversations with his class as part of anti-bullying week, though, he found out that almost every student in his class thought that people who were gay or lesbian were “bad or wrong in some way”; additionally, most said they’d heard the word “gay” used as an insult. So the teacher spoke with the principal about coming out to the class as part of his lesson, and received his full support. “We agreed I could tell the class that I’m gay so they at least knew one gay person, and hopefully explain that when people use that word, they’re talking about me.”

Mr. R was not alone in his struggle over whether or not to come out to his students. In the U.S., being a gay teacher remains a baggage-laden situation because many fear for their jobs. While federal law protects people from workplace discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, religion, sex, age, and disability, it does not specifically address sexual orientation. Only about 20 states have passed their own LGBT-protective laws to pick up the slack. The result has been a string of recent teacher firings based on sexual orientation — including that of Georgia Catholic-school teacher Flint Dollar, who lost his job after announcing his engagement to his longtime partner on Facebook.

“Without legal protection, the decision to be honest about sexual orientation can change an LGBT teacher’s entire career trajectory,” writes Amanda Machado in “The Plight of Being a Gay Teacher,” published this week in The Atlantic. The piece discusses the angst many gay teachers feel over wanting to be mentors for LGBT students but also fearing they will lose their jobs — a fear bred out of longtime “paranoia surrounding LGBT teachers,” Machado writes, saying it partly “traces back to unfounded theories linking homosexuality and pedophilia.” Many brave teachers are forthright about their sexual orientation, though, often out of a desire to become positive role models, particularly because LGBT kids are coming out at younger ages than ever before.

“Kids and teachers need to know that someone they know is gay, that it’s not a hypothetical, that this is about real people who they know,” one gay teacher told Machado, referring to those vulnerable to bigotry and bullying. “Being visible to these kinds of kids — kids who make dangerous decisions because they’re afraid to talk — is crucial.”

Mr. R, for one, can feel confident that he’s made an impact upon his students by coming out. “The reaction was fantastic,” he told Pink News. “There were a lot of gasps and shocked looks and some basic questions — do you have a boyfriend, etc — but after a couple of minutes they were over it and we moved on to the rest of the lesson.” Regarding the girl’s letter, he noted, “I’ve had a lot of letters and cards over the years, but this one I know I’ll keep forever.”

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