one in twenty

I am an officer in the Rainbow Continuum on campus, and I love it. Last quarter, I was a bit surprised when one of my Writing 121 students showed up at a meeting, but I was thrilled, and throughout the quarter, she wrote about queer issues in her papers (her history in high school for the first essay; an argumentative paper about gay rights and the Religious Rights failure to view gays as people for the second essay). Tonight, I had another student from this quarter’s classes show up. It’s good to see my students in class. If the statisticians are right, then 1 in 20 students are gay, if not more, and so it’s nice to see my students filling that “expectation.” Rather, it’s also nice to know that these students will know that my classroom is a safe environment for them. That’s what’s most reassuring.