is a tenured professor in Virginia and has had tenure at her University for almost 50 years and is still teaching. She teaches in a field that has always had a high percent of gay and lesbian students, and she has never once shown a shred of even the slightest prejudice towards a single one of them - which is partly why she is so popular (as well as being excellet at her job I suppose). When my brother's daughter came out as gay to my mother, my mother reacted as if she had been told "we are having soup for lunch."

Then this Fall term, my mother received a printed roster for her new class. The names did not include "preferred names" - they were the actual names of each student. When my mother called a female by her actual legal name from the roster, the student chastized her for not using "his" preferred name. In the confusion, my mother hesitated for a split second, and this student reported her to some sort of internal affairs committee that had been set up just for things like this. Of course, my mother was exonerated once about half the student body and department came to her defense, but the entire episode was so ridicuous and gives me none of the optimism you have.


[Post edited by nyhoo at 01/05/2024 09:42AM]