The View from the Lectern
Reflections of a Gay Professor
Occasionally it happens. In fact,
there are quite a few of us, though the
environment in which we work is rarely
tolerant and often blatantly hostile. So
we have to be very careful, and trust you
understand our discretion. I was a teach
er for several years at a Catholic uni
versity in a major metropolitan center, an
institution notorious for its homophobia.
In my department of about two dozen pro
fessors, there were two other gay males.
The three of us were kindly referred to by
the astute departmental secretary as "our
bachelor professors." None of us could be
said to be "out" at work; that would have
been professional suicide. Though we were
pleased that "our crowd" had its represen
tation even in this hostile environment,
each of us made the prudent choice to
develop our circles of friends outside the
university.
I was just starting to come to terms
with my sexuality when I was an under
graduate. Though I was fortunate to have
several teachers whom I admired, I never
(to my knowledge) had a gay teacher. The
only time the "subject" came up was in a
Classics class, when the fundamentalist
professor was asked to explain the Theban
sacred band of Ancient Greece. The sacred
band was a military organization based on
the bonds of devotion between pairs of
lover—warriors. For several decades in
the middle fourth century, B.C. Thebes
overpowered most of Greece on the strength
of the sacred bank until that great
father/son team of homosexual warriors
Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the
Great annihilated them in a fierce battle,
gaining mastery of the peninsula. My
teacher showed his evident disgust with
the whole business, apologizing for having
to speak about it in class. That was all
I ever heard, though anyone who has ever
studied the past and read between the
lines could learn much more.
By the time I finished graduate school,
I had reconciled myself to my sexuality,
and looked forward to teaching my own
classes. Every teacher, of course, was
once a student. Some of us forget too
quickly what it was like to be a student,
but we all, at least at the beginning of
our careers, have a mental list of what we
Would like to do differently—and better
than our predecessors. Among other
things, I wondered how I would conduct
i^yself differently from my fundamentalist
teacher should a similar question arise in
One of my classes. By now I had learned
that the "subject" was so important to
ancient history that it was historically
irresponsible not to mention it. I would
never allow myself to exploit a teaching
position to propangandize for any personal
views, but I did want to avoid hypocrisy
at a minimum, and if possible, provide an
example of tolerance for straight students
and support for gays.
This proved more difficult than I
thought. On the many occasions on which
it seemed to me critical on professional
grounds alone to mention homosexuality,
such as the involvement of the Greek
lovers Harmodius and Arlstogeiton in the
overthrow of the Athenian tyranny or the
mostly homosexual Antonine dynasty of
ancient Rome, I found myself worrying
about seeming too interested for my
straight students or alternatively too
ambivalent for gays. Where appropriate, I
mentioned other traditionally taboo
subjects in lectures like prostitution.
Infanticide, abortion and especially
misogyny, that ugly but fashionable liter
ary convention of the ancient world which
lead to vicious stereotyping of women as
stupid, shrewish, spend-thrift, and
slutty. I found that my willingness to
talk about these things served as a signal
to my students that the usual constraints
did not apply and that any relevant ques
tion could be entertained in class.
Perhaps the most difficult question
ever posed came from a female student who
asked me what role I thought the practice
of male homosexuality played in the
oppression of Greek women. In an instant
I was called upon to give a thought reply
that
-would not be seen as knee-jerk defense
of homosexuality
-would not be interpreted, on the other
hand, as homophobic
-would be sensitive to the feminist
perspective on history
-would not get me fired, and most
important of all,
-would be as historically sound as my
experience and judgment allowed.
I always tried to be sensitive to the
possibility that my sexuality might sub-
llminally be influencing my perception of
my students* performances. The fact that
I learned my male students names more
quickly led more than once to an embar
rassing routine of calling on students
like so; "Yes, Tom... You have a ques
tion, Steve? ...Ah, yes ma*am..." My
"fans" were the great exception to this
rule. A teacher’s "fans" (in some cases
you might think other names more appropri
ate, but I for one won’t agree) are an
Indispensable element of any class. They
sit up front, rarely miss a class, are
amused by the teacher’s jokes, nod when he
looks at them for encouragement, hiss when
their classmates ask stupid questions.
They come in both sexes and all sexuali
ties. Their names are never forgotten.
But for the benefit of everyone else, and
as a check on myself, I made it a practice
always to compare the median grades for my
male and female students after grading
exams. I was relieved to find they were
never out of line with each other.
(see GAY PROFESSOR on page 4)