As a lesbian couple working in academia, you might imagine that the authors have similar experiences. However, once you add race and ethnicity to the mix, the equation changes beyond measure. This chapter will focus on the different paths that two lesbians take to leadership positions in academia. Often referring to ourselves as “professionally gay,” the authors tell their stories from “slightly” different lenses: the White woman with a PhD who moved to a rural town for a tenure-track position and the Black woman with a Master's degree who took positions such as “assistant to the administrative assistant.”
TopJoël’S Story
It was as romantic of a story as there ever was….I was scrolling down Gay.Com and saw motorcycle leathers. I knew I had to meet her. She will tell you we met online, but in reality I heard about her from a friend of a friend. Yes, I realize that I just told you that I first noticed her online, but then I would have to agree with her and that isn’t as fun of a story.
We were ‘buddies’ for a month before we started dating. Our coffee chats were more like intense job interviews. “Have you ever been arrested?”, “been institutionalized”, “addicted to alcohol or drugs”? We had both been burned in relationships before, both raised by single mothers who struggled to pay the bills, and both have complicated sibling stories. However, we both reacted to these upbringings quite differently. Carla holds back and it takes a great deal to get her to open up…her way of protecting herself. I grab on with both hands and never want to let go…my way of protecting myself. This made for an interesting beginning to our relationship to say the least. The second time she tried to break up with me I wouldn’t let her. “This is not how relationships work” I told her. “We are allowed to disagree and it doesn’t mean I’m leaving, it just means that we need to work through it”. That was the last time she tried breaking up with me, so I guess it worked.
My brother came out to me when he was 16, he knew that he was gay since he was 3. That’s the type of family we grew up in. The type where you keep a secret like that for fear of being ostracized. He was right of course, he ended up moving out on his own that year. I stayed closeted (even to myself) until I was 28, 14 years later. I was the lesbian with a gay brother in a small New Brunswick town. I thought I understood what it was like to be marginalized, I was wrong.
The first time I travelled to Bermuda with Carla was eye-opening to say the least. At that time it was still legal to discriminate against people for their sexuality. Carla had been a teacher there for years before moving to Canada, saying she was ‘out’ would be a gross overstatement. I was treated like an uninvited 3rd wheel. I had been helping parent our son for an entire year prior to this, and was suddenly demoted to ‘friend of the family’. I was introduced to many people during that trip, went to many restaurants with Carla’s friends, visited a lot of family. The common theme during that entire trip was that I was most often the only white person in the room. A friend’s child even reached out and touched my hair and even exclaimed “it’s weird”. Not to mention the night out at a club when a man came in and literally hit on every single woman there…with one exception. I’ve never been so offended to miss an opportunity to be offended!
I won’t begin to compare this short week-long trip to the marginalized experiences that Carla has experienced her entire life. The reason I bring it up is that it was one of the most profound learning experiences I have ever encountered. This was the beginning of my now life long journey of understanding. It is still a journey, but living in a small Northern Ontario Community, I often find myself being the only white person in the room who even begins to ‘get it’.
Prior to this, while I did not consider myself to be racist at all, I certainly did not understand. I would pass things off as a ‘misunderstanding’ on Carla’s part. Like the time we were in a Tim Horton’s in Northern New Brunswick and she said that everyone was staring at her. “You’re just being paranoid” I said. When I looked up and caught every eye in the place looking in her direction (and yes there were even people leaning around corners so that they could get a better view) I had to consider that I might be wrong.
So now when the cashier at the grocery store tries to save my groceries from the black woman who is trying to steal them and put them in our grocery bags, or a security guard follows us around the liquor store for 10 minutes, it is often me who points it out and puts in the complaint.