After a confrontation with a student, math teacher Sage Forbes-Gray begins to question whether she's the ally she thought she was.
Check out video from our show with Math for America>>
Sage Forbes-Gray has been an educator for 15 years teaching middle school pre-algebra, high school algebra and English as a second language in Spain to a variety of ages. Sage is the Restorative Justice Coordinator at her school, supporting students and staff in resolving conflict and building community. She is currently in her third fellowship as a Math for America Master Teacher and has been an active community member for the past 9 years. In her free time, she and her spouse, Amber, can be found running, biking, or exploring the world near and far with their kids, Dante, 6, and Elio, 3.
This story originally aired on June 29, 2018 in an episode titled “Responsibility.”
Story Transcript
We’re about the same height, maybe she was an inch taller. Mia was about three inches from my face and she was screaming, “Get out of my face, you gay ass white bitch!”
I looked up in her young brown face and tried to maintain my authority. See, I was her queer eighth grade math teacher and I was afraid of her and I was ashamed of myself for it.
I was her confident queer math teacher, or so I was trying to convince my 23-year-old self with one year teaching experience and six years out of the closet. I'd begun to get over the illusion of myself as the white savior but I'd yet to do the work to position myself as a meaningful ally for my students.
Disappointingly, I still thought, despite my complete lack of experience, that I was selflessly saving them.
And yet, I was afraid of this child, of her homophobic remarks, of the gang she was affiliated with. I didn’t want to get to know her. I didn’t want to challenge my fear. I wanted to validate it. I didn’t want healing or a solution. I wanted support.
I called home. Her parents threatened me. I went to the school administration and I was told if we make a big deal out of every time a student threatens a teacher, we’d be doing it all day. That was my assistant principal silencing me. It was her word against mine so they weren’t going to move forward with the suspension. Maybe I was overreacting.
Then I made the great decision of going to the police. As I was sitting there waiting to talk to an officer, I looked up at this board of crimes in the community. One paper said, “Bag of body parts found under park bench.” What was I doing?
I really thought I was contributing to a safer school environment where intimidation didn’t rule. They told me I could not pursue a restraining order on a child. I could on the adult. I left.
The students knew I was scared. Every day after school one or two of them would just appear outside of the building to lead me to the train. We never discussed why. About a week later, Carla, a friend of Mia’s went to the administration and said that she had threatened me. When the police and the administration would do nothing, her brave testimony allowed them to move forward with a suspension.
Mia’s parents opted to transfer her to a different school since I was the only eighth grade math teacher at that school. Not once did anyone suggest that I actually sit down with her and have a conversation.
I knew what was happening. It was white privilege at work and yet I was shamefully grateful that Mia, a child, was leaving.
Years later when the gay-ass-white-bitch incident was in my distant memory, I got a Facebook friend request from Carla. I saw that she had a girlfriend. I think she wanted me to know. I was just so proud of her, so impressed that at thirteen she was able to stand up for queerness and me. She took a risk despite my completely un-nuanced understanding of the racial tensions and the situation. She felt connected to me because of my queerness not in spite of it.
When the police, the administration, my fellow teachers would do nothing, she acted as if the world was what she already hoped it would be. She, a child, was my ally.
Years later, a parent to my own child Dante, I was now working in a high school. A group of students from the Gay-Straight Alliance approached me about speaking at their meeting about my family. I was thrilled. I happily agreed. I was proud of the family that I'd created and I felt like I wanted to be the teachers in my ‘90s high school who were there for me. These students of color were proud to name me one of them, a member of the queer community.
And then my straight, white principal at the time called me into her office to express some concerns. What would the parents say? What if I got pigeonholed? I felt my face flush with a mix of embarrassment and rage.
Before I could say anything, she stopped herself. She said, “Am I overreacting?”
Now, I’m not really known for holding my tongue and I'd grown in my confidence in my queer self so I took a deep breath and I said, “I don’t mean to offend you but, yes, I think you're overreacting. The DOE regulations protect me. I’m not afraid of the parents. I know how important it is to be visible for these students. They'll ask questions, I'll respond to the appropriate ones. It’s going to be fine.” And I smiled, still a little nervous about what she was going to say.
To her credit, she let me do it. It was wonderful. The kids asked great questions. They fawned over my child Dante. It was wonderful. I felt like I was repaying the gift given to me by my queer role models in high school.
And yet I was conscious of my privilege, my whiteness, my financial security, my access to healthcare. These are all part of my journey. How would my students overcome these challenges? What can I do to make family planning and family making more accessible to them?
A few years later at the same high school, a tenth grade trans Latina girl named Kay was fighting for her right to use the girls’ bathroom. She had had some pushback from school aides, her parents were semi-supportive and her plan, as of now, was to just try to go to the bathroom at home as much as possible.
I really thought she had this right in New York City, like that was my understanding, but a group of administrators and teachers decided to sit down and figure out what to do. “What if a boy claims trans identity to look at girls in the bathroom?” “What if this is a phase?” “What are the parents going to say?”
I was acutely aware of being the only gender non-conforming person in the room and so I knew I had to say something. I took a deep breath and I said, “I just don’t see any high school boy risking their fragile masculinity to go in the girls’ bathroom.”
“I think our responsibility is to our students, not their parents, at least first. I know this is not a phase. I’m a hundred percent certain that Kay has been working up the nerve for weeks, months, likely years to ask us for this basic right to go to a bathroom where she feels comfortable. I, for one, want to go home tonight, look myself in the mirror and know that I did right by a trans girl of color.”
As I sat there hoping that my advocacy had convinced them, I thought back to the numerous times that my gender queer identity had been ignored or dismissed. Filling out forms and having to write male or female as my gender, crossing out father and writing parent on my kid’s school forms and complaining, I do often complain, but actually explaining to countless students and teachers at my school why it is I prefer ‘FG’ instead of ‘Miss FG’, and that I was there at the table advocating for Kay as an act of self-love, fueled by the support of my given and chosen family past and present.
They went ahead and let her use the bathroom she wanted. I remember the next time I saw her walking towards the girls’ bathroom, I caught her eye and I smiled. Again, adults were weary of the changing times and the children had to lead.
A couple of years after that, I was in my classroom with a group of queer students and this one gay boy, Wyatt comes up to me and he says, “Everyone is queer. It’s so cool. I don't have to explain anything to anyone.”
Even though it had been 20 years since I had come out, I knew exactly what he meant. Even after all that time, I rarely find myself in entirely queer spaces, especially socially, and it’s something that I cherish.
I had the opportunity last semester to go facilitate a professional learning team at Math for America along with two non-cis queer educators called affirming LGBT students in the STEM classroom. That first night, almost everyone was queer and there was just this energy, this joy of us all being together. Even after all this time, I still need that. Like Wyatt, I need that feeling of togetherness.
Looking back I wish I'd gone to Mia who called me a gay ass white bitch and I tried to talk to her instead of demonizing her. I wish I'd said, “I know we’re both hurting. What can we do to make this better?”
I wish I'd thanked Carla for her bravery.
I wish that I'd gone to Kay after the trans-bathroom incident and I celebrated with her. I celebrated her strength at overcoming systemic messaging about her right to exist in order to advocate for herself.
I wish I'd thanked Wyatt for reminding me of the joys of being in queer community.
I see these kids, Emma Gonzales, the youth of Parkland and numerous other students nationwide who get far less press standing up for their right to safer schools with youthful raw and unapologetic power, and I’m inspired.
Just recently, a couple of queer students at my school came to me to talk about coalition building with other high schools to create more safe, positive queer environments through restorative justice practices. They had specific goals, plans to make it happen. I need to support these young people soon to be adults, not control them.
What can I do to be more open and accessible to them? What can I do to allow them to lead, to push our ambitions on reimagining the world? Thank you.
Listen to Sage’s story on Soundcloud.