Confessions: #straightpersonclosetchallenge

Hey readers,

I know a lot of you are straight. That's a numbers game. There are just more of you out there. I'm grateful you read. I'm even more grateful for those of you who act as allies - who vote, speak, listen, and advocate on behalf of families like mine, on behalf of children who identify as LGBT+, on behalf of those who don't fit traditional conceptions of gender.

Here's my confession: given the current political climate, a small part of me (very small, but not nonexistent) is a little regretful that I've registered my same-sex marriage with the US government. There's a pubic record available to prove that I'm gay. There's also, of course, this blog.

I wasn't always so forthcoming. I was in the closet for a long time. It was easier when I wasn't seeing anyone. It was hard when I was in love.

Even now, I don't come out at all of the work locations I go to. I've learned to avoid discussions about my marital status, not use singular or gendered pronouns about my spouse, try not to discuss if I live alone or who I've dated or what I find attractive. As a lipstick lesbian, it's pretty easy to avoid arousing suspicion, at least at first.

Every once in a while, someone tells me that it shouldn't matter if I'm gay, and that I should just keep it to myself. And I think how hard it is to keep an entire sexual orientation a secret. No, seriously. It's tricky.

So straight readers, straight allies, who read this, I'm challenging you: for a week, try to avoid mentioning anything that would give away your sexual orientation to any new people you meet.

Don't talk about dates you've been on, what characteristics you find sexy, your spouse or significant other, your wedding, your anniversary, your children (if it would give away something about your spouse), why you relocated/took a certain job (if it pertains to a significant other), or where you went on vacation (if you went with a significant other). Fill out any forms that ask about your marital status correctly, of course, but make a mental note of the number of times you do so that it would be more complicated for same-sex couples. Don't like or share any articles or pictures on social media that could give away your sexual orientation.

Take notes as you do it on what is easy, what is hard, what is surprising. And then at the end, share your thoughts on social media and tag them with #straightpersonclosetchallenge (if any of my Trans friends have a version that could be the #cispersonclosetchallenge let me know).

My hope is that the anxiety that members of the LGBT+ community experience on a regular basis becomes more palpable and understandable, that you become more invested in supporting local housing and employment legal protections for the LGBT+ community, and that you also reflect on which questions you ask yourself at the outset of a relationship that might inadvertently be "outing" people.

The good news for you is that because of straight privilege, if you fail at this challenge, you most likely won't be fired or asked to leave your place of worship or evicted or physically threatened or blacklisted because of your sexual orientation.

Nobody should be.

A List of People More Qualified to Be Secretary of Education than Betsy DeVos

Betsy DeVos has never attended nor worked in a public school (for K-12 or college). She didn't send her children to one. She has no teaching certificate or degree related to education or policy. And yet Donald Trump has nominated her for Secretary of Education.

Therefore, I'm making a list of people I know that would be more qualified to be Secretary of Education:

1. My mother-in-law, a retired public school librarian
2. My father-in-law, a certified special education teacher (although he no longer works as an educator)
3. My aunt, a certified preschool teacher (although she no longer works as an educator)
4. A different aunt, a certified teacher who worked as a substitute teacher (although she no longer works as an educator)
5. My sister-in-law, a certified secondary social studies teacher who worked as a substitute teacher (although she no longer works as an educator)
6. My best friend, a certified English teacher at a public alternative school
7. All of the educators I've partnered with while providing ACT and SAT prep
8. Everyone who graduated from MSU's elementary education bachelor's program with me
9. Several friends and former students who entered public education through alternative certification programs like Teach for America
10. The parents I know who have done an excellent job homeschooling their children via participation in homeschooling networks
11. A former student who served on a public school board while he was still in high school
12. Every person in the MSU Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education Ph.D. cohort that I was blessed to be part of for a year
13 (Baker's dozen). My sister, a certified Spanish, math, and ESL teacher who has never taught full-time in a public school but has subbed in many and attended public school for K-12 and her bachelor's

 Of course, there are also lots of people with Ph.D.s, political experience, and policy training who would be even more qualified than the people on this list.

We can do so much better.

If you agree, here's a list of phone numbers for the senators on the committee that must examine Betsy Devos' appointment before confirming it. Let's get the phones ringing off the hook.

Which Anniversary Do We Celebrate? Today, and All the Others

Someone once asked Rebecca and me which anniversary we celebrate. Our reply? All of them.

So which one is today?

Today is the third anniversary of what we call our civil ceremony, or our second wedding. On January 2nd, 2014, we had a pop-up wedding with the same vows as we'd used at our religious ceremony on May 12, 2012, but this time in the rose garden at a park in Palm Desert, CA so that we could have the officiant sign off on a marriage certificate.

We had a photographer take a few pictures in the rose garden after the ceremony. This is one of my favorites.

People asked before our first wedding if gay marriage was "legal." I've heard from other same-sex couples that announced their engagement that people have told them that their wedding would be "illegal."

I prefer to think of the year and a half between our first and second wedding as a time when our marriage was undocumented, to borrow a term from immigration law. As in, it existed, just as the immigrants do, but there weren't documents to prove it because the state in which we lived had banned that kind of paperwork.

So today we celebrate the start of the paper trail.

Our marriage certificate isn't "just a piece of paper," as I've heard some people say, usually with the best of intentions, to try to reassure us that our marriage counts.

Of course our marriage matters, with or without the documents. But do you know what we got three years ago, besides the vows, besides the papers? A way for me to get medical insurance through Rebecca's employer. A guarantee that I will be allowed to see her in the hospital. A way to file at least our federal taxes together (though it would be a while and a hot mess until Michigan was forced to accept our papers and joint taxes). Protection from having to testify against each other in court should we ever be accused. And about a thousand other rights and protections (yes, literally, about a thousand).

We lived in what I will call "semi-documentation" for a year and a half. United States v. Windsor meant that the federal government recognized our paper trail. Michigan didn't.

What are we doing today to celebrate? We made eggs with chorizo and nopal, a favorite from the month we spent in Cuernavaca several summers ago, and well, Rebecca is doing tasks here and there around #fixerupperdetroit - laundry, dishes, installing curtain rods, etc, because all I want for Christmas and my anniversary is for our house to be done.

I'm still recovering from pneumonia, so the "in sickness and in health" part of our vows is in play. Rebecca has me tucked up in bed under an electric blanket with a pot of tea, and chastised me just now for coming downstairs to get this laptop so that I could write this post. That would happen with or without the documents, of course.

So there's May 12 to hope that I'm healthy and we can do something fancy. There's also June 26th, the anniversary of when Obergefell v. Hodges was handed down by the Supreme Court and Michigan was forced (yes, forced - they fought tooth and nail to reject our California marriage certificate - a slap in the face to both us and California) to accept our documents. Michigan, in fact, took the maximum amount of time provided by the federal government to process our documentation.

And of course there's also September 18th, the anniversary of coming out to each other and admitting that we're in love.

We've been through a lot. Our marriage has been hard work. All marriages are, though for a  lot of couples, getting the documentation is the easy part.

So we celebrate all the anniversaries. All the days we've worked for and fought for and planned for. And we're grateful to those who have helped us along the way and celebrated with us.