{"id":311506,"date":"2026-05-21T07:10:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T11:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=311506"},"modified":"2026-05-20T12:08:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T16:08:47","slug":"a-beloved-teachers-casual-homophobia-still-hurts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/a-beloved-teachers-casual-homophobia-still-hurts\/","title":{"rendered":"A Beloved Teacher\u2019s Casual Homophobia Still Hurts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cThe Last Analog Childhood,\u201d an excerpt from My Bad<\/a> <\/em>by Hugh Ryan<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Se\u00f1ora was my favorite teacher for the first half of seventh grade, one of the few who didn\u2019t seem to hate spending her wild and precious days getting tweens to care about something. She had us write skits where the characters from Beverly Hills, 90210 <\/em>inexplicably found reasons to discuss our vocabulario <\/em>words, every girl doing her best Shannen Doherty (RIP), pulling on a scrunchy and asking, \u201cDon-DE ES-ta el presiDENTe?\u201d Our other teachers were old, ancient, forty<\/em>; Se\u00f1ora did a Mariah Carey impression that was fully off-key but got the essence of her. (In that, she was my early training for understanding drag.)<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It was 1990 in Irvington, New York, a sleepy town on the outskirts of New York City where my parents and their extended Bronx Irish clan had landed post White flight. My middle school Spanish class had maybe fifteen students total, and we\u2019d all known each other since kindergarten, to our great regret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In elementary school, I mostly had incidental friends\u2014neighbors, classmates, or the children of familial acquaintances. With the transition to middle school, they peeled away. I remember sixth grade mostly as a procession of phone calls where embarrassed parents made obvious excuses for why their sons couldn\u2019t come to the phone right now, or ever again. It was a little like being dead, and I haunted our cold, brick middle school like a scrawny ghost in a ginormous Ocean Pacific T-shirt that read, \u201cSurf Legend: Gateway to the Sun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Why did I own that shirt? The closest I\u2019d been to a surfboard was getting tangled up in a buoy and nearly drowning on the Jersey shore when I was ten.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other kids were rarely mean to me because the school punching bag\u2014Booger\u2014was in almost all the same classes I was. When that mob energy whipped up and the playground became a school of piranhas looking for something to eat, we usually turned on Booger. Yes, we<\/em>; I\u2019d have done anything to be part of something. I kicked that kid because he was lower than I was, a smudge on my soul that will never come out. But it got me nowhere, because shared hatred is not the same as friendship; it just sings in the same key for a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So perhaps I was particularly open to Se\u00f1ora\u2019s kindness, but we were all a little ensorcelled by her. Other teachers wanted us <\/em>to like them<\/em>, but we all wanted her <\/em>to like us<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She listened to us\u2014not our feelings<\/em>; it was 1990, no one cared about that shit. But Se\u00f1ora eavesdropped on our conversations and found ways to work Nintendo and Vanilla Ice into our lessons (\u201cYo, yo, yo means I, I, I\u201d). That\u2019s how it all started, on a gray day in late fall or early winter. I have a hard time remembering the rest of that year, and as I\u2019ve grown older, that block has worked its way backward, devouring the seventh grade quiz by quiz and week by week, leaving a few unforgettable moments bobbing unmoored in an indistinct ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shared hatred is not the same as friendship.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was cold, I remember that, and Stevie C. was being a little shit. He was one of those kids who never came at you directly but was always talking smack just loud enough for you to hear. As we settled into our metal chairs with desks attached and waited for the bell to ring, he kept up a steady string of gay jokes directed at the air around me: \u201cKnow what GAY stands for? Got AIDS Yet?!\u201d etc. And he and his friends all laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think he came up with any of them; he was just a hateful parrot who hadn\u2019t yet graduated to edgier racist jokes. Like most Americans, he understood AIDS as a disease that infected only homosexuals and Ryan White, the apple-cheeked poster child for the \u201cinnocent victims\u201d of the crisis, who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion when he was thirteen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bell rang, and we all quieted. Stevie\u2019s last fusillade rang out in the silence, a homophobic riff on the tagline for Trix cereal: \u201cSilly faggot, dicks are for chicks!\u201d Then he barked his signature manic laugh, a highpitched parody of Woody the Woodpecker. \u201cHahahaHAha, hahahaHAha, hahahahahahahaha.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stevie and a handful of boys like him (it was always boys) were my primary education up until that point in what it meant to be gay. They taught me that my light blue sneakers were gay, that skipping was gay, and that if you looked at your nails by holding your fingers out instead of curling them in, you <\/em>were definitely gay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was an odd but undeniable paradox of the time: Everything could be gay<\/em>, but no one actually was <\/em>gay. Not in my family, not in my classroom, not on sitcoms, not in books, not in the past or the present or the future. AIDS had put homosexuals on the news, but they were vectors for disease, not people. Occasionally, you\u2019d hear a fag joke about San Francisco, but that might as well have been Oz. And in the absence of real queer people talking about real queer lives, boys like Stevie got to define our existence for us. I think Gen X queers placed such a high priority on visibility because we grew up in a black hole of representation. George Michael wasn\u2019t gay, and neither was Ellen, or Peewee Herman, or Doogie Howser, MD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And somehow, boys like Stevie all knew it. Or half-knew it. My sexual orientation was invisible, unclockable, and frankly a little confused, but my gender was a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper: bright, weird, and obvious. Not feminine exactly, but not masculine, not boy, not straight, not right<\/em>. And while some adults might pretend that gender and sexuality are unrelated\u2014that being gay and being trans are entirely separate phenomena\u2014children, bullies, and the Republican Party instinctively understand that the line between the two is porous and unimportant. I\u2019d learned in elementary school to hold my tongue and never mention the inchoate feelings I had about other boys, but my body was ungovernable. When Stevie called me a faggot that day in class, it had nothing to do with whom I was fucking (no one) and everything to do with my limp little wrists that flapped like broken wings when I got excited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStevie!\u201d Se\u00f1ora snapped at him, and in that last instant before everything changed, I loved her more than I ever had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all waited for the hammer to drop, which in our small, suburban public school meant at worst being held for a day\u2019s detention. But Se\u00f1ora seemed unsure what to do once we were all staring at her. She had a high-key sensitivity for that oily, mocking tone children use to signal an insult, but she couldn\u2019t tell whom Stevie was making fun of. I wouldn\u2019t even look in her direction in case I somehow intimated I was the butt of the joke. After a long moment, she shrugged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cC\u00f3mo se dice faggot <\/em>en Espa\u00f1ol?\u201d Se\u00f1ora asked, in that chipper voice she used to hype her fun lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was an odd but undeniable paradox of the time: Everything could be gay<\/em>, but no one actually was <\/em>gay.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d heard adults use the word faggot <\/em>before. I had both an older brother and access to my parents\u2019 cable, so films like Blazing Saddles <\/em>and Eddie Murphy: Delirious <\/em>entered my life very early. I liked the Dire Straits song \u201cMoney for Nothing\u201d because <\/em>they said faggot<\/em>\u2014or, more specifically, because they described what a faggot was: \u201cSee the little faggot with the earring and the makeup? Yeah buddy, that\u2019s his own hair.\u201d And I loved the comeuppance in the next lines: \u201cThat little faggot got his own jet airplane \/ That little faggot, he\u2019s a millionaire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this was different\u2014official. Sanctioned. Like the pope when he spoke ex cathedra. We were in uncharted territory, and none of us knew if we were really supposed to answer her question (also I just don\u2019t think any of us knew how to say faggot <\/em>in Spanish). Shock faded quickly to numbness, a sense that I should have expected this. I wasn\u2019t angry at Se\u00f1ora, just disappointed in my own vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPato!\u201d Se\u00f1ora announced brightly. \u201cPero . . . \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She held up one cautionary finger, walked to the front of the class, and unscrolled the vinyl map of the world tucked at the top of every chalkboard. (Remember those? Old and rarely used, with an unpredictable number of Vietnams and Koreas.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spanish, Se\u00f1ora explained, was spoken in many places. Each had its own peculiarities, but we were learning textbook American Spanish, which would sound a little stilted to native speakers, so today she was going to teach us about Spanish slang. Words we knew already\u2014like pato<\/em>, which meant duck\u2014had other connotations in other countries, and we had to be prepared for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the next forty minutes, she pointed to different Spanish-speaking countries and explained their words for faggot<\/em>\u2014where I would be a pato <\/em>versus a mariposa <\/em>versus a maric\u00f3n<\/em>\u2014with a bonus lesson at the end on dyke<\/em>. I noted with a glazed and mild interest that truck driver<\/em>, when combined with a female pronoun, meant lesbian\u2014as did crazy person<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later, I\u2019d discover for myself how easy it is to fail as a teacher, so I have some sympathy, but Jesus Christ, what the fuck was she thinking?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sorry. I\u2019m not sure why I\u2019m writing this. Doing this is like channeling. When I open my mouth, dead selves come pouring out, each a poppet made from memory, using my tongue to repeat the only story it knows, the one it whispers constantly in the back of my head. Or maybe I\u2019m just a cat with a hairball, horking up bits of myself I\u2019ve never been able to digest. This isn\u2019t a thank-you letter or an accusation. I thought this might be an exorcism, but the ghosts haven\u2019t gone anywhere. They can\u2019t go anywhere. That\u2019s what makes them ghosts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So call this a recognition: Se\u00f1ora taught me that day that the nicest motherfuckers I knew could accidentally curb-stomp my heart at any moment. I don\u2019t think Se\u00f1ora disliked queer people, and if she\u2019d known Stevie was making fun of someone specifically, I don\u2019t think she\u2019d have taught that lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Se\u00f1ora was simply engaging with the world as it was, and as it was, the world was dangerous for me.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I get it: This was 1990\u2014homophobia was funny! And mean. And everywhere. There was not one out student or teacher in our town. We played a game called \u201csmear the queer\u201d at recess, a sort of reverse tag, where one person was the queer and everyone else tried to tackle him. Until the end of that year, the World Health Organization still categorized homosexuality as a mental illness, and US immigration law still saw being gay as a \u201cpsychopathic personality disorder\u201d that was grounds for deportation. There were two high-profile antigay murders just in New York City that year alone (but also: until 2009, homo- and transphobic violence was not included in federal hate crime legislation, so who knows how many murders went unmarked). Se\u00f1ora was simply engaging with the world as it was, and as it was, the world was dangerous for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted\u2014want\u2014to believe she didn\u2019t do this out of cruelty, but on some level, she felt this kind of hatred was trivial or acceptable, and without an apology, I can never forgive that. It\u2019s a small stone, but it\u2019s one that\u2019s been lodged in me since the seventh grade. Maybe I\u2019m writing this so that if she ever reads it, she has to carry it too. For all I know, she already does. But that doesn\u2019t lessen the burden. Someone I trusted hurt me in a novel way, and that still hurts, no matter how many candles I light or jokes I crack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And maybe, I\u2019ve come to realize recently, I\u2019m writing this because Stevie and all those other boys are still out there. Gen X went harder for Trump2024 than any other age group. But it\u2019s not just us. If there\u2019s one thing that growing up queer in the Nineties gave me, it\u2019s an antenna for danger, and it tells me that bad days are here, and worse are coming. A week ago on the subway, I heard one high school boy call four others faggots <\/em>in the hateful-playful way I knew so well in the seventh grade. \u201cYou can\u2019t say that,\u201d the other boys gasped, and he yelled back, his face wide with joy, \u201cIt\u2019s 2025, FAGGOTS!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they laughed they laughed they all laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who am I kidding? My ghosts aren\u2019t even ghosts; they\u2019re cops, fathers, doctors, monsters, and sons. So maybe I\u2019m writing this as a warning and a promise to the queer kids of today: We\u2019ve made it through before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Excerpted from <\/em>My Bad: A Personal History of the Queer Nineties<\/a> by Hugh Ryan. \u00a9 2026 by Hugh Ryan. Available from Bold Type Books, and imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Last Analog Childhood,\u201d an excerpt from My Bad by Hugh Ryan Se\u00f1ora was my favorite teacher for the first half of seventh grade, one of the few who didn\u2019t seem to hate spending her wild and precious days getting tweens to care about something. She had us write skits where the characters from Beverly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1807,"featured_media":311510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[85,6181],"tags":[356,4,339,82],"class_list":["post-311506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-personalnarrative","tag-childhood","tag-coming-of-age","tag-education","tag-lgbtq"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Beloved Teacher\u2019s Casual Homophobia Still Hurts - Electric Literature<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I 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