Have the Games Begun?

Today I saw my evaluation report. It was good, though it could have been better. In a way, though, I'm not upset: I'm doing the best I can by my students, and most of them appreciate that. I once had an excellent evaluation when I taught one of the worst classes I taught in my life (I'm talking about my own performance, not the students.) and, at another school, I got trashed when I did a good, if not great, class.

I also received my schedule for next semester. I'm not happy with it: I really think the coordinator tried to make it as untenable as she possibly could for me. She seems to have designed it so that I have no useful blocks of time to do the extracurricular work I've been doing, sometimes in conjunction with her as well as other department members.No one else in the department has anything like it.

I haven't talked to her at length this semester, or spent any other significant amount of time around her. However, the couple of times I've seen her, it seemed that she didn't even want to look my way. She used to be rather friendly toward me, and she was happy that I participated in Women's History month events.

Maybe she's upset with me for having the operation. I haven't talked to her about it, and I never told her I was having it. But I'm sure she's heard about it from other people. And I always suspected she was an Andrea Dworkin acolyte.

It figures that there would be somebody like that. At least I was warned. But I don't understand how someone could have liked me when I was in transition, but not now.

Oh well. At least I haven't, in a long time, lived by the illusion that education makes people more tolerant or accepting. After all, I lost two friends during my transition. And both of them had PhDs--one of them in gender studies!

In a way, though, I guess I can't judge them, or anyone else, too much. I had long suspected that going through my transition and surgery would cause me to re-evaluate, or at least re-think, some things in my life. Maybe that coordinator is doing the same thing with me. I always suspected she was a feminist along the lines of Robin Morgan, who hates transgender women because, well, we have that little "M" on our birth certificates.

It's really odd, to me, that someone can like, or at least tolerate someone like me when we're in transition but not after we start living full-time or having our operations. I guess when we're in transition, they can patronize us, which is to say that instead of covering themselves in white hoods and sheets, they wear the masks of toleration.

Also, I think that coordinator liked me better when I was teaching only part-time in the department. I noticed that she cooled somewhat toward me after I became a full-timer. But I don't think she even acknowledged my existence this semester until she made up that schedule.

Things might be getting interesting right about now.