Bachmann Overdrive

By now, you've all heard that Michele Bachmann is not seeking re-election.

I'm going to miss her.  After all, it's an accomplishment to make Sarah Palin look sane--and, at times, relatively coherent.  I mean, it's not just anyone about whom we can say that her insistence that gays can be "cured" is one of the least kooky things she says.

Plus, as you might know, her husband is a "Christian therapist" who runs an "ex-gay" clinic.  I'm sure he can tide her over until she transitions into the next phase of her life.  She might be getting a little old to work on Faux News (Rupert Murdoch interprets "child labor laws" to mean that no one over the emotional age of eleven should be hired.) but there may be a future for her with Glenn Beck, if he ever gets his own satellite network.  Or maybe she can be a regular guest on the Springer show. 

Anyway, I came across an interesting survey about ex-gay clinics from an author who spent time in one.  When Jallen Rix, who is also a facilitator at Beyond Ex-Gay, asked alumni of ex-gay "clinics" what good, if any, came of their experienced, 50 percent said "none".  Others said it helped them "come fully out of the closet", "feel less alone", leave religion or meet a same-sex partner.

In other words, for many alumni, their experiences of ex-gay "therapy", or whatever its practitioners call it, had affected them in ways that were exactly the opposite of what was intended.  

Moreover, about three-quarters of all participants said they quit the ex-gay movement didn't make them straight.  Twenty percent said they quit because of a nervous breakdown.  

And nearly all of them said, in different words, what one respondent wrote:  "I saw that NOBODY was being changed, and some of those guys had a lot more faith than I did," he wrote.  "The only ones I ever met who claimed to have been changed were the leadership.  And one of them was always hitting on me."

Nearly all of the respondents said that they were still paying for the experiences in more than one way.  "The financial cost of the ex-gay ministry  is not what I paid during the experience (which was nothing)," one wrote, "'but the thousands of dollars I have spent for therapy to get over the experience."

Hmm..Is that the legacy Ms. or Mr. Bachmann, who purport to be Christians--and to be pro-family--want to leave?  Perhaps they don't see the irony in it.  At least, she doesn't.  After all, she says things like "The founding fathers wouldn't recognize America today."  Indeed they wouldn't:  The fact that she was in Congress would surprise them in more ways than one!

After The Trauma

Today I taught two sections of the intro to literature classes. They are normally different, as the earlier class has more mature, or at least older, students than the later class. In the earlier class, it seemed that the students had read the works I assigned and took good notes on them. On the other hand, it seemed that only a couple of students in the later class had done the assignment.

Fortunately for me, I was observed in the earlier class. And I was observed by the prof with whom I began to develop something of a rapport last semester. She was the same prof whom I'd assumed was feeling self-important over having gotten a prestigious fellowship, or simply didn't like me.

The students were great. But I must have been doing a really good job of teaching. After all, they--including the younger male students--were paying attention to me. And the prof who was observing me is obviously younger and definitely more attractive than I am!

The rest of the day at the college, however, was more of the same insanity that one experiences there on any other given day. Nothing particularly bad happened, at least not to me. Still, I sensed the same sorts of hostility and tension I've been able to practically feel on my skin at that place. Maybe that's what you're supposed to feel after you've been treated as if you have a mental deficiency or character defect when you ask people an honest (though not politically incorrect) question and they attack your integrity or character, or treat you as if you have a mental or character defect.

At least tonight I had dinner with Regina, who used to work at the college. Now she's at LaGuardia Community College, where I used to teach. Ironically (and sadly) enough, she said that she was "traumatized" by her time there. That, in essence, is how I've described my experience at the college in yesterday's posting. For some time after she left, she still expected her current co-workers to act the way her supervisior and the administration at my current college did and still do. In fact, she told me, one of her current co-workers said, "Relax, you're not at (College X) anymore."

At this moment, I envy her that. Of course, I don't want to have no job--or money. I'd just like to be in a situation where more of the people are like Regina, and I don't have to defend myself for trying to do a better job, or simply being who I am.

The Trauma of The Beginning of Spring

Today everybody looked tired. I thought I might've been projecting, but a few co-workers told me, without my asking or prompting, that they indeed were as tired as I thought they were.

Maybe it had something to do with the rain, which started falling yesterday morning. It hasn't been particularly heavy, but it's been dreary. Although temperatures have been mild, the sort of rain we've had doesn't leave people with the sense that spring is on its way, much less present.

I'm starting to worry about something. Today I bumped into the head of the office of academic advisement, a very nice professor of social work and three Spanish professors who indulge my terrible accent when I speak their language. I hadn't seen any of them in some time, and they were all very friendly to me. In fact, the Spanish profs--all female, two of whom are, as best as I can tell, straight--embraced me warmly. Somehow, though, I felt lonelier after seeing them, as well as the social work prof and the director of advisement.

Lately, I notice that whenever I'm at the college and not in the classroom, or otherwise working with students, I feel like a stone in an ocean. Seeing the people I saw today made me realize that so much has passed and, in some way, I am a different person now because of it. It's almost as if they were talking to someone who doesn't exist anymore. In a very real sense, he doesn't. Nor does she: the one who followed him and preceded me.

Some people are committing all sorts of petty treachery. Others, I think, have tried to be friendly or at least have made gestures toward that. Somehow they are more more alienating than the ones who are hostile or treacherous.

Maybe I'm suffering from a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. Memories bubble to the surface and I don't want to talk to other people, even if they ask how I'm doing. If I were going to tell the truth, I'd say that during the past couple of days, all I can think about are the people who were once in my life but are gone from this life. They were friends, lovers and relatives who, in one way or another, had to deal with their own sorts of pain, as I had to deal with mine.

In my case, I didn't know how much pain I was in until I wasn't in it anymore. That's something I don't expect most people to understand. My old social worker and therapist, on the other hand, probably would have understood. In fact, they both said that the experience of being in the closet, not to mention the prejudice and sometimes violence we experience and internalize, is a kind of trauma. And in that sense, they said, helping LGBT people is often like helping trauma victims.

It's the beginning of spring. But the harshness of winter is neither so far in the past nor from the surface. Or so it seems.