there's no way to reply privately to an ask so i'm gonna turn it into a post about being a queer teacher
(This post was originally posted on Cohost.)
Ask from Pahsunaal on Cohost:
Omg hai!! Probably don't remember me but i was in the recent crop of compiler design students. Just wanna say you're so cool, and it was really uplifting to see another nonbinary person in a teaching role. Have seen your posts around in my feed occasionally but had no idea it was you, small world!
Hey, thank you for your kind words - I do remember you! Funny story: before I knew that your name was Moth (back in the first week of the course), I saw it on the register, thought "that's a very non-binary name" and then saw the associated photo that confirmed that yes, the student that I'd seen with the they/them pronoun badge was in fact called Moth. (It's a good name, just that sequence of events was funny to me!)
I'm delighted that I'm able to be visible for my queer students, but I'm also delighted that I'm seeing more queer students in the first place. Back when I realised I was non-binary (this was the third year of my undergraduate degree at Warwick, so roughly in the Mesozoic Era 2018-19) there were very few visible non-binary people in the Computer Science department - it was perhaps unsurprisingly very cis male - and I was (mainly due to confidence) not very good at being a visible non-binary person. In my years of teaching, I've slowly seen the number of queer students grow, which is an immense source of joy: people like you, and thus people like me, are able to thrive.
When I decided to do a PhD, I mainly did it because I wanted to teach at university level - I enjoy teaching students about stuff that I think is cool, and seeing students understand stuff and enjoy understanding it is amazing. But there's a second side to this that's come up during my time teaching, particularly as the number of queer students has grown: being approachable, visible, being able to offer support outside of the course content is really affirming.
A few weeks ago, another queer academic (at a different university, in a completely different field to me) mentioned the quote "queer teachers mean queer futures" to me. I've had this floating around in my head since then, because I think it really summarises what I now believe teaching means to me.
So, honestly, thank you for being visible as well, and thank you again for reaching out. And good luck with the exam season - I'm sure you'll do great!
(Also, while you say it's a small world, this is also a social network with a disproportionate number of queer computer nerds, let's be real ;p )