When I sometimes open the unit on lesbian, gay and queer criticism by reading a list of frequently anthologized British and American writers: for example, Oscar Wild, Tennessee Williams, Willa Cather, James Baldwin, Adrienne Rich, Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee, W. H. Auden, William Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, I ask myself if I am aware that these writers are gay, lesbian, transgendered or bisexual. Sometimes that question is met by an initial reticence to respond, a difficulty not encountered in my opening discussion of other theories.
Of course, I know that, unfortunately, the stigma attached to being thought gay or lesbian is still quite strong in ESL classroom today, and I am sure most students may be indisposed to express anything on the subject until they see how the rest of the group respond. As I remember, after signing out a number of books on lesbian and gay theory from the university library booklist, I planned to write for my project work. I wondered if the person who was waiting on me at the circulation desk thought I was nonstraight, and to my embarrassment, I found myself wanting to shout, “Hey, wait a minute; I am not a gay!”
These days, I have acknowledged that the work of gay and lesbian writers forms a major part of the literary canon and is therefore included in most language and literature courses, but many students posit that these writers are overtly straight. Two reasons rule behind this assumption. First, authors’ biographical information mostly lack to divulge their other personal secrets and second, often we are given little biographical information about a writer’s lesbian or gay sexual orientation, let alone information concerning how that orientation affected her or his life and literary production.
I ask, “If personal information about writers’ heterosexual lives is relevant to our appreciation of their work, why is personal information about their nonstraight lives often excluded from the domain of pertinent historical data?” Clearly, in many of our college classrooms today, homosexuality is still considered as uncomfortable topic of discussion. I have seen some language or literature professors simply avoid addressing lesbian and gay issues in undergraduate courses, not specifically devoted to lesbians and gay writers.
I cannot imagine what perspective ESL students develop when a professor simply says that she is a lesbian. Tragically, I lack any such experiences as no self-declared lesbian professor has ever taught me; nor have I countered lesbian or gay students in my class. One incident always draws my attention when I open the chapters on queer theory thsre days. The event was really shocking for me when I saw two young ladies kissing emotionally and erotically standing under the shadow of colossal tree at the Michigan Lake site in Chicago last summer. Because I am from different cultural backdrop, this was culturally and ethically unacceptable and undesirable for me. This unbecoming sight in my case awakened my consciousness to rethink and reconstruct my vision of lesbianism. Though I was unnecessarily shocked at this scene, I thought it to have been the culture of the West. If I had been at least taught by a “self-declared or self-claimed” lesbian teacher, it would definitely have been a different matter.
Now, I realize that, as Cynthia Nelson herself proclaims, student in ESL classroom should need the knowledge of “gayism” or lesbianism to prepare themselves for the debate about sexual identity in education which has been enriched by queer theory. Reading Nelson articles has challenged my previously held assumption once again and inspired me to pursue a line of research I never would have expected.
