TY - JOUR AU - Ryan, Maura PY - 2011/06/22 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Surprise By Gender Expression: A Femme Lesbian Coming Out Exercise JF - TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology JA - TRAILS VL - IS - SE - DO - UR - https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/surprise-by-gender-expression-a-femme-lesbian SP - AB - I live and work in a small college town in the South; I am a graduate student instructor at one of the largest state universities in the U.S. Many of my students tell me that they have never met a gay or lesbian person; many of my students also tell me that they believe gay people should be rounded up and barricaded on an island to keep normal society from their contamination. It has become imperative for me, in my work, to come out to my students to disrupt their assumption that all people are heterosexual and – since most of them like me – to challenge the idea that all gay people are bad people. The following exercise outlines the way in which I come out as a lesbian to my students. I use it as a way to teach about the conflation of sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender expression and to begin our course discussions about homophobia. It is specific in the way that it is meant for an instructor who is not visually interpreted as queer. Following the outline of my exercise, I suggest alternative strategies for instructors who are queer and interpreted by their students as such and for heterosexual instructors. ER -