Out the Archives is a recurring feature diving into the Windy City Times collection, offering a look back at the rich history of LGBTQ+ Chicago.
In this edition, we look back at the August 1998 issue of En La Vida, which included interviews with four lesbian and gay teachers about their experiences in the workplace.
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In 1998, Cook County already had a human rights ordinance in place to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, that didn’t stop Chicagoland teachers from worrying about how they might be perceived by faculty, students and parents if they shared their identities.
En La Vida interviewed four lesbian and gay teachers—some anonymous—about their experiences with sexual orientation in the workplace. Much like today, some had an overall neutral or even positive experience, while others weren’t out due to fears of backlash from administration or parents.
Aixa Perez, then a first grade teacher for bilingual special needs students in the Chicago Public School system, was somewhat out as a lesbian at work. She had been approached by gay and lesbian parents who wanted her to speak to their kids about LGBTQ+ issues and most of the children didn’t even know anything about LGBTQ+ topics.
“Alex,” who at the time taught fifth grade in CPS, was fully out in his school environment. When children came up to him with questions about LGBTQ+ issues, he said he takes the opportunity to educate them and promote open-mindedness. At the time, he said he hadn’t encountered any issues at his job in response to his sexual orientation.
Also a fifth grade teacher, Liza, had an overall different experience. She was worried about coming out at the time due to coworkers’ negative reactions to LGBTQ+ issues and parents potentially having conservative Latino values—when the school invited speakers to talk about AIDS, many parents were “outraged.”
From then, she decided she wanted to do more to promote education on LGBTQ+ issues in her school.
“We need something like this because day by day if it’s one student out of 1,700 that is coming out in our school, we need to protect that child, to make that child feel that that child is as normal as everybody else,” she said.
