An open letter to my 6th grade gym teacher which I mailed today. I believe as gays and lesbians we should go back and confront those who harmed us for being different in our childhood when we can and when it is safe to do. This letter is one way to do it. Not to do this is to either carry the shame and trauma around from what others gave us or to take it out on others. I know that it is from experiences like my own--one of which is described in this open letter--that can contribute to those who stay in the closet and/or enter reparative therapy.

I read the article about you in today?s _________ News. I have never forgotten you, because you were my gym teacher in 6th grade, from 1975 to ?76, when I was 12 years old. The memory of you that stands out is of my walking into gym class late with my best friend. The other students burst out laughing from something you?d said to them just before we walked in. Later, a number of my classmates told me that you anticipated that my best friend and I would walk in together, and that we were probably ?fags.? It became a running joke toward me for the rest of my junior high school years. It was so traumatic that I remember it like yesterday.

Among my peers, you could not have humiliated me more. In my judgment, what you did was cruel, insensitive?and immature. You were an adult authority figure who should have been encouraging and coaching me?not hurting me publicly?or privately for that matter.

In fact, Mr. _____, I was and am a gay male. Back then, I was probably in love with my best friend, but didn?t realize it.

I didn?t yet know what being in love was, and certainly wouldn?t have known or understood what it meant to be gay. As a young, impressionable boy of 12, having hit puberty, gym class was an over-stimulating place, since I was being sexually aroused by sharing showers and locker rooms with the very gender that aroused me. Also, I wasn?t athletic at all, so for me, gym was a nightmare.

Imagine if you were to put a heterosexual boy in a girls? locker room and showers, and I think you can understand the enormous struggle I was having and what a really rotten thing you did to me. In the article, I noted that you are now retired. I?m relieved to know that young boys are no longer under your care and won?t have to suffer at your hands the same pain that I did, during such an important and difficult time of my life.

Either you?re the same man today that you were then and will just laugh off this letter. Or else, you?ll feel some remorse for something you did to two of your students who didn?t deserve to be ridiculed by a guy like you! You didn?t even pick on someone your own size.

The shame I felt from what you did to me really belongs to you, the perpetrator?and I gladly give it back to you with this letter.

Sincerely,
Joe Kort, MSW