Call Me by my Name

I worked as a TV Production teacher from 2018 to 2023, probably the wildest years to be a teacher. In 2018 there were ongoing protest nationwide over teacher pay and teacher shortages. 

If there was any ounce of hope back in 2018, there is none now. More than 75% of teaching positions are vacant or held by teachers who don’t meet the standard requirements where I live. 

But with all these concerns the current administration seems hellbent on rooting out “radical indoctrination” from our schools. The Trump administration is wielding language in an interesting way, seemingly saying he wants the government to ““file actions against teachers and school officials who sexually exploit minors or practice medicine without a license through ‘social transition’ practices.” 

Essentially saying that if I call a student by their chosen name or refer to them by different pronouns that I am practicing medicine. 

Which brings us to today’s story about a kid named Lennon. 

Lennon was a 3rd grader at my wife’s elementary school. 

One day Lennon tells my wife that from now on he will be referred to as Lemon. It was set in stone, from that moment on this kid would not acknowledge you if you didn’t refer to him by his chosen name Lemon. 

So you know what my wife did? She called him Lemon.

When I first started teaching all my mentors and former teachers told me, “Teaching is all about building relationships.” 

Calling Lennon Lemon is easy, what’s not easy is building a relationship with youth when you can’t even give them the decency and respect of addressing them the way they want to be addressed. 

I taught as an out queer person in public school for 5 years. We scored top five in the state for TV Production every year I taught. As a Career Technical Education Teacher, I’ve helped students who normally don’t do well in traditional education, stay in school and graduate. I taught a trade.  

I also referred to the kids, to the best of my ability, however they wanted to be referred to. You know why? Because you can’t get a kid to learn and grow if you don’t respect them. 

I’ve taught conservative kids, queer kids, trans kids, lots of questioning kids. I’ve had kids change their name more than once, I’ve had kids who went by male pronouns who dressed traditionally feminine. 

It doesn’t matter to me what they want to be called or how their parents vote, my job was to be there for them and support them while they figure out who they are - and all of them, whether they end up being straight, gay, cis or trans, were figuring out who they were. 

By my estimation Lemon is now in his 20s.