LinkGilbert is a husband, a father, a grandfather and a well-respected philosophy professor with more than 30 years of service at York. He's also a lifelong cross-dresser who for about a decade has come to campus at least once a semester en femme to teach the philosophy of gender and sexuality. But this is about much more than just a guy wearing a dress.
Sure, Gilbert wants to give his second- and fourth-year classes a real-life example of the theories they're studying. But it's also a way to break down barriers.
As a tenured professor, Gilbert has job protection to voice controversial opinions or beliefs. With that privilege, he says, comes a responsibility. Though Gilbert's wife knew and he told his four children in 1994, it wasn't until late 1996 that he showed up in class as a woman.
