I had ONE teacher in high school that didn't treat me like I was invisible or wasn't outright rude and dismissive. I had him all four years. By the time I was a senior, my breasts were showing, I had hair down to my waist and was living as a girl outside of school and knowing I was a total social outcast and struggling, he teased me mercilessly in front of the class. I loved every minute of it even if it embarrassed the hell out of me at times.
He made me laugh at myself and feel better about myself by making fun of me. That was one of the ways my parents dealt with me too, with humor. He made my classmates, many that had also been in his class for years laugh too which helped to totally diffuse and desensitize the awkwardness of my situation and normalized things somewhat. At least I felt acknowledged.
He was my Spanish teacher. If you are familiar with the language, it is very gender centric with things and people having distinct masculine or feminine words and he had a field day making kids refer to me first in the masculine because in spite of what was going on in the rest of my life or how I looked I was still known as a boy for school but then he'd make them repeat whatever they had said but refer to me in the feminine always with some funny kind of comment or lame joke as his way of trying to get the other kids to just be chill and accept me more. It even kind of worked.
Gracias, Señor Vasquez. Tú eras mi único punto brillante en la escuela secundaria. Looking forward to his class was one of the biggest things that kept me in school until I graduated.
Gosh, I almost forgot what else he did. How could I forget that?
My sophomore year after I was assaulted and out of school a month recovering, he coordinated my assignments and lessons with some of my other teachers and gave them to Gretchen, my one and only friend ever to bring to me so I wouldn't flunk out. When I went back, my parents went out of their way to meet with him to say thanks. He was the coolest dude ever.
