LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
School's Out for Two Virginia Women |
Lots of folks have heard tales of gay people dealing with the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military, but there's another corps where the policy can be even tougher: The Virginia public school system. Just ask Laura Simon and Cathin Bishop. These two retired school teachers survived three years of teaching in the same school and being unable to acknowledgeor even hint at, their relationship. It was "an incredible strain" says Cathin, who took time out from renovations on their new weekend home in Rehoboth to speak to Letters. Laura, who was in Virginia for the week, weighed in on the interview by phone and e-mail. The two teachers met while working and went out together, very covertly. When they realized that they wanted to be a couple, they knew they couldn't live together, for fear of being found out. "Even though the principal was liberal, we couldn't risk it," Cathin explained, noting that school systems react very much like the military. At first accusation, they "hang you out to dry." According to Cathin, the hardest thing about their three years undercover was striking the right distance. "Even standing in the hall, we couldn't allow any familiarity to show." Laura says "We had to be very discreet, especially the one year I was assigned to Cathin's team and had to attend daily team meetings. Also, Cathin lives in the same area in which our students live, so we had to be careful outside of school." "Oh, I was always conscious that I could run into my students in the neighborhood, Cathin says "and I always had some story ready about why Miss Simon was at my house!" If they were going somewhere together after school, they had to leave at different times and go separately. "And imagine saying goodbye to your partner in the morning, getting to school, and pretending you haven't seen that person in days. It was so hard." It was doubly difficult when a crisis arose. During their three years in the same school, both of Cathin's parents passed away. When bad news came during the school day, there was nothing Laura could do to comfort her partner. It was awful. And then there were the students. "Seventh and eighth graders are tough," say both Laura and Cathin. "That age group minds everybody's business and they can be very vengeful. All you need is one kid to make one accusation, and you can forget your career in teaching." Faculty social events were nightmares for the two. "We had to pretend that we arrived separately and just happened to arrive at the same time, even though we rode together. All the heterosexuals were with their spouses or dates; we had to pretend we knew each other only from work," Laura recalls. "We would basically ignore each other or talk casually for a few minutes and move on to another group until it was okay to leave. Eventually, we stopped going to many of the events or one of us would go and the other would be 'out-of-town.'" Another difficult emotional challenge was knowing that some of the students were struggling with sexuality and self esteem issues, and not be able to intervene. "There was no way we could do what we thought teachers should dohelp. It was frustrating," Cathin remembers. "We did step in when there was name calling, but that was all we could really do." Actually, the two teachers were on the other end of some name-calling as well. "With Laura being a Physical Ed teacher, she got the worst of it," says Cathin, "I was a history teacher so it wasn't quite as bad. But we could never react to any of the name calling, because to deny it would have raised even more suspicionsso we just ignored it." After more than 25 years teachingthe last three happily coupled, but filled with tension, pretending, and stress, Laura and Cathin retired. They bought a condo in Ocean City, and started to relax as a couple. Shortly, they discovered Rehoboth, it's film festival (they are regulars, seeing as many as 15-20 movies at the event each year) and the annual Sundance fundraiser auction. Over the past few years they have been high-bidders on live auction items like a trip to the Rosie O'Donnell Show, Tina Turner skybox concert tickets, and a trip to Florida. According to Cathin, once they started coming to Rehoboth, they began shedding some of the inhibitions and sense of "otherness" they felt at school. This past year, they purchased a Rehoboth home and have been working hard to renovate it. "Here in Rehoboth, for the first time, we can introduce each other as "partner" says Laura. In Virginia, most of their friends, even those who knew they were coupled, were straight. Here, the pair has been introduced to a whole new circle of gay friends, and they find it all so very different and wonderful. "It's fantastic to walk into a shop or a restaurant and to have people understand that you are a couple" says Cathin. Now, although they still maintain a home and do some part-time work in the Washington area (Cathin is substitute teaching and Laura is writing curriculumbut not in the same place!), they are starting to think of Rehoboth as home. It's their goal to be here full-time soon, and really get involved with the community. It's a relief for Cathin and Laura not to be terrified of having it known that they are indeed a couple. Little by little, they are starting to relax. "Although," says Cathin, "talking about this for the first time, even to Letters, is giving me butterflies in my stomach. But that's okay. Write about this." |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 12, No. 02, March 8, 2002. |