Walking Side-By-Side With My Work: My Experience as a Trans Museum Educator
Anyone who knows me personally knows how strict I am about maintaining a work-life balance. Across the many jobs I have had, I have always made an effort to never carry my job home with me. When applying to the FAO Schwarz Fellowship, and especially after I accepted the position at the Museum of the City of New York, I remained steadfast in my view that once I clock out at 5pm, my time at work ends, only to be resumed the next morning at 9am. However, I recently found that this has changed. It was Emily Lu, a member of my cohort and a Fellow with The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, PA, who made a comment during a Fellowship info session that the official work we do as FAO Fellows may have a hard stop every evening, but that it stays with us always, mentally and emotionally. For me, this statement has never been truer than it is in the present day. Given the recent political attacks on some of our nation’s most vulnerable populations, namely the transgender community, my work as an educator has crept into every aspect of my life, even those that are most personal.
Just as I was starting to gain my footing in teaching, I had an interaction with a high schooler on one of my field trips that affirmed my place as an educator.
College, though not when I started my transition, was the first time in my life where everyone knew me as Alex and consistently used the pronouns I introduced myself with. I was constantly surrounded by other queer and trans students as well as countless strong-willed allies both in the student body and amongst my professors. This period in my life allowed my gender to become something I no longer felt the need to perform nor push away. And so, being nonbinary became something innate, something that I forgot sometimes needed explanation to those not as familiar with the term and what it entails.
When I began my time as the FAO Schwarz Fellow at the Museum of the City of New York, my colleagues accepted and respected my identity. However, I was quickly reminded that young kids often come to conversations with a backlog of invasive questions that they are prepared to ask at the drop of a hat. In my first few weeks teaching, I had my fair share of genuinely curious students inquire about my gender. In that time, I also experienced the difficulties that come with being a visibly trans educator, what with less than well-intentioned students repeatedly asking me to repeat my pronouns just to get a chuckle out of their friends. And while the latter of these encounters were discouraging, there always seemed to be at least one student in every group whose expression shifted when I shared my pronouns, changing not to one of judgement, but to one of excitement.
Just as I was starting to gain my footing in teaching, I had an interaction with a high schooler on one of my field trips that affirmed my place as an educator. As always, I introduced myself with my name and pronouns and continued with the experience, telling the group about the history of graffiti in New York City. Near the end of the trip, while students were working on an art activity, one student who had been particularly engaged approached me and nervously asked to show me something. After I responded, they turned over their paper to reveal a drawing of me that they had done while I was teaching. Instantly flattered, I applauded their work and asked to take a picture of it, in awe that someone would take the time to do such a thing. As my time with the group ended, one of the chaperones came up to me and explained that that young artist was nonbinary but did not feel safe enough to come out to their peers or family. Yet, despite the fear they felt about the world outside, they expressed to this chaperone that they felt safe and represented when they realized I was nonbinary. Since that interaction, I have had more students of all ages approach me to tell me that we share the same pronouns (they/he) or that they know someone who is trans.
As corny as it may be to say, I truly do see myself in all the trans kids who I meet on field trips. I remember the challenges that go along with being in middle and high school while simultaneously grappling with a major shift in your identity. But I especially remember what it was like to meet trans adults and gain a new perspective on what my future could look like. As someone who now works in a public-facing role, it is an honor to be that person for trans youth. However, I know that my role in these students’ lives extends beyond that of being trans representation.
As part of my Fellowship, I spend most mornings leading field trips for school groups throughout our galleries. One such experience, based in our Activist New York gallery, features a case that discusses the origins of the Trans Rights Movement in New York City. Beginning with the Stonewall Inn riots, I work to engage students in the story of the Gay Liberation Movement, the anti-trans exclusion that developed within it, and the ways in which trans women of color forged a brighter future for trans people everywhere through their activism. For queer students, this section of the gallery often serves as a refresher for them and as a result evokes a lot of excitement as not only do they know about these histories, but they also have a chance to see their community represented in a museum.
Though my aim in teaching students about trans history is not only focused on helping queer youth feel seen, I also hope to sow empathy for this community within non-queer learners. While most students take the stories of trans women like Sylvia Rivera seriously, I have encountered scenarios in which some visitors are dismissive of the mistreatment they faced, unable, or unwilling, to grasp the severity of society’s cruelty. In cases like this, I see it as my responsibility to encourage kids to reflect on the challenges these women faced and compare it to stories of trans youth today, driving home the point that homelessness and abuse are still being experienced by trans people of all ages. When this point is made, I watch as previously facetious students begin to recognize the gravity of the history they were just making fun of. Even if this compassion is short-lived for some, I am hopeful that by teaching this important part of New York City’s history, I am working to undo some of the harmful rhetoric running rampant in our media.
Like many people, I often worry that I am not doing enough to make a positive change in a world that is slowly, but steadily, moving towards widespread political and social conservativism. However, I was recently introduced to a quote by Brazilian educator and philosopher, Paulo Freire from his 1968 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed that has empowered me in my educational practice. Freire states the following:
Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes “the practice of freedom,” the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. (Freire, 34).
Although I came into the Fellowship without a background in education and thus have a long way to go in implementing concrete pedagogy that allows me to transform my teaching into the “practice of freedom” that Freire references, I feel empowered knowing that I am well on my way to accomplishing that. Demonstrating that trans people have always existed and persisted in the face of mistreatment is a lesson that is vital to transgender and cisgender students alike. For trans students, their time at MCNY serves as a reminder that trans people will survive despite what people in power may want. For cis students, it provides a necessary look into the actual trans experience, a story that differs greatly from the one being pushed by right-wing groups.
And, thus, in a time when the Stonewall National Monument has erased all mentions of trans people, I, alongside my fellow educators, keep the fight of Bebe Scarpi, Sylvia Rivera, and Marsha P. Johnson alive in our teaching. But even if students leave without fully grasping the extent of trans resistance since the 1960s, I hope that, at the very least, every student leaves with a newfound sense of empathy. And for those most affected by the stories we teach, I truly hope they finish their field trips having found solace in the galleries amidst the confusing and terrifying world we live in.
Even for me, having the privilege of teaching students about the trans elders who founded the trans rights movement has grounded me in ways I struggle to fully grasp. In a time when anti-trans hate is seemingly at a peak in the United States, I somehow feel closer to my transness than I ever have. Largely, I owe this fact to the students I work with, the content I teach, and the fact that in recent months I have learned to walk side-by-side with my work. Rather than running out of the museum every night, watching as it struggles and fails to catch up, I hold the door open for the emotions that my work brings up, welcoming it into my apartment and my life to not only better myself as an educator, but as an individual.
Alex Gabriel
Alex (they/he) is the FAO Schwarz Fellow at the Museum of the City of New York in New York City.
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