Meet Lori Girard – Umbrella I have taught high school French and English at Central Elgin Collegiate in St Thomas for 20 years and lived in the Oakridge area for much of that time. Sometime during my second year, a guidance counsellor asked me if I had interest in starting a club for gay kids; a student had inquired and as I was young and she had heard me talk in passing about a social justice topic, she thought maybe I could help. I agreed. I wondered if she knew I was bisexual when she asked but figured she didn’t. I was never out at work or with my family. I had had long term relationships with men and 2 children. It was easy to pass as straight. And I figured, it was really no one’s business anyway. Eventually I met the student who asked for the club and we quietly started the "Diversity club" I was told it was brought up at parent council as a concern but teachers defended it and said if the kids wanted it and someone was willing to run it, what could it hurt. I definitely made some blunders in those first years as I had no real idea what kinds of issues queer kids faced. As the years passed, I encountered strong student leaders, educated myself more, got more involved in the community and our club evolved. We followed the fad of calling our club a GSA (Gay-Straight Al- liance), created a mission statement, attended conferences put on by the Thames Valley District School Board, participated in a Day of Silence annually, and an annual awareness campaign around the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Every year we got louder and more visible in our school and in St Thomas. During all this time, I was also spending a great deal of personal energy being a musician. I taught myself guitar and how to write songs. I focused on finding other musicians to help me learn and played lots of gigs. I figured out who I was on stage and even released an album. I was also learning how to market myself and started to apply those skills to our GSA. I wrote the “Wednesday song” which has regularly provided a little ear worm to remind students of our meetings on our announcements at school for over 15 years. As I grew as a musician and a person, our club grew too and so did other clubs and organizations. Pretty much every school had a GSA eventually. I regularly played Pride and queer events solo or with various incarnations of my band “Askher.” Despite all the progress and evidence of acceptance, despite that many students came out to me, I still wasn’t actually out to my colleagues, students or family. I wasn’t out until I met my future partner, that is. When things got serious between us, I knew I would have to tell my family. It was hard for them to understand that this wasn’t a new thing for me, I had known since I was 12 that I found both boys and girls attractive but I didn’t know how or if I should ever tell them. In the grand scheme of things, coming out was quite easy for me as I happen to have a lot of privilege. I was in my 30s, secure, stable and I was so in love with my new girlfriend, I wanted the world to know. After watching the movie MIlk (Har- vey Milk) I was convinced I also had to come out at school. This small act was empowering and scary. I felt obliged to normalize love regardless of gender. I owed it to any queer student who did not have all my privilege to be proud, I had a responsibility to be proud of my partner. I wrote several songs about our new love, I was starting to get a solid line-up of bandmates and was considering a second album.. Now that I was out, I also got to experience many new-to-me aspects of the queer community, both positive and negative. I could now be an authentic advisor with lived experiences. We decided we were getting married.
PRIDE Villager
Page 4 Issue 4 • Spring 2020
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