Gay Teacher Shares Heartfelt Letter From Student She Inspired To Come Out
A lesbian drama teacher from Liverpool recently came out to her students after getting married and taking her partner’s last name, and her courage inspired at least one of her students to also come out publicly at school.
Thirty-one year old Emma Baldry said she was thanked by that student in a touching letter, which she shared with the Liverpool Echo this week.
“Many of the older pupils started to ask what my husband was called and I had a choice to make,” said Baldry. “Do I lie or do I tell the truth? I chose the latter because I’d gone through enough time living as not me so I promised myself that now I’d found who I truly was I would never ever hide my sexuality again.”
In the letter, the student thanked Baldry for incorporating gay couples into her lessons.
“When you started doing LGBT assemblies it changed loads of students opinions and being ’out’ wasn’t so weird,” the student wrote.
Said Baldry:
“We talk about families coming in all shapes and sizes including adopted, foster, single parent, mixed race and same sex. I’d ask the kids to bring in a photo of their family and I brought in mine: of me, my wife and our cat!
…
A lot of children don’t have someone they can talk to at home, and even if they have a really good relationship with their parents they can be scared they’re going to break that.”
The student also highlights the importance of Baldry’s openness in their letter. “Hearing your stones about when you ‘came out’ made me feel a lot better to know I wasn’t the only person in the world (which it sometimes feels like),” they wrote.
Check out the full letter below:
