“Are you a boy or a girl?” the 5-year-old asked, staring at me as she waited for my answer. I froze. Having worked primarily with middle and high school students, I was still not used to the direct curiosity of our younger students. It caught me by surprise.
It was 2022 and I had recently been hired as the principal of an all-girls elementary school in New York, and it was my first visit to the school to meet the students, staff, and families.
“I’m a girl,” I said, smiling despite my awkwardness, before slipping away to chat with another student. The moment was brief, but it stuck in my stomach for the rest of the day.
When I got home, I told my wife about the day. I told her about the exciting moments of my visit: how I had learned about the school culture, seen the teachers in action, and met my amazing new students. When I mentioned my experience with the preschool student, she sensed my trepidation and asked how I felt about it.
As I reflected, I wondered out loud what it would be like to run an all-girls elementary school as a masculine-looking queer woman. I worried that the community would not accept a woman wearing a suit and tie running their daughters' school, that I would be Too differentMy wife assured me that my individuality was valuable and that my students would love and respect me as they always had when I was a teacher.
Since becoming an elementary school principal, I have had several students ask me the same innocent, yet awkward question, and I have yet to find the perfect answer. But each time I am asked it, I am reminded of the fact that young people are constantly exploring their identity, and part of my job is to foster a community where curiosity, individuality, and diversity are considered assets.
To create this kind of inclusive community, I want to develop a thoughtful response that challenges students to cultivate their own worldview, one that makes them think about why this question arises for them and helps them understand how they can ask questions about identity thoughtfully.
Identity exploration is a key element of childhood and adolescence and working with young people requires that we support it. There is a body of research that demonstrates the importance of identity development and a positive self-concept for social and emotional growth. Since our school is an all-girls institution, gender identity is something we think about a lot, and it starts early. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, Children typically develop a sense of their gender identity by age 4.As children explore, they often express curiosity about aspects of their own identity and the identity of others in their community.
Most of the staff and students at our school identify as girls or women, but none of us are the same. Each of us presents and represents our identity in unique ways. There is no singular expression of femininity or womanhood. How, then, in a space organized around a shared gender identity, can we create an environment that embraces diversity and difference?
As a leader, I believe that to create this kind of environment, I have to start with myself.
As I’ve thought about how to respond when a student asks me about my identity, I’ve been thinking about the source of my insecurity and recently realized that it’s fueled by traumatic experiences I had as a student. Today, I’m a school principal, but I was once a girl looking for a safe space to become myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it in school. Instead, I experienced rejection and intolerance, and lived through years of racist and homophobic bullying. After clearing away the emotional debris created by those experiences, I now have an important perspective on what our young people are going through in school today.
My own feelings of misunderstanding during my youth, as well as the homophobia I have experienced for being open about my identity as a queer educator, fuel my passion for creating spaces where our girls can be themselves, without the fear of having to fit into a specific mold. I feel a great responsibility to lead a school community that expands the definition of what it means to be a girl, supporting whatever identities our students bring to the classroom each day, and empowering our students to become adults who are beacons of our community.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that all students should question their gender. Instead, I am suggesting that all students deserve a safe space to explore their identities, ask questions, talk about them openly, and learn about people who are like them and people who are not.
When I model vulnerability and authenticity as a leader, I invite others to do the same. The challenge? Leaders like me are not encouraged to be vulnerable. As a young, queer Black woman in school leadership, embracing vulnerability has been scary at times.
Facilitating open conversations about identity is important and can lead to validation and support, but it can also lead to potential backlash. For example, I have worked in schools for nearly a decade and in every space I have taught, we have received criticism from families about celebrating, or even acknowledging, Pride Month in reaction to activities that promote LGBTQ+ inclusion because they consider it inappropriate. Each time, I assure families that we value an inclusive curriculum and that everything we teach is in service of supporting our students.
These feelings are painful on a personal level, but they are not my primary concern. This is not just about me. This is about my students and my staff and the kind of environment we cultivate for them. An environment where everyone can be their full selves at school. Our students deserve to have a school where they are challenged to learn about their own identities and the identities of others.
Our school was founded to provide the empowering experience of a girls' education in a public school setting. The International Girls' Schools Coalition, which researches the impact of girls' schools around the worldargues Girls’ schools are uniquely positioned to develop girls as leaders precisely because we are honest with our students about the real world. Preventing our girls from exploring conversations about identity flattens their voices and turns them into a two-dimensional box. Girlhood—or womanhood—is not monolithic. The beauty of a space dedicated to women and led primarily by women is in the variety of who we are, how we show up, and how we support our girls.
I want to create a learning environment that fosters curiosity and promotes diversity, not one that encourages everyone to be the same. To do that, I have to be who I am despite potential backlash, knowing that I am creating a space for my students to one day be who they are with pride.
From now on, if a student asks me if I am a boy or a girl, or any other question about identity, I will pose a question to start the conversation before sharing my answer. I will ask them why they are asking me and why they are wondering. I will take their curiosity as an opportunity to encourage them to articulate their own ideas about identity, because all-girls schools don’t teach them what to think, but rather how to be critical thinkers and agents of change.
