Nathalie Brunet Oral History Interview
Dublin Core
Title
Nathalie Brunet Oral History Interview
Description
A transcription from Nathalie Brunet's oral history interview as part of the Solidari-tea project. She discusses her experience starting the first GSA at the school where she taught.
Creator
Nathalie Brunet, Amy Smith
Source
Solidari-tea Oral History Project
Publisher
NL Queer Research Initiative
Date
October 29, 2023
Language
English/ French
Type
pdf
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
Interviewee: Nathalie Brunet [NB]
Interviewer: Amy Smith [AS]
Transcribed by: Amy Smith
Location: Memorial University of Newfoundland
Date: October 29, 2023
Length of Interview: 11 minutes and 59 seconds
AS: So, you had some personal anxieties around holding and leading the
G.S.A. and what helped you to work through those to continue or to
motivate you to keep on like leading that space/providing that space?
NB: It was just so incredibly gratifying and satisfying. It was obvious that I was,
y’know-with the the reasonable rational part of my brain, I knew darn well
that I was not doing anything harmful
AS: Yeah
NB: To anyone there. There was so much positive response, there was so
much support for me to do that from the larger- there it is, haha, finally. [NB:
found a picture from her time with the LGBTQmunity that she had been
wanting to show me] the larger- y’know, queer community around me, the
people that just sort of would know that I was doing this, y’know, I’d be
putting things on facebook when it was starting to happen that were
appropriate and not infringing on privacy
AS: Mhm.
NB: But, you know you get all kinds of people saying “Oh my god that’s so
wonderful and I wish I’d had that when I was in high school.” And I
certainly would have loved for a trustworthy teacher to be there for me in
that way too.
AS: Mhm
NB: It was not hard to keep going. It was a constant joy and delight to be doing
it. And I’m sitting here ten years later and reminiscing and it’s such a
vibrantly joyful and loving part of my life and I miss the hole that it- y’know
it’s left a gap in my life and I really miss that now that it’s- that I’ve retired
uh so uh, stopping was never a question [NB: laughs joyfully]
AS: That seems like just another way in which you were teaching uh while
being your whole self, right? You bring your baggage and your past
experiences into it.
NB: Mhm
AS: Um, yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about your G.S.A.?
NB: I have a whole bunch of pictures! [Nathalie laughs excitedly]
AS: Yeah!
NB: So [NB: clears her throat], okay, so this one was of when I first decided to
set it up. This was in October 2013, as you can see there. What you don’t
see there is the original sort of getting people’s attention at first. There was
support from the district, I knew that it was fine for me to be doing this, my
administration was supportive, there was no obstacles to do it, I just knew
that if I just announced on the intercom “There’s going to be a G.S.A. in the
school,” People would- kids included, would’ve all said “What’s a G.S.A.?”
AS: Yeah
NB: Ah, there was, y’know, I needed to build up the awareness first. So I took a
page from a colleague who had used this as a trick to advertise some
other event in the past. I thought I’d pique everybody’s curiosity, so I took
some sheets of paper and one had “L”, “B”,
AS: Mhm, “G.” “T.” “A.” yeah…
NB: And so long, and “G.” “T.” “A.” yeah, with a few extra words like Ally, and I
forget what else.
AS: Would questioning maybe have been one of them?
NB: Questioning possibly..? I think I had queer? Uh-nuh- I had Q, simply for
whatever that would be. So it was just single letters!
AS: Okay!
NB: All over the school.
AS: Mhm
NB: What’s going on?
AS: Mhm
NB: A few days later, I added a little thing with the word, and a little paragraph
saying, “Curious? Want to know more? Come to the library Monday at
lunch time.” Whatever, so there was a meeting at the Library, I explained
“What’s a G.S.A., and here’s what we- y’know, what we could do and it’s
gonna be in my classroom” I picked a day of the week, day of the cycle,
cause day 4 was easier than
AS: Mhm
NB: Cause, otherwise, if you pick, if you pick Monday then it’s going to interfere
with your duty every now and then,
AS: Yes.
NB: So, day 4 it was
AS: Mhm
NB: And…so we had the next meeting, and there was a bunch of kids, and we
talked about the LGBTQmunity because there was a pun was, the name
that they chose, and so this would have been a week or so or few later [NB:
shows AS: a picture of a sign for the LGBTQmunity] “Queer and straight
together.” Drop here. “Drop in, Drop ins welcome. Meet here every day 4 at
lunch time.” And that little sort of happy face there is sort of my trademark.
AS: Okay yeah
NB: Yeah, that was the first start.
AS: Mhm. And uhhh so, you started off with a meeting in the Library on day 4?
NB: Yeah, the -
AS: Or it went to day 4
NB: Yeah the meeting in the library was just a one off, it was an information
session so, for anybody who just wanted to know what this LGBTQ stuff
was about.
AS: Yes
NB: So we went over that. And we talked about the G.S.A. and the invitation
was made, anybody was here or anywhere else, y’know. “There will be a
G.S.A. and if you are interested then you can come.” This was not meant,
this was a an information for the whole- anybody who wanted to come and
as part of the school population. I think we had, like fifty odd kids? Or
something in there? It was
AS: Okay
NB: You got a lot of curiosity going. [Nathalie laughs]
AS: Yeah, yeah, definitely!
NB: And I can’t remember anymore how many kids actually started coming.
AS: Mhm.
AS: So what kind of things would these meetings involve?
NB: For me I, ah, sometimes we would have a talking circle, sometimes it, a lot
of times it was just hang out during your lunch break. Have a chance to sit
with your group of friends and chat, an informal eat your lunch- it was their
lunch break, how much do 12 year olds really really want to have like a
serious meeting time happening at lunch? On a scale of 1-10 the answer is
zero! [Nathalie laughs]
AS: [Amy laughs] Yeah, absolutely.
NB: We e did do occasionally talking circles which had some interesting bits uh,
there was one group, probably not right from the start but you know, we’d
go around, pass around something as the object and, you could just, you
could pass all together, you could just say your name and your pronoun
and if you wanted to state your identity you could because for some of
them at some time it was like- and I remember when I was coming out I
just wanted to shout it from the rooftop, and it was just such a drag that
there wasn’t enough of times where people could ask you so you could tell
them “I’m a lesbian!” [Nathalie laughs enthusiastically]
AS: [laughs] yeah!
NB: “So, If you want to tell the world, you can tell us right now!” But also
nobody has to because that would also not be right. And then we were
looking for just sort of topics that would get people sort of have something,
innocuous to sort of just break the ice, and the group settled on “What did
you have for breakfast?”.
AS: Mhm
NB: And they got all kinds of funny things like “The tears of my enemies” or
[Nathalie has a burst of laughter]
AS: [laughs] Of course!
NB: Of course, I would not have picked that because it’s actually a question
that could touch an awful lot of nerves.
AS: Yeah.
NB: If you didn’t have breakfast, if your parents were fighting over breakfast, if
y’know, a gazi- if you have a eating disorder, there’s a gazillion reasons
why that actually might not be a safe question, but the kids were- had
really settled on it and there was enough opportunities to deal with it with
enough-with a joke rather than being sort of lay down you got to give me a
serious answer that I stayed with it.
AS: Yeah.
NB: It was theirs. Yeah. [NB: clears her throat]. So that sometimes happened.
Much of the time they just wanted to hang out with their friends in a place
that felt safe, and that was fine for me as well.
AS: Yeah I think there’s a lot of value to those spaces. Um, yeah, giving kids a
place to just like be themselves with people that are supportive, um. Yeah,
that’s kind of like what uh, what we’ve got at camp.
NB: Yes.
AS: Um but also what I had from a… a special like Girl Guide troop growing up
as a teen. So it’s uh, it’s important.
Um… yeah, what do you have to show me?
NB: This is back in 20, winter Olympics in 2014- if you’ll remember they were
taking place in Russia, and Russia didn't want for people to be visually-
AS: Mm yes!
NB: Identifying as gay, and there was a lot of sort of blowbacks, and you know
it’s a- people in Canada and elsewhere including in St. John’s saying “Hey
that’s screwed up and we were gonna speak out about that.” So it was in
the news big time, [NB: clears her throat]. So I had, we talked about it and I
had a display in my classroom [NB: shows AS: a picture of a display in her
former classroom]- there’s a pride flag and underneath here is a French
quote- but you speak French so I’m not even gonna translate it for you, it’s
taken from the Olympic charter “La pratique du sport est un droit de
l’homme.” [NB: raises her eyebrows at AS: ]
AS: [Laughs as she says] Yeah
NB:
*“Chaque individu doit avoir la possibilité de faire du sport sans
discrimination d’aucune sorte et dans l’esprit olympique, qui exige la
compréhension mutuelle, l’esprit d'amitié, de solidarité et de fair-play.” And
I’m pretty sure that there was a full cohort of kids at my school that came
out of the Olympics with the idea that somehow Olympics and Pride was
connected- and they might not have known why, but there was a lot of stuff
all over the class- all over the school!
AS: [Laughs] Yeah
NB: So I remember the the, y’know, there was Olympic excitement and people
were decorating their door- their classroom doors and stuff, and the
number of classroom doors that had, in addition to the Olympic visuals,
also included really strong Pride flags everywhere. I’m pretty sure there’s
kids who to this day can’t remember why, but they’re sure there’s a
connection. [NB: laughs]
AS: [AS: laughs] Yep. [AS: laughs some more] Oh that’s funny. You know, I
wouldn’t have thought that the Olympics were a queer icon but here we
are.
*You can find this quote sur page 9 dans le “Rapport annuel du CIO 2014”
Interviewer: Amy Smith [AS]
Transcribed by: Amy Smith
Location: Memorial University of Newfoundland
Date: October 29, 2023
Length of Interview: 11 minutes and 59 seconds
AS: So, you had some personal anxieties around holding and leading the
G.S.A. and what helped you to work through those to continue or to
motivate you to keep on like leading that space/providing that space?
NB: It was just so incredibly gratifying and satisfying. It was obvious that I was,
y’know-with the the reasonable rational part of my brain, I knew darn well
that I was not doing anything harmful
AS: Yeah
NB: To anyone there. There was so much positive response, there was so
much support for me to do that from the larger- there it is, haha, finally. [NB:
found a picture from her time with the LGBTQmunity that she had been
wanting to show me] the larger- y’know, queer community around me, the
people that just sort of would know that I was doing this, y’know, I’d be
putting things on facebook when it was starting to happen that were
appropriate and not infringing on privacy
AS: Mhm.
NB: But, you know you get all kinds of people saying “Oh my god that’s so
wonderful and I wish I’d had that when I was in high school.” And I
certainly would have loved for a trustworthy teacher to be there for me in
that way too.
AS: Mhm
NB: It was not hard to keep going. It was a constant joy and delight to be doing
it. And I’m sitting here ten years later and reminiscing and it’s such a
vibrantly joyful and loving part of my life and I miss the hole that it- y’know
it’s left a gap in my life and I really miss that now that it’s- that I’ve retired
uh so uh, stopping was never a question [NB: laughs joyfully]
AS: That seems like just another way in which you were teaching uh while
being your whole self, right? You bring your baggage and your past
experiences into it.
NB: Mhm
AS: Um, yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about your G.S.A.?
NB: I have a whole bunch of pictures! [Nathalie laughs excitedly]
AS: Yeah!
NB: So [NB: clears her throat], okay, so this one was of when I first decided to
set it up. This was in October 2013, as you can see there. What you don’t
see there is the original sort of getting people’s attention at first. There was
support from the district, I knew that it was fine for me to be doing this, my
administration was supportive, there was no obstacles to do it, I just knew
that if I just announced on the intercom “There’s going to be a G.S.A. in the
school,” People would- kids included, would’ve all said “What’s a G.S.A.?”
AS: Yeah
NB: Ah, there was, y’know, I needed to build up the awareness first. So I took a
page from a colleague who had used this as a trick to advertise some
other event in the past. I thought I’d pique everybody’s curiosity, so I took
some sheets of paper and one had “L”, “B”,
AS: Mhm, “G.” “T.” “A.” yeah…
NB: And so long, and “G.” “T.” “A.” yeah, with a few extra words like Ally, and I
forget what else.
AS: Would questioning maybe have been one of them?
NB: Questioning possibly..? I think I had queer? Uh-nuh- I had Q, simply for
whatever that would be. So it was just single letters!
AS: Okay!
NB: All over the school.
AS: Mhm
NB: What’s going on?
AS: Mhm
NB: A few days later, I added a little thing with the word, and a little paragraph
saying, “Curious? Want to know more? Come to the library Monday at
lunch time.” Whatever, so there was a meeting at the Library, I explained
“What’s a G.S.A., and here’s what we- y’know, what we could do and it’s
gonna be in my classroom” I picked a day of the week, day of the cycle,
cause day 4 was easier than
AS: Mhm
NB: Cause, otherwise, if you pick, if you pick Monday then it’s going to interfere
with your duty every now and then,
AS: Yes.
NB: So, day 4 it was
AS: Mhm
NB: And…so we had the next meeting, and there was a bunch of kids, and we
talked about the LGBTQmunity because there was a pun was, the name
that they chose, and so this would have been a week or so or few later [NB:
shows AS: a picture of a sign for the LGBTQmunity] “Queer and straight
together.” Drop here. “Drop in, Drop ins welcome. Meet here every day 4 at
lunch time.” And that little sort of happy face there is sort of my trademark.
AS: Okay yeah
NB: Yeah, that was the first start.
AS: Mhm. And uhhh so, you started off with a meeting in the Library on day 4?
NB: Yeah, the -
AS: Or it went to day 4
NB: Yeah the meeting in the library was just a one off, it was an information
session so, for anybody who just wanted to know what this LGBTQ stuff
was about.
AS: Yes
NB: So we went over that. And we talked about the G.S.A. and the invitation
was made, anybody was here or anywhere else, y’know. “There will be a
G.S.A. and if you are interested then you can come.” This was not meant,
this was a an information for the whole- anybody who wanted to come and
as part of the school population. I think we had, like fifty odd kids? Or
something in there? It was
AS: Okay
NB: You got a lot of curiosity going. [Nathalie laughs]
AS: Yeah, yeah, definitely!
NB: And I can’t remember anymore how many kids actually started coming.
AS: Mhm.
AS: So what kind of things would these meetings involve?
NB: For me I, ah, sometimes we would have a talking circle, sometimes it, a lot
of times it was just hang out during your lunch break. Have a chance to sit
with your group of friends and chat, an informal eat your lunch- it was their
lunch break, how much do 12 year olds really really want to have like a
serious meeting time happening at lunch? On a scale of 1-10 the answer is
zero! [Nathalie laughs]
AS: [Amy laughs] Yeah, absolutely.
NB: We e did do occasionally talking circles which had some interesting bits uh,
there was one group, probably not right from the start but you know, we’d
go around, pass around something as the object and, you could just, you
could pass all together, you could just say your name and your pronoun
and if you wanted to state your identity you could because for some of
them at some time it was like- and I remember when I was coming out I
just wanted to shout it from the rooftop, and it was just such a drag that
there wasn’t enough of times where people could ask you so you could tell
them “I’m a lesbian!” [Nathalie laughs enthusiastically]
AS: [laughs] yeah!
NB: “So, If you want to tell the world, you can tell us right now!” But also
nobody has to because that would also not be right. And then we were
looking for just sort of topics that would get people sort of have something,
innocuous to sort of just break the ice, and the group settled on “What did
you have for breakfast?”.
AS: Mhm
NB: And they got all kinds of funny things like “The tears of my enemies” or
[Nathalie has a burst of laughter]
AS: [laughs] Of course!
NB: Of course, I would not have picked that because it’s actually a question
that could touch an awful lot of nerves.
AS: Yeah.
NB: If you didn’t have breakfast, if your parents were fighting over breakfast, if
y’know, a gazi- if you have a eating disorder, there’s a gazillion reasons
why that actually might not be a safe question, but the kids were- had
really settled on it and there was enough opportunities to deal with it with
enough-with a joke rather than being sort of lay down you got to give me a
serious answer that I stayed with it.
AS: Yeah.
NB: It was theirs. Yeah. [NB: clears her throat]. So that sometimes happened.
Much of the time they just wanted to hang out with their friends in a place
that felt safe, and that was fine for me as well.
AS: Yeah I think there’s a lot of value to those spaces. Um, yeah, giving kids a
place to just like be themselves with people that are supportive, um. Yeah,
that’s kind of like what uh, what we’ve got at camp.
NB: Yes.
AS: Um but also what I had from a… a special like Girl Guide troop growing up
as a teen. So it’s uh, it’s important.
Um… yeah, what do you have to show me?
NB: This is back in 20, winter Olympics in 2014- if you’ll remember they were
taking place in Russia, and Russia didn't want for people to be visually-
AS: Mm yes!
NB: Identifying as gay, and there was a lot of sort of blowbacks, and you know
it’s a- people in Canada and elsewhere including in St. John’s saying “Hey
that’s screwed up and we were gonna speak out about that.” So it was in
the news big time, [NB: clears her throat]. So I had, we talked about it and I
had a display in my classroom [NB: shows AS: a picture of a display in her
former classroom]- there’s a pride flag and underneath here is a French
quote- but you speak French so I’m not even gonna translate it for you, it’s
taken from the Olympic charter “La pratique du sport est un droit de
l’homme.” [NB: raises her eyebrows at AS: ]
AS: [Laughs as she says] Yeah
NB:
*“Chaque individu doit avoir la possibilité de faire du sport sans
discrimination d’aucune sorte et dans l’esprit olympique, qui exige la
compréhension mutuelle, l’esprit d'amitié, de solidarité et de fair-play.” And
I’m pretty sure that there was a full cohort of kids at my school that came
out of the Olympics with the idea that somehow Olympics and Pride was
connected- and they might not have known why, but there was a lot of stuff
all over the class- all over the school!
AS: [Laughs] Yeah
NB: So I remember the the, y’know, there was Olympic excitement and people
were decorating their door- their classroom doors and stuff, and the
number of classroom doors that had, in addition to the Olympic visuals,
also included really strong Pride flags everywhere. I’m pretty sure there’s
kids who to this day can’t remember why, but they’re sure there’s a
connection. [NB: laughs]
AS: [AS: laughs] Yep. [AS: laughs some more] Oh that’s funny. You know, I
wouldn’t have thought that the Olympics were a queer icon but here we
are.
*You can find this quote sur page 9 dans le “Rapport annuel du CIO 2014”
Collection
Citation
Nathalie Brunet, Amy Smith, “Nathalie Brunet Oral History Interview,” The Newfoundland and Labrador Queer Archive, accessed September 16, 2024, http://nlqueerarchive.com/items/show/331.