Yesterday in the hallway, some boys walked past me. One of them said, loud enough for me to hear, “That’s definitely a Subaru owner.”

I actually don’t drive a Subaru. (Though, honestly, they’re solid cars.)

But that wasn’t really the point, was it?

The point was the old familiar sting—the one I’ve been trained to absorb since the 90s. Back then, the unspoken rule was that I deserved comments like that because of how I looked: Unfeminine. Queer. Other. The kind of girl who “brought it on herself.” And somewhere in me, that script still runs.

Yesterday, my first thought was: Maybe I shouldn’t stand in the hall anymore. Maybe I’m inviting it.

And that broke me.

Because I would never let that slide if it happened to one of my students. So why would I swallow it for myself? Why is my own dignity always the one I’m willing to compromise?

I’ve been here before. The first year at my old school, a student scrawled “dyke” across my classroom door. I wasn’t even there—it was a day I had a sub. The “solution” offered to me was that I should lead a restorative circle. As if the person harmed should be the one guiding the harmful people toward healing. As if my pain should be turned into a “teachable” moment.

I think about my brother, too. My mom once told me his friends made comments about me and he’d have to defend me. Imagine being a kid, knowing your sibling has to fight his friends just because of how you exist in the world.

I didn’t choose that. I wasn’t the problem.

But it was always my problem.

So yesterday, when I caught myself thinking “Maybe I’m asking for it,” it hit me hard. That is teenage Jaime talking. That is the voice of someone who spent years swallowing shame, hiding, believing that authenticity meant danger.

But I’m not a teenager anymore. And I don’t want to abandon her now.

I deserve better. My students deserve better. If I can stand up for them, I can stand up for me too. Not with performative toughness or by brushing it off, but with the quiet, steady truth that I am worthy of respect. Of safety. Of existing without apology.

I don’t know the boys who said it. I’m new, they don’t know me either. But I documented it, gave myself a time stamp. Maybe it was a one-off. But maybe it wasn’t. If queer intolerance is part of the culture here, I need to see it clearly. And this time, I won’t gaslight myself into believing I somehow deserve it.

Because the truth I’m choosing to believe is: I don’t need to disappear from the hallway. I don’t need to shrink. I don’t need to carry everyone else’s discomfort about who I am.

I need to be a champion for myself. For teenage me. For the me that’s still healing.

Subaru or not—I’m not going anywhere.