Reply #5: I went to a training session yesterday and I feel a bit better

[Cronus Protagonist]

Now that I've seen a lot more of what the situation is, I think I actually prefer that they disclose in advance, but I think they should offer the choice to the mentor rather than doing what they proposed.

The reason I want them to disclose now (in mny situation) is that the parents of the children in this school are almost all Hispanic and none of them have more than a rudimentary capability in English while most of them can hardly utter ten words. In this situation, it would be nearly impossible for me to have an open conversation with the parents at a later date when, having not disclosed, it would surely come up. I had thought that when it did come up, perhaps after years of mentoring, our relationship would be well established and it would be a huge non-issue because they would all know me by then and would know it's a non-issue. Hopefully that's how it turns out in the cases of the mentors who are in the closet now.

I think that, given the language barrier, it would be best to be up front about it. Not in a way like "he's damaged", but more of s "by the way" type of communication. Then I wouldn't have to feel like I'm hiding sometihng from the parents and I would feel more comfortable since I hate to be in the closet. I just don't want to be rejected due to bigotry and I don't like the attitude that I heard which indicates that some people in the organization seem to want to promote fear and hatred of differently oriented people.

So now it's a waiting game to see if they actually place me or not.

ulp!

:)