Thanks Buck, excellent defense of real diversity. This sort of bullying occurs in the workplace around what you do or do not include in your email signature. When I think of generations of civil rights activists and the sacrifices they made to dismantle every flavor of oppression; I do not think they would support any of the currently popular "progressive" bullying tactics that are everywhere today. I did not March in all those Pride protests and write all those letters to lawmakers to make straight or white or male people scared to be who they are at work. No one should be scared. Vindictiveness is not victory and it is certainly not progress.
The "day of silence" is a curious form of compelled speech--forcing children to come to school and be silent in order to support protection (and be against bullying of) LBGTGIA+ people. Why silence if that's not your preferred way of showing support? And why demand support? Respect is a requirement--accepting and behaving in a friendly manner toward those whose way of life may not be your preferred way is expected. But to compel children either to be silent or to show support in some other way is wrong, morally, and unconstitutional.
Why do we have children involved in any of this? They’re children, leave them alone to be such and stop foisting adult problems on them. That will happen soon enough.
Hey Buck, thank you for sharing these insights! One thing I've noticed about the times our society sets aside for honoring other cultures and identity groups, is that it's so tied up in death, misery, oppression, and shaming. I think this is particularly so in the Trans Community. Rarely does one ever hear the word "trans" mentioned without hearing about violence against the community and references to suicide. I feel like to lesser degrees the stories of other groups are shared with the intent to elicit shame and pity. It almost seems too obvious to need to state it, but this is not a recipe for either spreading joy or intercultural understanding or solidarity. We tend to feel alienated from what (and who) we pity, not closer to it. I always liked the fact that celebrations of gay culture are called "pride." The concept of pride encourages respect and admiration, and although admiration is also still not the same as empathy or solidarity, it's much closer to the mark. The day of silence you describe sounds more grim than the way the Victorians celebrated death, and far more ascetic. Our modern DEI movement promotes stereotypes and creates bigger, more unapproachable taboos than the Victorians ever did. Do we really expect children to behave like monks? It's easy to see how a kid might misconstrue this as punishment, and how instead of respect or understanding, it could very easily create resentment. I could see having a moment of silence at the start of the school day followed by a thoughtful discussion, but an entire day of silence??? Everyone has to dress the same and all are forced to be silent...what a fitting symbol for everything wrong with our society. Instead of kindness, care, listening, individual expression and spontaneous gestures of care we have repressive, solemn conformity. No wonder so many kids are depressed at such a young age. Kids are becoming pawns in adults' twisted political maneuvers and are being asked to bear the cross of the world's problems. These sorts of pity exercises and shaming rituals can only increase the artificial gulf that exists between people. What we need are rituals of joy and attempts to create opportunities for understanding. Again, thank you for pointing this out.
Excellent argument -- as someone who has no issues with the LGBTQ community, I personally would not want to participate in a day of silence because I don’t like to be forced to do anything, even if I support the underlying message. I think my character should be determined by how I treat others not by whether or not I virtue signal via symbolic gestures. The fact that I’m not silent on the day of silence will not change how I treat LGBTQ people in my day to day life because I believe in treating all human beings with dignity and respect. Just because people choose to be silent, it doesn’t mean that they actually treat LGBTQ people with respect in their day to day life. Participating in the event may have zero correlation on anyone’s actual behavior.
In my bones, because I have a rebellious spirit, being forced to conform to any compelled action or speech is antithetical to my existence.
You have been sadly misinformed about the Day of Silence. If you can stand getting out of the echo chamber that is this comment section, go over to GLSEN's site and read about the observance. As the kids at your local school's GSA, human rights, or whatever group (if they have one) about DOS. Good that your not a sheep. But please do look at the real history and practice of DOS. You really have been misinformed if not misled.
No I am not. This was reported by an actual parent who is dealing with this and if you actually read my piece I said “ if this is actually true” so I am writing from this perspective which is mine. I am nit just winging it here. So maybe instead if the usual blame game you should just sit back with a nice tea and enjoy the read as something to think about. Have a great day. Buck
Thanks for sharing! I’m open to different point of views -- though I wouldn’t say I’ve been mislead. Your correct that people may have different experiences with the day of silence that have been positive, if that is your meaning. But others may have had negative experiences due to how individuals choose to implement it. There’s nothing wrong with participation if you so choose, but no one should be compelled or feel compelled via peer pressure to do anything. Wish you the best fellow human! 🖤
How about an organization that just focuses on teaching kids to be polite and kind, regardless of differences? And maybe a corresponding organization that teaches kids to stop looking for victimization around every corner? Oh and another one that teaches kids how to have dialogue with people of differing viewpoints?
If we were able to "go back' to affirming universal human rights...but tribalism seems to require victimism too. "Day of Silence" just oozes guilt, how could anyone participate in it--willing or not--without also participating in or succumbing to sanctimony? Whatever it might be on a humane scale--it is also a power.
I really don’t think this belongs in schools. Students should be expected to behave so that learning can take place and taught that people are individuals.
I am a man who happens to be gay and a senior citizen.
Just as it is inappropriate to force children into compelled displays of solidarity whether or not they agree with the cause, it is inappropriate to force different types of people under an awkward collective identifier, especially today, when differences often outweigh whatever it is the groups have or might once have had in common.
In a better world, "LGBTQ community" would be replaced by the phrase "members of sexual and gender minorities." Better yet, we'd just use individuals' preferred labels.
I agree completely. That ever-expanding intialism makes me feel more and more erased, especially when it is used as an adjective "a 2SLGBTQIAA+ person?" Ugh!
The Queer Resource Center at Portland State University, from which I am taking a break from my postbac degree program, is a disturbing but not unexpected example of erasure within the so-called LGBTQ community. There's a notable omission from the Center's mission statement. You'll probably spot it right away.
"The Queer Resource Center supports queer and trans students at Portland State University to achieve their educational goals through advocacy, community, and celebration. The Queer Resource Center prioritizes a racial justice framework to improve campus climate through education, policy change, and campus-wide organizing."
There you have it. The Center has performed involuntary identity reassignment surgery on the gay, lesbian and bisexual members of the student body. Mormons re-baptize gentiles posthumously; the playbill at Portland Center Stage made a queer of that sweet old queen James Beard, a gay man who died when "queer" was still only an insult. Such aggressively hegemonic behavior is the height of hypocrisy when, in the same cultural circles, the failure to properly honor the nuanced identity signaled by a person's preferred pronouns can lead to that form of social death known as cancellation.
The fact is that, at best, queer is neither a sexual orientation nor a gender identity. Queer is a scene. Queer is an edgy posture, a set of learned postmodern attitudes embraced by educated urban youth. Find me a Norwegian bachelor farmer in his 70s who's known he was "queer" since he was a kid and I'll consider rethinking my views.
At worst, "queer" is shorthand for so-called "Queer Theory," an invented ideology that would wither like lettuce on a hot frying pan if put to the test of the scientific method. Judith Butler, the obscurantist academic and birthing person who spawned queer theory, has convinced herself and her disciples that sex and gender are just made up social constructs that perpetuate systems of oppression or something, and that humankind will be unable to attain postmodern perfection until and unless sex and gender are put into a blender, as it were, and we all carry on as if we were gender-bending clownfish.
This worldview is distinctly toxic to gay men, since our very existence flouts the cardinal rule of queer theory that one's gender identity, if not already in constant flux, must be prepared to flip and flip again and again at a moment's notice.
Fascinating commentary. This was particularly insightful: "at best, queer is neither a sexual orientation nor a gender identity. Queer is a scene. Queer is an edgy posture, a set of learned postmodern attitudes embraced by educated urban youth." Gender identity and sexual orientation are culture-bound. The proof of it is the fact that other cultures throughout history tolerated (or even promoted) nonbinary expressions of sexual behavior (e.g. same sex behavior) without attaching identity labels to it, or imbuing it with any particular importance. Thus, under the Romans of antiquity, homosexual behavior was ubiquitous, ordinary, and so widely tolerated that no gay culture or identity existed. I suspect that gender identity, gay culture and even the concept of sexual or racial identities only exist because of the opposition to them. Remove adversity from the equation, normalize the behavior, and suddenly gender, race, and other identity-based social constructs cease to matter. The DEI movement is war-like and proudly pessimistic. Like bacteria, it thrives when fed its favorite food, which is, unfortunately anger, hatred and adversity. The DEI movement needs angry, bitter people who see each other in terms of its one-dimensional categories in order to exist. And right wing conservatives rely on minority group identities and movements in order to have the bogeyman they needs to create in-group solidarity through paranoia for its own members. The paranoia over the feared usurpation of "family values" makes members of both groups easy to manipulate and control by their respective leaders. Working towards a "color blind" world where race and other identities do not matter or are severely de-emphasized is the worst thing that could happen to morally bankrupt activists on the right and left, because it takes away their malignant power. A world where race, gender identity and sexual orientation are seen as irrelevant is one in which the majority are no longer held hostage by a few angry people bent on making war upon each other while dividing the rest of us. Race as a scientific concept has been discredited for 150 years. It's time we stopped tilting at windmills, fighting ghosts and pretending that our social constructs are reality itself.
"And right wing conservatives rely on minority group identities and movements in order to have the bogeyman they needs to create in-group solidarity through paranoia for its own members."
Trans activists, their strident, cisgendered "allies" and credulous progressives in general don't want to hear this, but if trans activists hadn't captured the policy-making bodies of the educational establishment in many states and infected the K-12 curricula with gender ideology, opportunistic Republican politicians such as Ron DeSantis probably wouldn't have mounted an all-out culture war on K-12 and libraries. "Don't Say Gay" (did a trans activist or trans ally come up with that name?) should really be "Don't Teach Trans."
Schools have no business indoctrinating young children with scientifically baseless notions about gender, including the idea that gender is independent from biological sex and cultural norms and that children can and should decide for themselves (based on nonsense they've been force fed in class) whether they're boys, girls, neither or both.
“ … right wing conservatives rely on minority group identities and movements in order to have the bogeyman they need to create in-group solidarity through paranoia for its own members.“. Well … I hate to burst your bubble but I don’t know any “right wing conservatives” (and I am one) who actually give a shit about any of this. Of course it’s important to YOU but the rest of us have some actual big weighty things on our plates.
Hi Judy, if your only contribution to the discussion is a foul-mouthed accusation I guess the only thing the rest of us should wonder is...why are you wasting our time? It's not a sin to admit you are not intellectually equipped to join the discussion. Blaming me for your inadequacies only highlights them.
First, thanks to Buck for all Buck is doing to deter young people from destroying themselves out of fealty to an ideology. Thanks to Buck for pointing out that this coercive "Silence" is forcing a religious belief in a secular context. It's certainly not OK that so many kids get bullied, and in an ideal world, they wouldn't. But it's also true that bullying can put a kid on the path to developing certain vital life skills, and an authentic sense of identity that withstands the commands of the mainstream.
I follow Buck -- we're about the same age -- and much of what Buck says about 'feelings' resonates with me. But at times I find it challenging to imagine young people taking advice from someone who transitioned to a male appearance, a former 'tomboy' who was bullied for being a tomboy. The best thing to do is to make being a butch tomboy cool, as opposed to capitulating to internalized standards and adjusting one's outward appearance to play at being male. We came of age when tomboys ruled prime-time TV -- Kristy McNichol, anyone? Boys and girls wore the same hairstyle and clothing. There was never a better time to be gender-non-conforming than the 70s. I didn't know it, but I wasn't 'conforming.' I got called some funny name that pointed it out to me (Lez) but it didn't faze me. I had so many more interests outside of myself, it just didn't matter, on some level, though I did endure some horrific moments of bullying by mean girls over the attention of boys and other territorial matters that go on well into adulthood.
Buck often posts on Instagram some modeling shots from when Buck was in Buck's biological origin. The accompanying text claims feeling so uncomfortable in lingerie and modeling in general, people putting make-up on her, etc. I look at this image and see a similar one of myself, where I too, felt incredibly uncomfortable. Modeling, wearing lingerie -- red lipstick -- it felt like a costume to me. But it didn't make me male.
Of course a few paragraphs on Instagram might not be enough to capture whatever 'feelings' put Buck on the path to testosterone. But what is there isn't enough to convince me that anything out of the ordinary was wrong, other than capitulating to a gender expectation, as opposed to celebrating being a really cool butch lesbian. I acknowledge that it's not for me to say what made Buck do this, but it seems wiser to accept and make the most out of what one IS, as opposed to giving in, which is what Buck did. Also, it is clear that Buck is female under the beard. Buck's mannerisms on the channel -- gestures in response to guests, things said -- are all stridently female behaviors. There's an element of 'acting' in being transgender -- Blaire White is 'acting' like an exaggerated version of a female, as opposed to celebrating the twink he truly is. Blaire showed a pre-Blaire video and it made me sad. There was a certain kind of non-conforming type that will disappear to this line of thinking and costuming and I, for one, miss them. The best outcome, in my observations, is to make being what you actually are -- be it butch, super gay, twink -- whatever -- the thing to be.
Thank you for this very thoughtful and thought-provoking essay. I agree with you completely. Bullying and/or intimidating children into participating in *any* event or activity does nothing but legitimize bullying. And, as a biological psychologist, I would suggest that doing so exacerbates any negative feelings that the children might have toward the group that's doing (or is perceived as doing) the bullying. Thank you again. Sincerely, Frederick
I genuinely hope there are more of you to represent your community. We are in desperate need of your thinking in this world. Thank you for this writing.
As a parent of an 8th grade student at Felix Festa Middle School (mentioned in this article), it should be pointed out that the majority of non-participating students support the cause and their LGBTQ classmates/friends but resent being forced into social activism while at school.
Thanks Buck, excellent defense of real diversity. This sort of bullying occurs in the workplace around what you do or do not include in your email signature. When I think of generations of civil rights activists and the sacrifices they made to dismantle every flavor of oppression; I do not think they would support any of the currently popular "progressive" bullying tactics that are everywhere today. I did not March in all those Pride protests and write all those letters to lawmakers to make straight or white or male people scared to be who they are at work. No one should be scared. Vindictiveness is not victory and it is certainly not progress.
The "day of silence" is a curious form of compelled speech--forcing children to come to school and be silent in order to support protection (and be against bullying of) LBGTGIA+ people. Why silence if that's not your preferred way of showing support? And why demand support? Respect is a requirement--accepting and behaving in a friendly manner toward those whose way of life may not be your preferred way is expected. But to compel children either to be silent or to show support in some other way is wrong, morally, and unconstitutional.
Why do we have children involved in any of this? They’re children, leave them alone to be such and stop foisting adult problems on them. That will happen soon enough.
Hey Buck, thank you for sharing these insights! One thing I've noticed about the times our society sets aside for honoring other cultures and identity groups, is that it's so tied up in death, misery, oppression, and shaming. I think this is particularly so in the Trans Community. Rarely does one ever hear the word "trans" mentioned without hearing about violence against the community and references to suicide. I feel like to lesser degrees the stories of other groups are shared with the intent to elicit shame and pity. It almost seems too obvious to need to state it, but this is not a recipe for either spreading joy or intercultural understanding or solidarity. We tend to feel alienated from what (and who) we pity, not closer to it. I always liked the fact that celebrations of gay culture are called "pride." The concept of pride encourages respect and admiration, and although admiration is also still not the same as empathy or solidarity, it's much closer to the mark. The day of silence you describe sounds more grim than the way the Victorians celebrated death, and far more ascetic. Our modern DEI movement promotes stereotypes and creates bigger, more unapproachable taboos than the Victorians ever did. Do we really expect children to behave like monks? It's easy to see how a kid might misconstrue this as punishment, and how instead of respect or understanding, it could very easily create resentment. I could see having a moment of silence at the start of the school day followed by a thoughtful discussion, but an entire day of silence??? Everyone has to dress the same and all are forced to be silent...what a fitting symbol for everything wrong with our society. Instead of kindness, care, listening, individual expression and spontaneous gestures of care we have repressive, solemn conformity. No wonder so many kids are depressed at such a young age. Kids are becoming pawns in adults' twisted political maneuvers and are being asked to bear the cross of the world's problems. These sorts of pity exercises and shaming rituals can only increase the artificial gulf that exists between people. What we need are rituals of joy and attempts to create opportunities for understanding. Again, thank you for pointing this out.
Hi Buck,
Excellent argument -- as someone who has no issues with the LGBTQ community, I personally would not want to participate in a day of silence because I don’t like to be forced to do anything, even if I support the underlying message. I think my character should be determined by how I treat others not by whether or not I virtue signal via symbolic gestures. The fact that I’m not silent on the day of silence will not change how I treat LGBTQ people in my day to day life because I believe in treating all human beings with dignity and respect. Just because people choose to be silent, it doesn’t mean that they actually treat LGBTQ people with respect in their day to day life. Participating in the event may have zero correlation on anyone’s actual behavior.
In my bones, because I have a rebellious spirit, being forced to conform to any compelled action or speech is antithetical to my existence.
I am not a sheep.
You have been sadly misinformed about the Day of Silence. If you can stand getting out of the echo chamber that is this comment section, go over to GLSEN's site and read about the observance. As the kids at your local school's GSA, human rights, or whatever group (if they have one) about DOS. Good that your not a sheep. But please do look at the real history and practice of DOS. You really have been misinformed if not misled.
No I am not. This was reported by an actual parent who is dealing with this and if you actually read my piece I said “ if this is actually true” so I am writing from this perspective which is mine. I am nit just winging it here. So maybe instead if the usual blame game you should just sit back with a nice tea and enjoy the read as something to think about. Have a great day. Buck
Thanks for sharing! I’m open to different point of views -- though I wouldn’t say I’ve been mislead. Your correct that people may have different experiences with the day of silence that have been positive, if that is your meaning. But others may have had negative experiences due to how individuals choose to implement it. There’s nothing wrong with participation if you so choose, but no one should be compelled or feel compelled via peer pressure to do anything. Wish you the best fellow human! 🖤
How about an organization that just focuses on teaching kids to be polite and kind, regardless of differences? And maybe a corresponding organization that teaches kids to stop looking for victimization around every corner? Oh and another one that teaches kids how to have dialogue with people of differing viewpoints?
Excellent idea!! ❤️
If we were able to "go back' to affirming universal human rights...but tribalism seems to require victimism too. "Day of Silence" just oozes guilt, how could anyone participate in it--willing or not--without also participating in or succumbing to sanctimony? Whatever it might be on a humane scale--it is also a power.
I really don’t think this belongs in schools. Students should be expected to behave so that learning can take place and taught that people are individuals.
I am a man who happens to be gay and a senior citizen.
Just as it is inappropriate to force children into compelled displays of solidarity whether or not they agree with the cause, it is inappropriate to force different types of people under an awkward collective identifier, especially today, when differences often outweigh whatever it is the groups have or might once have had in common.
In a better world, "LGBTQ community" would be replaced by the phrase "members of sexual and gender minorities." Better yet, we'd just use individuals' preferred labels.
I agree completely. That ever-expanding intialism makes me feel more and more erased, especially when it is used as an adjective "a 2SLGBTQIAA+ person?" Ugh!
The Queer Resource Center at Portland State University, from which I am taking a break from my postbac degree program, is a disturbing but not unexpected example of erasure within the so-called LGBTQ community. There's a notable omission from the Center's mission statement. You'll probably spot it right away.
"The Queer Resource Center supports queer and trans students at Portland State University to achieve their educational goals through advocacy, community, and celebration. The Queer Resource Center prioritizes a racial justice framework to improve campus climate through education, policy change, and campus-wide organizing."
https://www.pdx.edu/queer-resource-center/
There you have it. The Center has performed involuntary identity reassignment surgery on the gay, lesbian and bisexual members of the student body. Mormons re-baptize gentiles posthumously; the playbill at Portland Center Stage made a queer of that sweet old queen James Beard, a gay man who died when "queer" was still only an insult. Such aggressively hegemonic behavior is the height of hypocrisy when, in the same cultural circles, the failure to properly honor the nuanced identity signaled by a person's preferred pronouns can lead to that form of social death known as cancellation.
The fact is that, at best, queer is neither a sexual orientation nor a gender identity. Queer is a scene. Queer is an edgy posture, a set of learned postmodern attitudes embraced by educated urban youth. Find me a Norwegian bachelor farmer in his 70s who's known he was "queer" since he was a kid and I'll consider rethinking my views.
At worst, "queer" is shorthand for so-called "Queer Theory," an invented ideology that would wither like lettuce on a hot frying pan if put to the test of the scientific method. Judith Butler, the obscurantist academic and birthing person who spawned queer theory, has convinced herself and her disciples that sex and gender are just made up social constructs that perpetuate systems of oppression or something, and that humankind will be unable to attain postmodern perfection until and unless sex and gender are put into a blender, as it were, and we all carry on as if we were gender-bending clownfish.
This worldview is distinctly toxic to gay men, since our very existence flouts the cardinal rule of queer theory that one's gender identity, if not already in constant flux, must be prepared to flip and flip again and again at a moment's notice.
Fascinating commentary. This was particularly insightful: "at best, queer is neither a sexual orientation nor a gender identity. Queer is a scene. Queer is an edgy posture, a set of learned postmodern attitudes embraced by educated urban youth." Gender identity and sexual orientation are culture-bound. The proof of it is the fact that other cultures throughout history tolerated (or even promoted) nonbinary expressions of sexual behavior (e.g. same sex behavior) without attaching identity labels to it, or imbuing it with any particular importance. Thus, under the Romans of antiquity, homosexual behavior was ubiquitous, ordinary, and so widely tolerated that no gay culture or identity existed. I suspect that gender identity, gay culture and even the concept of sexual or racial identities only exist because of the opposition to them. Remove adversity from the equation, normalize the behavior, and suddenly gender, race, and other identity-based social constructs cease to matter. The DEI movement is war-like and proudly pessimistic. Like bacteria, it thrives when fed its favorite food, which is, unfortunately anger, hatred and adversity. The DEI movement needs angry, bitter people who see each other in terms of its one-dimensional categories in order to exist. And right wing conservatives rely on minority group identities and movements in order to have the bogeyman they needs to create in-group solidarity through paranoia for its own members. The paranoia over the feared usurpation of "family values" makes members of both groups easy to manipulate and control by their respective leaders. Working towards a "color blind" world where race and other identities do not matter or are severely de-emphasized is the worst thing that could happen to morally bankrupt activists on the right and left, because it takes away their malignant power. A world where race, gender identity and sexual orientation are seen as irrelevant is one in which the majority are no longer held hostage by a few angry people bent on making war upon each other while dividing the rest of us. Race as a scientific concept has been discredited for 150 years. It's time we stopped tilting at windmills, fighting ghosts and pretending that our social constructs are reality itself.
"And right wing conservatives rely on minority group identities and movements in order to have the bogeyman they needs to create in-group solidarity through paranoia for its own members."
Trans activists, their strident, cisgendered "allies" and credulous progressives in general don't want to hear this, but if trans activists hadn't captured the policy-making bodies of the educational establishment in many states and infected the K-12 curricula with gender ideology, opportunistic Republican politicians such as Ron DeSantis probably wouldn't have mounted an all-out culture war on K-12 and libraries. "Don't Say Gay" (did a trans activist or trans ally come up with that name?) should really be "Don't Teach Trans."
Schools have no business indoctrinating young children with scientifically baseless notions about gender, including the idea that gender is independent from biological sex and cultural norms and that children can and should decide for themselves (based on nonsense they've been force fed in class) whether they're boys, girls, neither or both.
“ … right wing conservatives rely on minority group identities and movements in order to have the bogeyman they need to create in-group solidarity through paranoia for its own members.“. Well … I hate to burst your bubble but I don’t know any “right wing conservatives” (and I am one) who actually give a shit about any of this. Of course it’s important to YOU but the rest of us have some actual big weighty things on our plates.
Hi Judy, if your only contribution to the discussion is a foul-mouthed accusation I guess the only thing the rest of us should wonder is...why are you wasting our time? It's not a sin to admit you are not intellectually equipped to join the discussion. Blaming me for your inadequacies only highlights them.
Well, your snarky remark angered me. I meant what I said, but I should not have said it. I apologize.
Yes, absolutely! It is toxic to everyone with a sexuality. Everyone!
First, thanks to Buck for all Buck is doing to deter young people from destroying themselves out of fealty to an ideology. Thanks to Buck for pointing out that this coercive "Silence" is forcing a religious belief in a secular context. It's certainly not OK that so many kids get bullied, and in an ideal world, they wouldn't. But it's also true that bullying can put a kid on the path to developing certain vital life skills, and an authentic sense of identity that withstands the commands of the mainstream.
I follow Buck -- we're about the same age -- and much of what Buck says about 'feelings' resonates with me. But at times I find it challenging to imagine young people taking advice from someone who transitioned to a male appearance, a former 'tomboy' who was bullied for being a tomboy. The best thing to do is to make being a butch tomboy cool, as opposed to capitulating to internalized standards and adjusting one's outward appearance to play at being male. We came of age when tomboys ruled prime-time TV -- Kristy McNichol, anyone? Boys and girls wore the same hairstyle and clothing. There was never a better time to be gender-non-conforming than the 70s. I didn't know it, but I wasn't 'conforming.' I got called some funny name that pointed it out to me (Lez) but it didn't faze me. I had so many more interests outside of myself, it just didn't matter, on some level, though I did endure some horrific moments of bullying by mean girls over the attention of boys and other territorial matters that go on well into adulthood.
Buck often posts on Instagram some modeling shots from when Buck was in Buck's biological origin. The accompanying text claims feeling so uncomfortable in lingerie and modeling in general, people putting make-up on her, etc. I look at this image and see a similar one of myself, where I too, felt incredibly uncomfortable. Modeling, wearing lingerie -- red lipstick -- it felt like a costume to me. But it didn't make me male.
Of course a few paragraphs on Instagram might not be enough to capture whatever 'feelings' put Buck on the path to testosterone. But what is there isn't enough to convince me that anything out of the ordinary was wrong, other than capitulating to a gender expectation, as opposed to celebrating being a really cool butch lesbian. I acknowledge that it's not for me to say what made Buck do this, but it seems wiser to accept and make the most out of what one IS, as opposed to giving in, which is what Buck did. Also, it is clear that Buck is female under the beard. Buck's mannerisms on the channel -- gestures in response to guests, things said -- are all stridently female behaviors. There's an element of 'acting' in being transgender -- Blaire White is 'acting' like an exaggerated version of a female, as opposed to celebrating the twink he truly is. Blaire showed a pre-Blaire video and it made me sad. There was a certain kind of non-conforming type that will disappear to this line of thinking and costuming and I, for one, miss them. The best outcome, in my observations, is to make being what you actually are -- be it butch, super gay, twink -- whatever -- the thing to be.
Thank you for this very thoughtful and thought-provoking essay. I agree with you completely. Bullying and/or intimidating children into participating in *any* event or activity does nothing but legitimize bullying. And, as a biological psychologist, I would suggest that doing so exacerbates any negative feelings that the children might have toward the group that's doing (or is perceived as doing) the bullying. Thank you again. Sincerely, Frederick
I genuinely hope there are more of you to represent your community. We are in desperate need of your thinking in this world. Thank you for this writing.
Excellent Buck. If only more had your common sense maybe we could all be happy together.
As a parent of an 8th grade student at Felix Festa Middle School (mentioned in this article), it should be pointed out that the majority of non-participating students support the cause and their LGBTQ classmates/friends but resent being forced into social activism while at school.
A voice of reason. Thanks, Buck.
Yes. Good piece.