A Good Life

Rose's response to "A Nightmare Situation."

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the incredibly bleak messaging of LGBT+ organizations, and to young kids in general who come out (as well as how effective those messages are for fundraising). Rather than telling kids that they live in the safest time to be “queer,” with their civil rights guaranteed, they’re told that their chances of suicide are high and the world is out to get them. In response, my indispensable editor wrote his own beautiful piece, about the difficulty of balancing those competing messages, and about his own desire to avoid activism and take advantage of those rights by living an ordinary life with his husband.

This inspired Rose, a member of the LGBT Courage Coalition (where this piece is also posted) whom you may have heard on Gender: A Wider Lens, to pen her own beautiful response. I am so thrilled to be part of this discussion and have it unfold here.

-LD

Photo by Utku Özen | @theutkuozen on Unsplash

This weekend I went to a town fair in the rolling hills of a progressive, blue state.  I went with my beloved family—my wife, and my two young sons. We only had one hour and we were eager to soak it all in. As we approached the booth to pay our admission, we bumped into Tucker, my ten-year old son’s classmate. His mother and great grandmother followed in the grass behind him. They each put out what was left of their cigarettes from the car ride, and greeted us with a warm hello. 

While standing in line at the booth, Tucker’s mother touched my son’s long hair and said, “Your hair is getting so long. I was so sad when Tucker cut his hair. Your hair is gorgeous.” We smiled and chatted a bit more, and then said we would see them inside. 

We entered the small and simple fairgrounds in a field surrounded by woods, and with the sun on our faces, we soaked in the beauty of a mostly clear blue sky.  As we trotted by the first fair stands, I turned to smile and wave at my son’s future principal, who was staffing a food booth.  As the rest of my family  all turned to wave, I saw my gorgeous wife and my two sons, smiling, almost breaking into a full run with the excitement of what we were about to see. They were practically shining – earnest, open hearted, and free. 

You see, this is a good life. I am living a good life. And I am what you would call “LGBT.”

The day before the fair, I read a post on the Broadview Substack titled, A Nightmare Situation, and for some wild reason, I felt I wanted to respond. Too much coffee in the morning, maybe. On the other hand, perhaps something stirred within me that yearned to make my case. 

My case is not to dismiss the reality of the nightmare, but propose a way to get through it: Do the best you can to live a good life. 

……..

The nightmare situation goes something like this: If you believe the progressive left and LGBT organizations, there is an emergency and LGBT people—especially LGBT youth—are under grave threat. Both mainstream media and social media echo chambers amplify the impending “trans genocide,” transition-or-suicide narratives, and raise the alarm about the rise of “anti-LGBT” hate legislation. If I still believed these organizations, I would be terrified.

On the other hand, if you, like me, are extremely concerned with the social and medical transition of children, you no longer believe the narrative of the progressive left and LGBT organizations. You see how dissident voices from within the left are censored, demonized and silenced. You see how an ideology that pushes sex changes for children has captured every institution in society, including medicine, psychotherapy, education, media, government and law. For me, this is incredibly terrifying.

The nightmare situation is that whether you believe the narrative or whether you have come to be deeply concerned about the reality underneath it, things for the “LGBT community” seem bleak. 

However, here is what I think: If you, like me, happen to be somewhere along the lines of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, or even if you are not, as human beings we face a great challenge. We must live with an awareness of all that is wrong in the world, things that may stand to harm our children, and our own lives. We are born into a specific moment in history, and with it, specific opportunities and threats. 

I would like to argue that we could live with an acute awareness of the mess we are in, while also focusing our attention on all there is to be grateful for, and use both as motivation. Motivation to live a good life. 

……

When I realized I was wrong to have socially transitioned my young son, I experienced a crisis of faith. I left the religious-like belief in social justice (aka “woke”). My entire belief system crumbled. I feared losing my entire tribe, all of my friends. I even feared losing my marriage. I had to slowly pick up the pieces, and reintegrate my sense of reality, my values, identity and beliefs.

On the one hand, this was incredibly difficult for me. On the other hand, it was a priceless gift. When the ideological dam broke, a river burst through and flowed back to who I was before this belief system. You see, I had left so much of myself behind. The river flowed back into my family, and healed relationships that had seemed impossibly broken, including years of estrangement from my parents. It flowed back into reconnection and enjoyment of things I had written off as oppressive, like sports, classic literature, and religious faith. Perhaps most importantly, the waters flowed free – unbound by who or what I had to be, think, or do to fit in with others’ expectations of me. 

Within “woke,” my daily life was defined and driven by an agenda called “collective liberation,” a vision of a utopian future that true believers of social justice seek to build. Ironically, this vision of liberation was actually a straightjacket. It kept me in line by playing an internal tape on loop that slashed and burned away any wrongthink, doubt or dissonance inside me. I took that mental straightjacket off and opened up to a fuller life. A life planted in the rich soil of instinct and intuition, and refreshed by the newfound freedom of cognitive liberty. 

During this time, I kept coming back to something a trusted friend had shared with me: “Life is 90% what you do, and 10% what others do to you.” If this is true, the call then is to take responsibility for my own life, and have that focus guide me.

Therefore, it is with full awareness of all that is wrong that I can decide each day that I will not let it consume me. I will do what I can to make a difference, but I have learned the hard way that I will not sacrifice my family for any cause. When my head spins and fear takes over, I ask myself: what is it that I can control? 

I will do the one thing I can. I will live a good life. 

……

What is a good life? Maybe it begins and ends with gratitude for the simple things. 

I am grateful every single day for what I have. I have an incredible wife and two incredible young sons. I have a humble job, and we have a humble home. We keep our kids off screens. We go outside. We play basketball, baseball and soccer, and watch football in the fall.  My older son plays the piano, and my younger son is learning violin. We grow and eat good food, play games, and laugh a lot. 

We live in a lower middle class neighborhood in a rural county of a progressive state. We have two lesbian couples as neighbors who live normal lives. American flags, progress pride flags and Trump flags dot some of the houses on our block, and some homes fly no flag at all.  One of our neighbors is a 92-year-old woman who often comments on our parenting. While she observes that many modern parents seem disconnected from their kids, she sees us playing with ours. She sees us living a good life. 

This summer, we visited family and friends back home, in the state where I grew up. If I am to believe the left, I spent the first few days with fascists, as my parents are traditional Catholics and Trump supporters. If I am to believe the right, I spent the next few days with communists, as my friends are deep within the progressive world of social justice. I find that I stand in a different place. I now have a greater understanding of my parents, one that my friends may never see. And, while I no longer share the same belief system as my friends, I could still connect with them as humans, in their complexity.  

With my family, we laughed, ate good food, went fishing, and played games. With friends, we soaked in an impossibly pink sunset while my older son skipped rocks and my younger son dug a hole in the sand. 

Even as I write this, I sit in awe. I am so grateful for this good life. 

……

I do not have the answers for what it means at this moment in American history to be LGB or T. Like many others, I now feel a mixture of outrage and ambivalence about my connection to the  “community.”  When politicians say that anyone questioning irreversible medical interventions for children and teens is “anti-LGBT,” I want to scream and say, “Not in my name! Do not push sex changes on children and say it is because you love and support me!” 

I do not have the answers for how we will get out of this cultural and medical scandal, or what it may look like on the other side. From within this nightmare, it is up to each of us to do our part - big or small - to get ourselves and our children out. 

What I do know is that I am grateful and humbled by what I have. The warmth of family, neighbors, and friends. The sun on our faces. Living in a place where a random mother can put out her cigarette and admire a boy with beautiful long hair.  Where my wife can coach our sons’ baseball and basketball teams and we can live normal and free. This is what living a good life is to me. 

Perhaps part of our way out of this nightmare situation is sharing these stories. The textures that paint our daily lives, both the simple and mundane, as well as those moments that take on the impossible pink of a sunset glow. Maybe in the telling of these stories, we can offer a glimpse into the truth: That I can, we can, live good lives. And in that good living, we can grow meaningful connections, and we can be free. 

Maybe, just maybe, that is what being LGBT in America could mean to you and me.