I want to take a step back for a moment and do some meta-cognition about writing itself. I think it's generally bad form to do this kind of post because it ultimately distracts from the real work of writing compelling stories, but I'm trying to make a meaningful change in how I work, and I want to take a moment to reflect on that change.
A few weeks ago, I released a podcast with Yascha Mounk about his new book The Identity Trap. The basic idea in the book is that too many progressive spaces and institutions have been captured by a regressive, identitarian ideology he calls "The Identity Synthesis" that favors zero-sum identitarianism over classic liberal universalism and minority rights. Spoiler: I completely agree with his premise. I furthered this point in the following weeks, writing and podcasting about my rejection of queer identitarianism and racial myths.
I think that, in a previous life, I would have spent an inordinate amount of time preening and caveating to avoid the wrath of my colleagues on the left while discussing these topics. I would have bent over backward to avoid hair-trigger assumptions about my supposedly secret political agendas and bigotries. I would have gone on long side quests clarifying what I do and do not mean, and imploring my audience to hear me out despite how my words superficially rhyme with something Jordan Peterson might say.
I am making a conscious effort to stop caveating, consoling, and hand-wringing. All of these clarifications, "To be sures" and Don't Hurt Me signs make for intolerably bad writing. Consolations and hedging don't illuminate the writing, they dumb it down.
I'm proud of my philosophical liberalism and universalism, and I believe that it occupies the moral and intellectual high ground over the alternatives. I'm also proud of my conviction that truth can be found in the minds of those who aren’t like me. I'm proud of these principles, and I won't apologize for them any longer.
Saying anything – even kindly and respectfully – means turning off and angering some portion of my audience. Striving to avoid that fact disrespects my audience and undercuts my value as a writer. Good writing, I now believe, demands maturity from its readers. There are no good writers without skilled readers.
Reading is not a passive experience. It isn’t the mindless scrolling of X or Instagram, as if you are just an open psychic hole waiting to be impregnated with the memetic sperm of an online influencer. Reading is a hard collaborative process between minds, and I believe the widespread failure to grasp this fact explains why so many people give up on reading altogether. Reading is as much a skill as writing with norms, rules, and etiquette. Writing as if this is not the case contributes to an immature and febrile culture of online readers.
I yearn to be a good writer. So, I'm not going to insult your intelligence by assuming you don't have the maturity to handle a reference to a controversial thinker or concept. I believe that you — yes, you — have it in you to be a mature, thoughtful reader, and I choose to treat you as one.
My last article, which was published both on my Substack and in Persuasion Magazine, generated a huge response. I explored why I reject queer identitarianism and instead embrace liberal universalism.
One commenter in my discord server disputed my framing of the issue:
I think an obsession with identity is a natural stage in queerness. Baby gays as we like to call it. More young folks are coming out, becoming more vocal and active in the community, which I think is awesome!
Is it possible that the disconnect also comes from a growing age gap? Many 30+ gay men I've worked with in an LGBTQ+ resource group setting have also shared that they have distanced themselves from the community. "Pride" no longer means a whole lot to them anymore. The "so happens to be gay" archetype, if you will.
I also challenge the claim that progress hasn't been made. I think individuals becoming more comfortable with exploring themselves and their expression that challenges that status-quo is progress for society and the community. I don't think that has to be at odds with personal progress or self-actualization.
I appreciate the pushback, and it is obviously accurate that there is a developmental component to this. So many of us gays go through a rainbow phase when we first come out. It’s almost a cliché.
But I want to put forward the hypothesis that there is also a theory of identity – what Yascha Mounk calls The Identity Syntheisis – that has infiltrated some parts of our culture. Some of the “old school” gays might feel distance from the younger gays, not just because of their stage of development, but also because of a difference in worldview.
Finally, progress has absolutely been made. I believe that the freedom to just be a person is the ultimate sign of liberation. It is oppression that confines and deindividualizes us. It is oppression that makes group identification necessary in the first place. The fact that any LGBT person has the freedom to walk away from all that is testimony to the enormous progress we have made in a staggeringly short amount of time. I truly believe, without equivocation, that now is the best time to be gay.
Another member of my Discord server had this to say:
I feel like it's important to point out that the freedom to live an ordinary life without concern for identity is not yet evenly distributed across the LGBTQ+ population. It's been less than twelve months since the last time I was chastised by a bartender for kissing another woman in their establishment, and I know many trans people do not yet feel safe just existing without concern for what their identity means to the people around them.
Identity is complicated, because it's not only about how we experience ourselves, but about how others see and interpret us as we move through the world. I do feel that some people seem to be making increasingly narrow identity categories into their whole personality in ways that don't appear particularly healthy to me, but I also know that identity is constructed and performed in community with other people, and it's not enough for me to say "I'm done identifying as queer, I'm just A Person" while I'm still having very different experiences in the world depending on the perceived gender of a person I choose to kiss or hold hands with, for example. So, I don't disagree with the article per se, but I also think it's important to discuss openly that people of certain perceived identities are afforded greater access to being "just a regular guy" than many on the rainbow spectrum can yet aspire to, and it's easier to shrug off the importance of identity if other people aren't pinning it right back onto your chest.
I think that this can stand as a helpful “yes, and” to my article. Empathy with the ways in which group solidarity seems necessary for people can coexist with the personal decision to walk away from such identitarianism.
This is a good opportunity for me to offer up a necessary clarification: I still describe myself as gay, because being gay has so shaped my life that if someone doesn’t know I’m gay, then they don’t know me. “Gay” is a neutral description of the type of person I am. So, I’m not abandoning categories to be “just a regular guy”. Rather, I am describing a shift of emphasis in my self-perception. I’m content to let “gay” be a description rather than a consciously reinforced identity.
This shift of emphasis feels like escaping from an abusive relationship because I spent nearly two decades exclusively managing my identity. Freedom from that OCD is, for me, the very definition of liberation.
A topic that came up in the ensuing discussion on my Discord was a feeling of abandonment. Some people feel that cis gay men, having gotten their own liberation, have abandoned the rest of the alphabet and typographical symbols to live ordinary, privileged lives.
I am sure such feelings have merit and such gay men exist, but I also think that a false dilemma is lurking here: either you retain group solidarity and fight for the rights of the marginalized, or you abandon group solidarity as well as the fight for marginalized people.
This is simply not necessary. I firmly believe that a rejection of queer identitarianism need not entail a rejection of LGBT rights. The most powerful forms of resistance are daily, boring, and nearly invisible: the humanizing eye contact we make with the oppressed and forgotten, the way we talk to friends and family about social issues, the way we conduct ourselves in the workplace, and the way we vote. No pride flags or perseverating over identity are necessary for any of this.
Emma, a trans woman, shared some of her story and how she relates to what I wrote:
Before kindergarten I wished I'd been born a girl and went to sleep every night dreaming of it. But I knew it was "wrong". Why? Because my mother tried to spank it out of me. So I retreated inwards and tried to move on. Even then, I felt it was a bad habit that I needed to somehow get over.
Like you, Stephen, I tried to be what I was "supposed" to be. I monitored my behaviors, how I spoke, dressed, and what toys I played with.
As I went into puberty I thought I had a "sick fetish" (words that I'd picked up in newspaper articles) that I had to maintain strict secrecy.
Life went on. I got married, had a couple of kids, got divorced. Married again, this time for 20 years. I was suicidal and tried to end my life. My wife encouraged me to return to therapy where, finally, I disclosed everything to him. I spent a year determining for myself that being trans is something we're born with. I spent another year determining that, yes, I am trans. My wife and I divorced (in a more loving way this time) and I headed north to determine where on the Benjamin Scale I was on the trans spectrum.
That was six years ago and I'm pleased to say that I needed to do it all, completely transition. Scary, yes. But in the end very fulfilling.
Also like you, I don't enjoy pride events or, for that matter, attending trans groups.
I'm just another woman living her life. I attend lesbian things because... I'm a lesbian!
This narrative demonstrates exactly the sort of liberation I am describing – the freedom from fixation, obsession, and self-monitoring. The freedom to be.
There were many more comments I couldn’t respond to in this post, but I read every single one. Thank you, everyone, for your feedback. Keep it coming.
Emma's comments were absolutely lovely as this essay is. Your comments about self censoring hit hard for me. I didn't know I was a writer until I joined Mr. Palahniuk's substack about three years ago. To my knowledge I was only marginally competent at business writing/writing resumes. When I began his substack group, I joined because I wanted to improve my fashion blog writing and impress my hero, Mr Palahniuk so he would say "Hi" to me in substack comments.
As I read more I found that...gasp...I learned more about writing. I even learned how to organize my thoughts a bit better. I also found that even my most benign essays were offending people. I was ghosted and told I sound crazy and then others would tell me it was brilliant. Mr. Palahniuk says "Write your crazy on the paper and leave it there." The right people will hail you and the rest will fall away...Thankfully. I now pay no attention to those who knee-jerk when they read my writing. I love a heartfelt argument about ideas that I may present and I can argue about my beloved writing all day but I will not deal with trolls and I'm not bothered in the slightest by them any more. I will continue to exercise my write rite. Don't like? Step off.
I dont even have my fashion blog any more either. I was bored by it. lol
Also Jordan Peterson essay sparked the writing curiosity in me. Critical thinking and writing go hand in hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfDOoADCfkg