What More Could Someone Ask For?

On letting everyone own their identities.

I’m in the midst of reading Oliver Radclyffe’s Frighten the Horses, which has me thinking about identity, a subject that, to me, seems everywhere this week.

Frighten the Horses, coming out soon from

Roxane Gay

’s eponymous publishing imprint, is described in the promotional copy this way:

Frighten the Horses is a trans man’s coming of age story, about a housewife who comes out as a lesbian and tentatively, at first, steps into the world of queerness. With growing courage and the support of his newfound community, Oliver is finally able to face the question of his gender identity and become the man he is supposed to be. The story of a flawed, fascinating, gorgeously queer man, Frighten the Horses introduces Oliver Radclyffe as a witty, arresting, unforgettable voice.

I am about a third of the way into the book, so I cannot offer a fully informed review, but on early impressions, Radclyffe is a charming guide to his own life story, a voice the combines great exuberance for life’s adventures, and a down-to-earth matter of factness about the ultimate expression of his identity. The framing of the book as “a trans man’s coming of age story” is entirely accurate, but also constrained in its accuracy. The best stories are general enough to be recognizable as part of a broader experience, while also being resolutely specific and unique to the life of the individual telling the story.

Because we have not yet achieved a culture where public, written narratives of trans life are common, Radclyffe’s story is positioned as something of a novelty, and because of that novelty, of interest. Which is true! There are not a lot books like Frighten the Horses. Off the top of my head I can only think of Thomas Page McBee’s Amateur: A Reckoning with Gender, Identity, and Masculinity a personal story merged with cultural analysis about McBee, a trans man, trying to better understand what it means to be “male” by training for a boxing match.

I’m sure there are more examples, but even as a professionally plugged-in book person, I am obviously not aware of them, suggesting that they have not penetrated the broader public consciousness.

So, on the one hand, Radclyffe’s story is original, and important in terms of furthering the goal of increasing the representation of people who are often publicly marginalized.

On the other hand, from the beginning, it is clear that Radclyffe’s story is also an example of perhaps one of the most common and potentially cliched stories of all-time: the mid-life crisis.

At the core of the story is Radclyffe waking up one day and recognizing that married mother of four is simply not who he is. Lots and lots and lots of people can relate to this feeling.

One of the challenges of stories centered on identity is bridging the gap between the specific and the general, to be both unique and relatable. Some of us - people like me - who are born into the default setting of society - white, male, cisgender, neurotypical - do not have to spend any time seeking acceptance, let alone the much lower bar of tolerance, from society so our stories are not considered to be trafficking in identity, but that’s merely an illusion.

I will admit that I decided to pick up and start reading Radclyffe’s book because I think these stories are “important.” At the same time, important is entirely insufficient to keep me reading a book. Ultimately, important must give way to interesting, at least this is true for this reader. A third of the way in, Radclyffe has cleared that bar with ease.

Honestly, he cleared it with the first chapter, which is pretty much the duration of my personal patience with any book these days.

As I watched the Democratic National Convention this week I could not help but be deeply interested in how issues of identity played out.

The troglodyte right has been trying to smear Kamala Harris with a variety of identity-based attacks, calling her a “DEI candidate,” betting that the backlash against the push for diversity in corporate and educational settings, birthed in retrograde racism, but significantly tolerated by many so-called “centrists” who want to protect a status quo that favors them, could be weaponized against a mixed-race, female candidate.

Another angle of attack from the terminally aggrieved part of the right is that because Kamala Harris’s father, Donald Harris, is Jamaican, Harris cannot make a claim to “blackness” in the American sense because she may not be descended from or connected to the history of chattel slavery. This is an elaborate argument for dumb people who are grasping for straws to launder their racism, and one that Brett Staples demolishes at the New York Times this weekend. I recommend Staples’s piece to anyone who is truly interested in a better understanding of the way history, culture, and identity intersect.

Most of this stuff is crude and, I think, ineffective, as when Trump recently vomited his usual filth about Kamala Harris not being Black at a convention of Black journalists in Chicago. He is too racist and addled to be more strategic, but the professional campaign apparatus is taking different angles of attack.

I am in North Carolina at the moment, which means I am being exposed to swing-state political ads, and the go-to identity attack for Kamala Harris in the negative ads being funded by GOP PACs is “Dangerous San Francisco Liberal.” I’m not sure which undecided voters this will persuade, but I can envision a world in which soft Trump supporters are kept from straying by making Kamala Harris into a generic liberal boogeyman.

It was fascinating then to watch the convention and see the concerted effort to portray Kamala Harris as what she quite obviously is - an American and a patriot - but which might be breaking news to some significant segment of the country. The Republican attempts to paint Kamala Harris as an “other” were easily turned back by the facts of Harris’s identity combined with an embrace of the affirmative case for a diverse society. Yes, she is the child of immigrants, but immigrants coming to this country to seek opportunity is the deep story of America.

We’re the freaking melting pot! The big statue in New York Harbor of the lady holding a torch has an inscription of a poem with this final stanza:

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

What is more American than the mixed-race child of immigrants rising to become the presidential nominee of one of our major political parties?

While I understand that some of my fellow people on the left can get a little squoogy about overt displays of patriotism that can edge towards a spirt of “America! Fuck Yeah!,” I ate up every moment of the convention’s embrace of the Red, White, and Blue, including the 100,000 balloons that dropped from the ceiling of the United Center at the conclusion of Kamala Harris’s speech.

As I wrote in a blog post at Inside Higher Ed back in 2012, my politics are “liberal” because I embrace the principles of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It’s a no brainer to support trans rights because of these values. What is more American than allowing someone to pursue the life they desire for themselves when those desires exert no price on the freedoms of others?

It’s impossible to read Oliver Radclyffe’s story in Frighten the Horses and think that what he did is anything other than the pursuit of living one’s own life as openly and freely as possible.

What more could people ask for?

Based on the reactions of some of the online right to some of the events at the convention, the thing they most fear is people being free to express themselves fully in the form of their individual identities.

After seeing a picture oof Ella Emhoff (daughter of Doug Emhoff, stepdaughter of Kamala Harris) in a camo Harris/Walz trucker hat and visible arm tattoos, Richard Hanania, a committed racist, and true weirdo who is obsessed with something he calls “the sexual marketplace” said, “Ella Emhoff being a part of the first family has the potential to radicalize American parents. I’m for women living the lives they want, but this is pretty much the nightmare scenario for most people with a daughter.”

Let’s be clear, Ella Emhoff, graduate of Parsons School of Design and burgeoning fashion designer and social media influencer was probably the coolest person in the entire United Center, particularly since Beyonce didn’t show up. This is what bugs Richard Hanania.

Worse was the reaction of some to the overt displays of emotion and love of Gus Walz toward his father. Personally, I found these moments incredibly moving, a testament to the parenting Gus Walz must have experienced. This is a teenage boy expressing pride and love for his father. What more could someone ask for?

But as

Parker Molloy

covers at The Present Age, Gus Walz triggered some on the right. Ann Coulter called him “weird.” Something named Mike Crispi tweeted, “Tim Walz stupid crying son isn’t the flex the left thinks it is. You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats.”

I honestly don’t know what to make of a mind and spirit that would publicly share such a thought with the world. It is fragile and warped, insecure, damaged. Mike Crispi deserves both scorn, and perhaps pity given what it must be like to live as him.

Some of these trolls backed off when they learned that Gus Walz is neurodivergent, but this is even more telling in terms of how they view identity and want others to conform to the norms they dictate.

In a lot of ways, Kamala Harris’s campaign has been playing down the “historical” nature of her candidacy, possibly afraid of stumbling into the identity politics buzzsaw that seemed to backfire against Hillary Clinton’s “I’m With Her” framing of her 2016 run.

But maybe there’s an upside to this in that we can simultaneously acknowledge Harris’s identity rooted in the facts of her life and upbringing, while making clear that difference is desirable, diversity is strength, and the core of the American identity is respecting those differences.

It’s an ongoing process for all of us to understand our own identities. (See last week’s newsletter on the challenges of masculinity.) Granting individuals the space to shape their very selves seems like a no-brainer to me in terms of the embodiment of the American Dream.

Gus Walz is who he is, Kamala Harris is who she is. Oliver Radclyffe is who he is.

I ask again: What more can people ask for?

Links

At the Chicago Tribune this week I use the occasion of J. Robert Lennon’s new novel Hard Girls to celebrate the amazing diversity of his overall output.

At Inside Higher Ed I wrote about the scourge that is the “learning management system.”

At my

Engaged Education

newsletter, I did some thinking about the identity of “Coach Walz” and how he seems to establish trust as a precursor to engagement, both as a teacher and politician.

At his

Counter Craft

newsletter,

Lincoln Michel

has some wise things to see about the literature that “lasts.”

At first I thought this article may get folded into the main newsletter text because it deals with issues of diversity and identity. Some background on how big publishing doesn’t seem to be able to make and maintain space for non-white editors and executives.

It is not clear to me why a person who has been writing a column about books for the hometown newspaper for better than a dozen years does not even receive an email asking if he might be interested in participating in the Printers Row Book Festival, but nonetheless, this does not stop me from informing my Chicago people that the festival is coming up this September 7th and 8th.

Recommendations

1. Horse by Geraldine Brooks
2. Sacred Chord by Geraldine Brooks
3. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett.   
4. Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese.
5. Somebody’s Fool by Richard Russo.

Michael H. - St. George, UT

This is on behalf of a men’s book club, which is very nice thing, so I want to make sure I give them something they’re going to be glad to read. The pick: Five Skies by Ron Carlson.

1. The Second Coming by Garth Risk Hallberg
2. Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
3. Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capó Crucet
4. Hell Is a World Without You by Jason Kirk
5. The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro

Stephen J. - Minneapolis, MN

I’m wondering if Stephen has read Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. If not, that should be remedied forthwith.¹

Recommendations are starting to back up a bit, so when I have a chance I might do a mid-week extravaganza in order to make sure no one is waiting too long.

Early voting starts in September in some states. If you’re not registered, it’s not too late to make your voice heard on the future of our country.

See you next week,

John
The Biblioracle

1. All books (with the occasional exception) linked throughout the newsletter go to The Biblioracle Recommends bookstore at Bookshop.org. Affiliate proceeds, plus a personal matching donation of my own, go to Chicago’s Open Books and an additional reading/writing/literacy nonprofit to be determined. Affiliate income for this year is $63.30.