Coming Out as Non-Binary

(Not what you may think)

Got your attention with that headline, didn’t I? Okay, please forgive me for the gratuitous clickbait. I am very much male.

When I say non-binary, in this case I am talking about viewing the issues of the day in a non-binary fashion. In common 2020’s parlance, I mean being less reflexively tribal.

My public commentary for the past couple of years has centered primarily around the Covid-19 pandemic and our reaction to it. Ann Bauer, one of the voices I’m come to know and respect, and whose opinions on these topics frequently mirror my own, summed up my feelings perfectly with the tweet below:

It’s not a time for great thought. I should say so. That realization is what led me earlier this week to retire my Twitter account. You can still find it, and you can message me there if you already followed me, and I may post links without comment to my own Substack posts, but my days of tweeting and replying and participating in the daily fray are done until further notice.

If Twitter serves as a proxy for our national conversation, in recent weeks and months that conversation has grown tedious. I simply don’t care to be a daily part of it anymore. Send me to the kids’ table for some ice cream and a couple of rounds of duck-duck-goose. The kids are often more sensible anyway, and no, this doesn’t mean I think we should give them the vote. Let’s not get wacky.

I find our conversation tedious because - particularly surrounding covid but extending to other topics whether out of boredom or the chemical need for outrage - it’s increasingly becoming a shouting match between extremes who seem to be staking out extreme positions out of inertia. The covid shots are either unimpeachable or unimpeachably evil. Every sudden death is either due to a covid shot or to covid itself. We never locked down. We must ban gas stoves. We must get outraged over the quest to ban gas stoves. We must get outraged that people are outraged over the fictional quest to ban gas stoves. We still never locked down. Nobody is saying we want to ban gas stoves, but here’s a feature story on why gas stoves should be banned. And yes, everyone has been talking about this for years. Democrats want to turn your kid trans and have they/them taught exclusively by drag queens. Republicans want to ban any mention of alternative lifestyles and want to heteronormativize your breakfast cereal. And all of this is MY HILL TO DIE ON.

Can you see why I want to go to the kids’ table?

None of this is particularly new, of course, but it has been escalating. And, while I am an engaged, opinionated person who was driven to make public his views over our horrific covid response, it is not and never was my goal to become some sort of civilian political pundit. I have views on plenty of issues. But on a lot of those issues I truly don’t have anything new to add to the conversation, and don’t want to expend brain cells or emotional capital arguing over them with strangers staking out extremes I don’t agree with into a digital abyss.

The recent “died suddenly” panics are a great example. On one side, you have people who wish to jump to attribute every unexpected, heart-related death to mRNA vaccines. On the other side, you have people who were invested in the vaccines and our covid response declaring any speculation implicating the vaccines to be completely out-of-bounds and a “conspiracy theory.” Leaving alone the fact that we’ve now broadened the term “conspiracy theory” to mean “anything I disagree with.”

Myself, I want no part of either side of this argument. I do think the covid vaccines were ridiculously oversold, failed to live up to expectations, never should be or should have been mandated anywhere, and their safety is potentially suspect. But that does not mean I can abide jumping to the conclusion that every time a young person unexpectedly dies a covid shot was at fault. In some cases, they might be. But maybe it was effects from the virus itself. Maybe there were other factors at play. We do not know.

But the above paragraph, expressing a wide range of possibilities and an open mind as to what the truth is, is taboo in today’s environment. That, to me, is neither realistic nor worth my time. While I am considered a member of “Team Reality,” that doesn’t mean I have to have a team all the time. That’s reality. I’m non-binary.

Getting back to what Ann said, I believe she hit the nail on the head that we are in a hazy, transitional phase as it pertains to covid. The crisis phase is done. In its wake, we have some people on ideological extremes battling it out on Twitter while the rest of the weary world moves on. Covid as a daily crisis is no longer relevant, thankfully. The battle now will be the battle for the historical narrative and, also, the legal ramifications of all this.

To what extent can the government use the “State of Emergency” as an indefinite loophole to suspend the rights of the citizens? To what extent can the government regulate the speech of the citizens via unofficial partnerships with private platforms? Could the government truly force people to wear useless masks again? What exactly made the public health establishment do an about-face and start lying about the efficacy of masks? What propaganda took place behind the scenes to force most of the world to lock down over a serious, but non-extinction-level virus? And, politics and vested interests aside, what’s the truth about these vaccines and this virus?

The truth. That’s what we all need. Unfortunately, at the moment, the public arguments are more about being right and scoring points than the truth. So, while we are in this transitional phase, the important work may be done in less visible places. I will be happy to be a part of it. If you want me, you know where to find me. I’ll be over at the kids’ table, eating my ice cream. No masks required.