Hey, kids! Nonconformity! Everyone is doing it!
Some recent social trends have me reflecting on the idea of conformity, or more precisely, nonconformity, especially the recent phenomenon of large numbers of teenagers who decide that they won’t conform to conventional binary gender roles, and who declare themselves actually one of the newly discovered genders. With this mass epiphany, the demand for medical gender reassignment has surged, as has the debate over such care for minors. Legislation and lawsuits have ensued.
Of course, during modern times, kids have always set themselves apart from the adult world and what they see as mindless conformity. We boomers were pretty good at it. In the 1960s we fetishized nonconformity and made it obligatory if you didn’t want to be ostracized by the crowd. We rebelled by growing beards and long hair, wearing unconventional clothing, and making it clear that we wanted no part of conventional society. When our parents, teachers, or other adults ridiculed or criticized it, we bemoaned our rejection by the society we tried so hard to distance ourselves from. And all of our friends were doing the same thing to prove their own nonconformity. We rejected all aspects of our parents’ corrupt and materialistic world, making only occasional exceptions when we asked them for some of their unconscionable wealth to pay for our tuition, board, and textbooks. Our parents showed a lot of restraint in not strangling us in our sleep when we came home for the holidays.
But we did have a lot of fun, and aging and parenthood wiped out a lot of our smug certitude. With today’s permissive, nonjudgmental world, it seems to be more of a challenge to get a rise out of us old folks, and it requires a lot more creativity.
As easy as it is to dismiss this gender rebellion as just another “oh, those kids” sort of thing, is that accurate? For one, the kids don’t seem to be having any fun with it. A lot of them seem very distressed and suicides among all kids, and especially the transgendered, have greatly increased. The recent account of a 16-year-old nonbinary Oklahoman named Nex Benedict who got into a fight with some other girls when they teased her and her friends about their attire, is heartbreaking. After she and the other combatants were suspended by the school for fighting, she committed suicide. This is not just a harmless fad like hula hoops. Anytime you set yourself apart from the rest of the crowd, whether by gender or by coming to school in a full MAGA outfit, you are likely to experience a negative reaction. Kids ridicule the different.
Are kids today just more sensitive, or are they under more pressure? Other than pressure from the draft and Vietnam, our world seemed a lot saner, with a lot better prospects. Today’s media, with its doom and gloom and depictions of a dystopian future, seems a lot more intense. And then there is socially cannibalistic social media. The 1960s specter of nuclear annihilation hanging over our heads pales in comparison with today’s assault by the Kardashians, reality TV, and TikTok.
The dispute over medical transition therapy for minors is also not just another meaningless skirmish in the culture wars. Children are prone to dramatic changes in their thinking as they age, and some recipients of such care have ended up regretting the permanent and irreversible transitions, and more are likely to follow. While advocates assure us that these therapies are medically endorsed, the physicians providing lobotomies (or leukotomies) for emotional problems during the 1940s and 1950s offered similar assurances. Indeed, the developer of the lobotomy received the 1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine. So even with the purported endorsement of the medical establishment, caution is very much warranted. Medical consensus may evolve, but the changes to children will be permanent.
It is hard to ignore the likelihood that “social contagion” is driving this sudden surge in the reportedly misgendered. Can true gender dysphoria really be an epidemic?
So, kids, a word of advice: Enjoy your nonconformity and your obligatory urge to revolt and to outrage us geezers. It is your chance to challenge the social order before growing older, starting a career, having kids, and buying into it all yourself.
Just remember the permanence of online images, and your teasing of grandpa over the pictures of him in bell-bottoms and love beads. Δ
John Donegan is a retired attorney and revolutionary in Pismo Beach who remains ready to lead the charge on the barricades, right after his nap. Send a response for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Apr 11-21, 2024.