Nail Polish, Gender Identity, and the Idiocracy

I’m convinced that my fellow Americans have gone insane. More specifically, the whole right wing conservative, anti-sex, anti-woman, anti-minority, and homophobic portion of the population that is taking up precious space in the media of late.

I’m pretty certain that most people in the United States are not like this. In fact, I would say that people in this group are a minority. But since they have such big mouths and their form of crazy is…well…crazy the media can’t help reporting on it because crazy gets people buying newspapers.

A week or two ago, J. Crew sent out a mailer that contained a picture of the company’s president, Jenna Lyons, with her son Beckett spending time together. The controversy? Jenna painted her son’s toenails hot pink (click here to see the picture).

To the extreme conservatives this was the equivalent of the Romans nailing Jesus to the cross, or calling a room full of black people the n-word, or going to lemonparty.org. The brouhaha that erupted over this picture was so ridiculous that it warped the word and made it redonkulous.


Commentator Erin Brown of the conservative rag Media Research Center says:

“J.CREW, a popular preppy woman’s clothing brand and favorite affordable line of first lady Michelle Obama, is targeting a new demographic – mothers of gender-confused young boys. At least, that’s the impression given by a new marketing piece that features blatant propaganda celebrating transgendered children.” (read the rest of the article)

With the first paragraph of her blog post, she managed to hit three topics guaranteed to send their ultra conservative readership into a frothy rage: Michelle Obama, sexual identity, and the idea of being brainwashed by the evil lefties (muahahahaha).

First of all, what does Michelle Obama have to do with this controversy? Nothing. She just happens to have the misfortune of liking clothing made by J. Crew and being married to the 44^th President of the United States whom they all hate with a passion that burns hotter than a thousand suns.

She’s also that chick that wants people to feed their kids broccoli instead of Burger King and make them go outside every once in awhile. OMFGROFLMAOBBQ! The fact that she is mentioned in the piece at all tells me that author’s agenda is to fan the flames of hatred and bigotry with this nonissue.

Second of all, it’s 2011 folks. Alternative sexual and gender identity is not a new concept. Transgender individuals were formally diagnosed in Germany starting around the 1880’s. But even before then there were numerous stories of people born as one sex and living as another.

One of the more interesting cases involved a French spy named Chevalier d’Eon (5 October 1728 – 21 May 1810). He claimed he was a female raised male by his parents. He lived as a man until he petitioned King Louis XVI to return to France after being exiled when he published diplomatic secrets. In a letter to the king he confessed to being a woman and wanted to be publicly recognized as such. He was permitted to do so as long as he behaved and dressed like a woman which he did for the rest of his life.

Chevalier d’Eon as a woman

Upon his death, it was discovered that Chevalier was really a man which would classify him as a transvestite. However, I think had a surgical option been available during those times he would have gone through with it.

The fact is transgenderism has been around for a long time. There is no propaganda being perpetuated by the “left controlled media” (with J. Crew at the helm no less) to spread around the idea that boys should want to be girls and vice versa. Rather, what is happening is people who identify as transgender have decided they don’t want to be marginalized anymore and are fighting to be recognized in our binary gender centered society.

It is the same thing that is happening with homosexuals and atheism. It happened in the sixties when black people decided that racial oppression was just not cool anymore. Before that, women determined that not being able to vote was redonkulous. Almost 300 years ago, a group of English people thought being forced to be Catholics was bogus and moved to a completely different land which is now known as America.

But all social commentary aside, the controversy is stupid simply because we are talking about a kid and his mom here. Beckett is five years old. He has not yet been inducted with the male/female gender stereotypes that these conservatives are railing against his mother for violating. To him, he’s just having a good time putting colorful paint on his toes with his mom.

In fact, Beckett is not the only “fashion forward” kid on the block wearing the latest in nail colors. Other celebrity moms, like J. Lo and Gwen Stefani, have let their boys put paint on their nails. These boys see their moms and sisters using the stuff and they want to join in on the fun too.

Additionally, I really wish people would learn about the history of cosmetics. They would be surprised to find that men in every country at one point or another used guyliner, face powder, wore wigs, wore high heels, wore dresses (which they called robes, LOL) and all were considered the latest in men’s fashion. Seriously, any argument that cosmetics are a purely female thing is rendered invalid in the face of previous (and even current) fashion trends.

I guess what irritates me the most about this nonissue is the fact that we have more pressing matters to worry about than a mom putting nail polish on her kid’s toes. Where is the outrage over the 15 million+ children who live in poverty in the richest nation in the world and that this very nation wants to strip away programs designed to help them?

Where is the anger over the fact that we are being terrorized by a group of domestic extremists who held the government hostage when the president refused to cut funding for a women’s health program? Why aren’t we talking about the fact that the Republicans promised to create jobs when they were put in office and, yet, are using their majority to push extreme social ideology? Is anyone on the conservative right talking about these things? Anyone? Crickets.

Seriously, you may have the right to free speech but I would really appreciate it if you kept your crazy at home. Or, at the very least, talk about shit that matters.

(nail pic from publicdomainpictures.net, Chevalier d’Eon from Wikipedia)

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