“Scrapbooking, high stakes poker, the Santa Fe lifestyle — sooner or later, everyone meets their Homer. Just pick a dead end and chill out till ya die.”
Honestly, writing-related fields is something that a lot of gifted kids do end up in.
Its just not always pure fiction.
I was an honor student in school, I flamed out in college, and right now, most of my work involves writing. Buuuuut, its not fiction, its writing marketing copy (or related stuff), and often involves a fair bit of technical writing work, something that is greatly improved by a computer science degree, but doesn’t require absolute mastery of the field.
The truth is that just about every industry needs someone that both understands the basics of the field and also knows how to write shit. But the super-geniuses that don’t burn out also tend to avoid the humanities, so they need someone that does know how to write and also broadly understands the technical crap to translate for the normies and execs.
morleuca
Same, only mine was training documentation and related junk. Nothing like explaining to a 6 sigma obsessed management why creating the stuff required time and was actually a creative endeavor
Legal assistant. Wills and trusts, motions and orders, affidavits and subpoenas, and so many letters and emails.
Furie
But you get to walk in halls really fast and be sarcastic about each others sex lives, right?
Right?
StClair
oh yeah. and everyone always gets up to crazy stuff but never get fired or disbarred. totally.
Michael Steamweed
Unfortunately, SO much of professional writing is currently, or very soon to be, getting turned completely over by LLMs.
Davus
unless it *needs* to be correct. Like, if a lot of money is riding on it.
But I guess most things aren’t that.
Buck Ripsnort
Yeah, when I was young my parents told me an English degree would open doors, because “businesses need someone who can write readable copy.”
Just wish they’d told me the main door opened would be one to the unemployment office.
CombustibleLemons
Also, I think a lot of people tend to forget that gifted kids aren’t all gifted in STEM. I myself was considered ‘gifted’, and while I did do well in science class, I was actually considered gifted because of my English and literature skills (being college-level since 5th grade), because I was homeschooled by an English professor. So I actually do have dreams of becoming a fiction writer, but often find myself burnt out and recognize that I probably won’t be successful unless I have a backup plan.
man, I hate to move from lurker to chirper on the strength of one comment alone, but “ALL JOURNALISM IS COVER FOR BILLIONAIRES” ignores community journalists that don’t give a damn about rich folks, as well as the people who DON’T work for wealthy legacy outlets seeking to knock the rich folks down a peg.
It’s healthy to not trust everything that you read, but blind cynicism is silly.
I think you’re misunderstanding what burnout means. You can still love and adore your craft, but the passion that drives you to do it just isn’t there either because of general disillusionment with adulthood and the grind, or, you have spent so long being a big fish in a small pond and thriving on “you’re so smart!”s from adults in your life that once you’re an actual adult in the real world you hit the difficulty curve of learning to pursue your passion without those aids
This. This right here. Going to public university for a field I wasn’t naturally good at fucking RUINED me psychologically for a good long while, to the point that it took me a little short of a decade to start feeling more like ME again, and that came with a lot of growing pains as I learned to cast off the weight of unreasonable expectations and come to terms with not being as impressive as I felt sort of tricked into thinking I was and becoming disillusioned by that fact.
On the upside, in addition to feeling like the person I used to be before that, I like to think that I’m at least a much less insufferable version of my idealized self now, so it’s not like it was all bad, I guess. Slamming yourself face first into the metaphorical grindstone for eight or nine solid years of your life and damn near throwing away your sense of self in the process by accident has a way of humbling you, I think–at least, that was my experience.
Most of us “gifted kids” burned out early. There is a gag meme on Halloween that shows a “gifted kid” Halloween costume from Spirit Halloween. Lists as (Contains nothing). When asked what you are supposed to be you reply “I was supposed to be a lot of things.
I reached a new level of gifted kid burnout in the job hunting stage. Nothing like doing well in biology and environmental sciences in college only to never get a job in the field for one reason or another. In the purgatory zone of too much experience for some jobs and not enough experience or connections for others, and to get the experience you have to have the job. I have had several jobs that are outside of my field that don’t want to hire me even though they like me because I have been a part of a published paper and will go places in science they say. I have other places that won’t hire me in my field even though I meet the desired qualifications because they literally have someone who has done the job before and want them, though they still say that I will go places. So far, none of these places they say I will go has resulted in a job, and it has left me very disillusioned by the field. Not that I seem to be able to get out of it at this point without going back to college for a different degree, such as accounting (the amount of dual accounting and environmental experience/degree jobs out there is surprisingly high).
It could just be that the job market is horrible as well. The amount of vet receptionist and other receptionist type jobs paying minimum wage and wanting at least 6 months of experience as an receptionist for that specific type of office (not to mention degree) is shocking.
because I have been a part of a published paper and will go places in science they say
Morons! Nobody gets a job out of one published paper.
Even GFAJ-1 didn’t work out.
Kimi
Yeah, and publishing a paper isn’t writing a grant, which is most of what I see people wanting experience in. But how do you get experience writing a grant without getting a job that deals in grant writing, like getting experience in teaching without having a job teaching (being a TA didn’t count for some reason). There was also a job that wanted a master’s degree and 2-3 years of experience in a rural area (so very few places to rent and most were 55+) and paid just 2 dollars more per hour than a job in the major city 2 hours away that only required a bachelor’s degree and no experience. I am still shocked that they got any applicants for that job.
Nah, it’s more like how “gifted” kids have a tendency toward perfectionism and becoming burnt out as a result. Sometimes one winds up with the notion that you must Do All The Things — take the hardest classes, do all the extracurriculars—and outperform everyone else in everything because “you have so much potential.” This becomes unsustainable over time, and when you inevitably wind up in a situation where you’re just mediocre at something it can be hard to process. (Former “gifted kid” here.)
I know it’s there’s a sliding timeline but it’s hard to imagine that even when Jocelyne was a kid for a teen at school to be public about their transgender status, it just wasn’t a common thing about twenty years ago.
Not that it doesn’t happen, just very very rarely I imagine in early 2000s Indiana.
True, but the ‘preteen’ comment would suggest it would be around when she was around 12? So I guess 2012 or so. Probably more likely to happen, but I don’t think the movement had really taken off around then either? My memory of queer movement (especially in America) isn’t the best.
Charles Phipps
It’s regional too.
One place may be openly accepting and another viciously dangerous and the difference could be miles or blocks.
Nono
It’s Indiana so… not sure about that one. Especially since the Browns are from a pretty small town.
Charles Phipps
Funnily, I live in Northern Kentucky and we had a transgender student at our high school prom not long after I graduated circa 2004 or so and the school was very pro-LGTA.
It’s also a viciously homophobic town just nearby.
So I’m just saying it might have been a special case.
Sugar
Just popping in as someone who graduated highschool in 2013- there was a small set of kids in my school’s “Gay Straight Alliance” who ended up coming out as trans/experimenting with the concept quite a bit through middle and high school. It was definitely met with opposition but even before the movement there were trans kids popping up on public schools’ radars for sure.
Yumi
2012 was when Obama voiced his support for same-sex marriage. (Just one of my markers for the progress of things– at lot of my other ones for that time are hyper-specific.)
But of those hyper-specific things, I can also say that in 2012, in Michigan City, Indiana– not far from the town Joyce grew up in– there were at least a couple LGBT supportive churches. I know this because my family used to go on vacation there, and in 2012 specifically I brought along a couple friends, and one was religous (which her parents didn’t like), and so I wanted to finda church to go to, but I needed it to be inclusive, and I did find a place to go.
Reltzik
Well if a radical liberal like Obama supported it, OBVIOUSLY upright Christians have to oppose it!
…. what do you mean, he’s center-right? THAT’S SATAN-TALK!
Kimi
The rapid change of anything “center” turning “liberal” has been one shocking thing for me from my junior high years to now. I used to love Olympia Snowe when growing up in Maine. Remember when compromise in the House wasn’t a Republican taboo (or political taboo). Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Needfuldoer
We’re far separated from the days when they’d argue on the floor until they were red in the face, then go out for a beer together afterward. That was just how you do business, you see.
Now all those people have either retired or passed on, and the current generation are all true believers who think the kayfabe is legit.
thejeff
But also voters, even on the left, think any such interactions are a sign of betrayal. At least the activist types who pay attention do.
Proxiehunter
You know, I really don’t want the Democrats in the house compromising with the Republicans who literally want me, my family, and my friends dead. I don’t see anything good coming from political compromise on the Democrats part.
thejeff
Not a lot but somethings will likely be necessary. Government does have to do somethings, just to keep the whole place from burning down and if supplying some Dem votes gets us, for example, a bad budget rather than an awful one, I’ll take it.
It’s a real tricky road to walk though.
thejeff
It’s also awkward because the country changes with time. Even when Obama ran in 2008, being openly for same-sex marriage would have cost him the election.
Republicans were still staging referendums banning it in various states to turn out their voters. Even California banned it that year.
By 2012, it was at least possible to support it nationally, even if it didn’t help.
Li
…This is oversimplifying and Linear Progress Fallacy-ing, too.
If you’re interested in what went into Prop 8 passing in particular, this is a pretty good article, but suffice to say:
1. California only barely passed Prop 8, after a sustained attack ad campaign, for which the Mormon church got into some hot water due to the large amount of undisclosed donations to the campaign.
2. I don’t think Obama would have lost in 2008 by being “openly” for same-sex marriage, because he largely was and didn’t. (He walked a careful line, saying he supported civil unions (legally indistinguishable), but he called Prop 8 and similar efforts “divisive and discriminatory”.) Biden, of course, also condemned Prop 8, and so did a number of other “centrist” democrats like Nancy Pelosi.
3. In fact, far from it being political suicide for a Democrat, Schwarzenegger also opposed Prop 8. This being in spite of having vetoed two previous legislative efforts in California to officially recognize same-gender marriage.
4. Which was a thing that was happening! Massachusetts and Vermont were not the only states trying to recognize same-gender marriages.
TL;DR: Prop 8 IS a great example of the cultural temperature in 2008, but it’s absolutely not an “even California was super homophobic back then” example. More of a “SOME people in California were homophobic, but the majority was tentatively pro-gay marriage until a small group of conservatives successfully weaponized ‘they’re coming for your kids’, and even then, they barely got their bullshit passed (by about 4% of the votes), and then it immediately got embroiled in legal battles (Prop 8 was signed into law in October of 2009, and less than a year later ruled unconstitutional, which was then appealed and not settled fully until 2013, when the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal).
thejeff
Point not being so much that California was super-homophobic, but that if a ban could even squeak through in the most liberal state, it would be poison in swing states. And we see that clearly in the referendums that were held elsewhere.
Obama didn’t have to support Prop 8, but he had to walk that line. Essentially leave it to the states rather than call for National same sex marriage.
The larger point though is how drastically public opinion changed over those years. Several states legalized marriage through court action, but it wasn’t until 2012 that any state did so through legislation or a popular referendum. Meanwhile, up until then bans would generally pass when put on the ballot.
Li
Hm. It’s well after midnight lol. This is part of why I tried to stop commenting here! Interesting as reading the comments often is.
Hope something I said was of interest to someone, I’m outtie. o/
thejeff
Obviously trans kids have always been around, but I think it was after 2015 that the right really started ramping up the public backlash. After the Dobbs decision, they needed another scapegoat.
It’s harder to say how that corresponded to there actually being out trans kids in Indiana schools when Jocelyne was there. Jocelyne’s at least 22, because she was out of college before Joyce started, so soon after 2015 kind of fits. At least for Carol getting radicalized about it.
thejeff
Sliding timeline makes it weird though.
Dedlok
Preteen was when her mom went “Full 700 Club”. The Transgender kid thing could be at anytime after that
Dana W
First medical Transition in the US was 1965. Minneapolis passed its first “positive” restroom laws in 1975″ I did it in 2001. Its not as new as so many people seem to think.
Chris Phoenix
I have a trans nephew who was in high school in the 2010s – he wasn’t out yet (even to himself) but he described a very accepting culture. This was Seattle, probably about as blue as it gets.
I worked at a Big Silicon Valley Software Company in 2017 and people were already coming out as trans at work and keeping their jobs, at least in some parts of the company.
In the filk circuit in the Bay Area in the late 1990s at least one person transitioned and stayed in his position as con organizer and well-known performer. I don’t even remember hearing or overhearing any discussion or gossip about it.
Yumi
I knew a bunch of trans kids who were out in Seattle around that time– some felt they had to go to an alternative public high school for a decent experience, but I would say most were in the traditional public schools.
It was kind of a shock going back to my Midwestern high school after learning about theirs, but it helped with motivation for things like getting a GSA going.
Well, might have graduated around then or a year earlier. And then went to secondary school starting several years before that. So not early 2000s, for sure.
I was going to talk about kids who transition while attending one school district vs those who might move to a new school where they can pass, but then I’m not sure if Nono meant it in a way that the distinction would matter.
I will say, I knew people who were out in high school in rural areas who were in high school around the same time I was — graduated 2012. It wasn’t common, but… it only takes one for the school to respond in some way.
164 thoughts on “Gifted Kid Burnout”
mindbleach
Ah, a No Homers situation.
NGPZ
“Scrapbooking, high stakes poker, the Santa Fe lifestyle — sooner or later, everyone meets their Homer. Just pick a dead end and chill out till ya die.”
Jeremiah
I always wondered if the Santa Fe life style was referring to the Santa Fe we have here in Argentina.
Dante
It does in the LatAm dub (?)
Which as we all know is the superior version.
Yumi
Santa Fe is where you go to open up a restaurant.
Ellegos
You know, tumbleweeds… prairie dogs…
Clif
Prairie dogs smoking tumbleweed.
Michael Steamweed
Adobe buildings…art collectives…museums with gorgeous floral pictures resembling vulva…
Temporaryobsessor
There can only be one.
Charles Phipps
Plot Twist: It was Carla.
Joyce: My sister went to school with my other sister?
Jocelyn: What?
Doctor_Who
Did Sarah go there too?
Eventually the whole cast is gonna wind up as Joyce’s sister. It’ll be most awkward for Joe.
Deanatay
Jocelyne: You suddenly have a LOT of sisters.
Joyce: I know, right? Isn’t it GREAT?
Needfuldoer
Eventually we’ve got an entire “all the characters knew each other as kids” reboot going, just like Hanna-Barbera in the 80s.
ADD
They all grew up in the same orphanage, but forgot about it because of their magical summoning monsters.
Daibhid C
Dumbing Babies, they make their dreams come true…
Charles Phipps
I wonder what Jocelyn means by the Gifted Kid burnout.
Did she discover that she doesn’t like writing or isn’t very good at it?
Was she planning on switching to journalism, only to discover all journalism is propaganda for billionaires now?
Nono
Writing is not typically a career most ‘gifted kids’ go into, considering it’s notoriously stressful and low income for the majority.
So Jocelyne probably ended up where she is now after the burnout.
Charles Phipps
I mean lots of geniuses dream of being a writer and then discover they are the 99% who don’t make a fortune from it.
We can’t all be Willis and discover the fortunes of porn!
🙂
Michael Steamweed
Hey don’t trample my dreams of being a globe traveling artist and author just like Mr. Willis!
Wraithy2773
Honestly, writing-related fields is something that a lot of gifted kids do end up in.
Its just not always pure fiction.
I was an honor student in school, I flamed out in college, and right now, most of my work involves writing. Buuuuut, its not fiction, its writing marketing copy (or related stuff), and often involves a fair bit of technical writing work, something that is greatly improved by a computer science degree, but doesn’t require absolute mastery of the field.
The truth is that just about every industry needs someone that both understands the basics of the field and also knows how to write shit. But the super-geniuses that don’t burn out also tend to avoid the humanities, so they need someone that does know how to write and also broadly understands the technical crap to translate for the normies and execs.
morleuca
Same, only mine was training documentation and related junk. Nothing like explaining to a 6 sigma obsessed management why creating the stuff required time and was actually a creative endeavor
Mark
Introduce them to Paul Graham.
StClair
*raises hand*
Legal assistant. Wills and trusts, motions and orders, affidavits and subpoenas, and so many letters and emails.
Furie
But you get to walk in halls really fast and be sarcastic about each others sex lives, right?
Right?
StClair
oh yeah. and everyone always gets up to crazy stuff but never get fired or disbarred. totally.
Michael Steamweed
Unfortunately, SO much of professional writing is currently, or very soon to be, getting turned completely over by LLMs.
Davus
unless it *needs* to be correct. Like, if a lot of money is riding on it.
But I guess most things aren’t that.
Buck Ripsnort
Yeah, when I was young my parents told me an English degree would open doors, because “businesses need someone who can write readable copy.”
Just wish they’d told me the main door opened would be one to the unemployment office.
CombustibleLemons
Also, I think a lot of people tend to forget that gifted kids aren’t all gifted in STEM. I myself was considered ‘gifted’, and while I did do well in science class, I was actually considered gifted because of my English and literature skills (being college-level since 5th grade), because I was homeschooled by an English professor. So I actually do have dreams of becoming a fiction writer, but often find myself burnt out and recognize that I probably won’t be successful unless I have a backup plan.
scr1bbles
man, I hate to move from lurker to chirper on the strength of one comment alone, but “ALL JOURNALISM IS COVER FOR BILLIONAIRES” ignores community journalists that don’t give a damn about rich folks, as well as the people who DON’T work for wealthy legacy outlets seeking to knock the rich folks down a peg.
It’s healthy to not trust everything that you read, but blind cynicism is silly.
Mark
+1
brumagem
I think you’re misunderstanding what burnout means. You can still love and adore your craft, but the passion that drives you to do it just isn’t there either because of general disillusionment with adulthood and the grind, or, you have spent so long being a big fish in a small pond and thriving on “you’re so smart!”s from adults in your life that once you’re an actual adult in the real world you hit the difficulty curve of learning to pursue your passion without those aids
Songbird
This. This right here. Going to public university for a field I wasn’t naturally good at fucking RUINED me psychologically for a good long while, to the point that it took me a little short of a decade to start feeling more like ME again, and that came with a lot of growing pains as I learned to cast off the weight of unreasonable expectations and come to terms with not being as impressive as I felt sort of tricked into thinking I was and becoming disillusioned by that fact.
On the upside, in addition to feeling like the person I used to be before that, I like to think that I’m at least a much less insufferable version of my idealized self now, so it’s not like it was all bad, I guess. Slamming yourself face first into the metaphorical grindstone for eight or nine solid years of your life and damn near throwing away your sense of self in the process by accident has a way of humbling you, I think–at least, that was my experience.
Songbird
Huh. A Dorothy avatar. How oddly appropriate, given the subject.
Dana W
Most of us “gifted kids” burned out early. There is a gag meme on Halloween that shows a “gifted kid” Halloween costume from Spirit Halloween. Lists as (Contains nothing). When asked what you are supposed to be you reply “I was supposed to be a lot of things.
Bryy
She’s calling Dorothy out.
Jeremiah
In what way?? She is literally just relating to her about a shared experience.
Kimi
I reached a new level of gifted kid burnout in the job hunting stage. Nothing like doing well in biology and environmental sciences in college only to never get a job in the field for one reason or another. In the purgatory zone of too much experience for some jobs and not enough experience or connections for others, and to get the experience you have to have the job. I have had several jobs that are outside of my field that don’t want to hire me even though they like me because I have been a part of a published paper and will go places in science they say. I have other places that won’t hire me in my field even though I meet the desired qualifications because they literally have someone who has done the job before and want them, though they still say that I will go places. So far, none of these places they say I will go has resulted in a job, and it has left me very disillusioned by the field. Not that I seem to be able to get out of it at this point without going back to college for a different degree, such as accounting (the amount of dual accounting and environmental experience/degree jobs out there is surprisingly high).
It could just be that the job market is horrible as well. The amount of vet receptionist and other receptionist type jobs paying minimum wage and wanting at least 6 months of experience as an receptionist for that specific type of office (not to mention degree) is shocking.
eh, whatever
Morons! Nobody gets a job out of one published paper.
Even GFAJ-1 didn’t work out.
Kimi
Yeah, and publishing a paper isn’t writing a grant, which is most of what I see people wanting experience in. But how do you get experience writing a grant without getting a job that deals in grant writing, like getting experience in teaching without having a job teaching (being a TA didn’t count for some reason). There was also a job that wanted a master’s degree and 2-3 years of experience in a rural area (so very few places to rent and most were 55+) and paid just 2 dollars more per hour than a job in the major city 2 hours away that only required a bachelor’s degree and no experience. I am still shocked that they got any applicants for that job.
Proxiehunter
I’ve heard of computer related jobs that had listed requirements of more years of experience with specific software than the software had existed for.
JA
Got similar as a veteran. “You’re a veteran, companies will be falling over themselves to hire you!”
Yeah, if you want to work security, have a TS clearance, or whose job code was something niche with a civilian equivalent (e.g. cybersecurity).
Oatmeal Pie
Nah, it’s more like how “gifted” kids have a tendency toward perfectionism and becoming burnt out as a result. Sometimes one winds up with the notion that you must Do All The Things — take the hardest classes, do all the extracurriculars—and outperform everyone else in everything because “you have so much potential.” This becomes unsustainable over time, and when you inevitably wind up in a situation where you’re just mediocre at something it can be hard to process. (Former “gifted kid” here.)
Plain Marie
All these comments!
Nono
I know it’s there’s a sliding timeline but it’s hard to imagine that even when Jocelyne was a kid for a teen at school to be public about their transgender status, it just wasn’t a common thing about twenty years ago.
Not that it doesn’t happen, just very very rarely I imagine in early 2000s Indiana.
Charles Phipps
I mean, this takes place in 2024, presumably, so literally it would be 2019 or so when Joceylyn attended high school.
Nono
True, but the ‘preteen’ comment would suggest it would be around when she was around 12? So I guess 2012 or so. Probably more likely to happen, but I don’t think the movement had really taken off around then either? My memory of queer movement (especially in America) isn’t the best.
Charles Phipps
It’s regional too.
One place may be openly accepting and another viciously dangerous and the difference could be miles or blocks.
Nono
It’s Indiana so… not sure about that one. Especially since the Browns are from a pretty small town.
Charles Phipps
Funnily, I live in Northern Kentucky and we had a transgender student at our high school prom not long after I graduated circa 2004 or so and the school was very pro-LGTA.
It’s also a viciously homophobic town just nearby.
So I’m just saying it might have been a special case.
Sugar
Just popping in as someone who graduated highschool in 2013- there was a small set of kids in my school’s “Gay Straight Alliance” who ended up coming out as trans/experimenting with the concept quite a bit through middle and high school. It was definitely met with opposition but even before the movement there were trans kids popping up on public schools’ radars for sure.
Yumi
2012 was when Obama voiced his support for same-sex marriage. (Just one of my markers for the progress of things– at lot of my other ones for that time are hyper-specific.)
But of those hyper-specific things, I can also say that in 2012, in Michigan City, Indiana– not far from the town Joyce grew up in– there were at least a couple LGBT supportive churches. I know this because my family used to go on vacation there, and in 2012 specifically I brought along a couple friends, and one was religous (which her parents didn’t like), and so I wanted to finda church to go to, but I needed it to be inclusive, and I did find a place to go.
Reltzik
Well if a radical liberal like Obama supported it, OBVIOUSLY upright Christians have to oppose it!
…. what do you mean, he’s center-right? THAT’S SATAN-TALK!
Kimi
The rapid change of anything “center” turning “liberal” has been one shocking thing for me from my junior high years to now. I used to love Olympia Snowe when growing up in Maine. Remember when compromise in the House wasn’t a Republican taboo (or political taboo). Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Needfuldoer
We’re far separated from the days when they’d argue on the floor until they were red in the face, then go out for a beer together afterward. That was just how you do business, you see.
Now all those people have either retired or passed on, and the current generation are all true believers who think the kayfabe is legit.
thejeff
But also voters, even on the left, think any such interactions are a sign of betrayal. At least the activist types who pay attention do.
Proxiehunter
You know, I really don’t want the Democrats in the house compromising with the Republicans who literally want me, my family, and my friends dead. I don’t see anything good coming from political compromise on the Democrats part.
thejeff
Not a lot but somethings will likely be necessary. Government does have to do somethings, just to keep the whole place from burning down and if supplying some Dem votes gets us, for example, a bad budget rather than an awful one, I’ll take it.
It’s a real tricky road to walk though.
thejeff
It’s also awkward because the country changes with time. Even when Obama ran in 2008, being openly for same-sex marriage would have cost him the election.
Republicans were still staging referendums banning it in various states to turn out their voters. Even California banned it that year.
By 2012, it was at least possible to support it nationally, even if it didn’t help.
Li
…This is oversimplifying and Linear Progress Fallacy-ing, too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8
If you’re interested in what went into Prop 8 passing in particular, this is a pretty good article, but suffice to say:
1. California only barely passed Prop 8, after a sustained attack ad campaign, for which the Mormon church got into some hot water due to the large amount of undisclosed donations to the campaign.
2. I don’t think Obama would have lost in 2008 by being “openly” for same-sex marriage, because he largely was and didn’t. (He walked a careful line, saying he supported civil unions (legally indistinguishable), but he called Prop 8 and similar efforts “divisive and discriminatory”.) Biden, of course, also condemned Prop 8, and so did a number of other “centrist” democrats like Nancy Pelosi.
3. In fact, far from it being political suicide for a Democrat, Schwarzenegger also opposed Prop 8. This being in spite of having vetoed two previous legislative efforts in California to officially recognize same-gender marriage.
4. Which was a thing that was happening! Massachusetts and Vermont were not the only states trying to recognize same-gender marriages.
TL;DR: Prop 8 IS a great example of the cultural temperature in 2008, but it’s absolutely not an “even California was super homophobic back then” example. More of a “SOME people in California were homophobic, but the majority was tentatively pro-gay marriage until a small group of conservatives successfully weaponized ‘they’re coming for your kids’, and even then, they barely got their bullshit passed (by about 4% of the votes), and then it immediately got embroiled in legal battles (Prop 8 was signed into law in October of 2009, and less than a year later ruled unconstitutional, which was then appealed and not settled fully until 2013, when the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal).
thejeff
Point not being so much that California was super-homophobic, but that if a ban could even squeak through in the most liberal state, it would be poison in swing states. And we see that clearly in the referendums that were held elsewhere.
Obama didn’t have to support Prop 8, but he had to walk that line. Essentially leave it to the states rather than call for National same sex marriage.
The larger point though is how drastically public opinion changed over those years. Several states legalized marriage through court action, but it wasn’t until 2012 that any state did so through legislation or a popular referendum. Meanwhile, up until then bans would generally pass when put on the ballot.
Li
Hm. It’s well after midnight lol. This is part of why I tried to stop commenting here! Interesting as reading the comments often is.
Hope something I said was of interest to someone, I’m outtie. o/
thejeff
Obviously trans kids have always been around, but I think it was after 2015 that the right really started ramping up the public backlash. After the Dobbs decision, they needed another scapegoat.
It’s harder to say how that corresponded to there actually being out trans kids in Indiana schools when Jocelyne was there. Jocelyne’s at least 22, because she was out of college before Joyce started, so soon after 2015 kind of fits. At least for Carol getting radicalized about it.
thejeff
Sliding timeline makes it weird though.
Dedlok
Preteen was when her mom went “Full 700 Club”. The Transgender kid thing could be at anytime after that
Dana W
First medical Transition in the US was 1965. Minneapolis passed its first “positive” restroom laws in 1975″ I did it in 2001. Its not as new as so many people seem to think.
Chris Phoenix
I have a trans nephew who was in high school in the 2010s – he wasn’t out yet (even to himself) but he described a very accepting culture. This was Seattle, probably about as blue as it gets.
I worked at a Big Silicon Valley Software Company in 2017 and people were already coming out as trans at work and keeping their jobs, at least in some parts of the company.
In the filk circuit in the Bay Area in the late 1990s at least one person transitioned and stayed in his position as con organizer and well-known performer. I don’t even remember hearing or overhearing any discussion or gossip about it.
Yumi
I knew a bunch of trans kids who were out in Seattle around that time– some felt they had to go to an alternative public high school for a decent experience, but I would say most were in the traditional public schools.
It was kind of a shock going back to my Midwestern high school after learning about theirs, but it helped with motivation for things like getting a GSA going.
Yumi
Well, might have graduated around then or a year earlier. And then went to secondary school starting several years before that. So not early 2000s, for sure.
I was going to talk about kids who transition while attending one school district vs those who might move to a new school where they can pass, but then I’m not sure if Nono meant it in a way that the distinction would matter.
I will say, I knew people who were out in high school in rural areas who were in high school around the same time I was — graduated 2012. It wasn’t common, but… it only takes one for the school to respond in some way.
mindbleach
Oh god, does the sliding timeline work backwards? Was Jordan in high school under Eisenhower?
Charles Phipps
I’m reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer and Marge are suddenly 90s Kids instead of 60s kids and it utterly did not work.
eh, whatever
Jordan, no; John, perhaps…
Michael Steamweed
Oh please don’t be so silly and dramatic.
It was clearly during Kennedy’s term.
Micki