I went into this post imagining that it would be a certain kind of narrative: the moment someone who is at the exact center of things realizes that the center has its problems. As an academic, I occasionally encounter these narratives among folks who have attended the ivies and then go on to work at the ivies or their public school equivalents. Clearly, I did not and do not. I do the best work I can amid the tumultuous regime which has always been reality outside the center.
That is, this is a classical story of a fall from grace. It ended up more human than most: many of these narratives simply switch one vituperative side for another. (Sadly, trans-conservatives tend to compose more of these stories than trans-liberals, perhaps in part because the moral absolutes that, I would argue, permeate more conservative ideologies than liberal ones make for better storytelling—I should note that my experience is of living in mostly conservative epicenters, so I don’t have the experience of the absolutism of hipsters.) I’m thankful for the more human tale, but I don’t think the center really gets the objective examination it deserves here.
