identity

Our national conversation about gender identity is one big miscommunication

~ David Biddle ~ 2 Comments

I had a friend in junior high whose father and uncle decided they’d had enough of his long hair (beautiful, silken, golden wheat-colored, cascading well below his shoulders). They trapped him in the bathroom one Sunday night, held him against a wall, and shaved his head down to the skull. He showed up on our school bus the next morning ashen-faced and despondent — altered from an astoundingly beautiful young prince of the world into someone who looked and probably felt like an escaped convict.

This was in 1972. I grew up in the Midwest, where it was common for strangers to menacingly say: “Boy, you better cut your hair. You look like a girl.”

We talk a great deal about America as an experiment in democracy. An equally important metaphor about this “land of the free”is our nonstop, somewhat confused conversation about identity, especially with teenagers. No matter what adults believe, the major lesson virtually all young people come to terms with eventually is that there is no such thing as one answer to questions about who they are.

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At Play in the Land of Identity

Philadelphia Inquirer Op-Ed on Gender Identity
~ David Biddle ~ 1 Comment

My essay, “Our National Conversation About Gender is One Big Miscommunication,” was published in The Philadelphia Inquirer a few weeks ago. I was fortunate enough to work on it with Commentary and Opinion Editor, Devi Lockwood. I am always grateful when my work goes through the fine-tuning filter of professional editors. I was quite happy with that piece when I submitted it. It says a lot more than pretty much anyone else has said on gender and identity in a long time (check it out if you don’t believe me). However, I wonder if people fully understood that I was pointing my finger at all of us and our growing collective inability to communicate in this nutso country, not just those who have demonstrated political and kneejerk prejudices about transgender culture.

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Lonely Rebels Unite: It’s Novelicious

~ davidbiddle ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash

You go through quite a journey of discovery when you write a novel. The reason that long fiction is so important is because it’s an extended opportunity to learn and think about being in the world. Sometimes novels and their ilk can also be a catalyst for Big Thought about the meaning of life and the Universe itself.

For novelists, as much as we want to provide readers with intriguing stories, what also happens is that we figure out new tidbits for ourself about the writing process and about storytelling in general. I’ve written extensively on that journey already in a number of places, but most importantly over at The Story Plant’s website I wrote about what I learned about American fiction while writing Old Music for New People.

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The Summer We Are 15

So much to balance about life during the summer we are 15
~ David Biddle ~ Leave a comment

Flash growth and learning to survive.

A version of this essay was originally published at Medium.com and then with The Good Men Project “Modern Identities” imprint

I was 15 in 1973. It was the year my parents began their divorce. It was also the year that I began to seriously grow my hair long and think — quite innocently compared to life here in the 2020s — about why there are limitations on our behavior as male and female members of our society. What kind of person did I feel I wanted to become? Why did what people think of me make me feel so much pressure? What does it mean when we’re expected to conform?

I also fell in love with a girl who happened to be an amazing athlete and musician at the beginning of the summer. She was a whip-smart student as well. I was an okay athlete, could kind of sing, and did well enough in subjects that I liked. I should have felt emasculated by her. However, I took pride in being her boyfriend specifically because she could beat me at tennis and ping pong and most any card game. I didn’t feel like a lesser human at all. Even though we never talked about it, I don’t think she ever considered me lesser either.

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Writing in a Girl’s Voice

Girl looking in a mirror
~ davidbiddle ~ 1 Comment

Never tell a character in your head to get lost

A slightly different form of this essay was published in Medium.com

One morning nearly ten years ago, a voice showed up in my head as I was walking up the stairs to my 3rd floor writing room. They were offering the beginning line of a story. By the time I sat in front of my laptop, the voice made it clear that I needed to get to work immediately. “She” absolutely was not going to leave me alone.

No one told us we were going to have a summer-long visitor until the night before that visitor arrived.

Ivy Scattergood

A few months before that, I’d gone back and read a bunch of young adult coming-of-age stories. This was around the time I was becoming acutely aware of the fact that our youngest son was about to leave home for college. I suppose that because I’m a writer going back to my reading roots made sense. Maybe others return to old music, long walks, or pre-parent hobbies.

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Ralph Ellison and the Floating Self

~ davidbiddle ~ 5 Comments

A Young Ralph Waldo Ellison

No one is really sure, but March 1 was either Ralph Waldo Ellison’s 99th or 100th birthday. We have at least three copies of Invisible Man floating around our house. More than likely, if you ask, all three of my sons will tell you that was their favorite book from high school. In addition, my bookshelf holds a hardback edition of his collected essays as well as his story collection Flying Home and his under-appreciated 1101-page unfinished novel, Three Days Before the Shooting…. I posted the very short essay, below, on my first blog 8 years ago. I offer it again in appreciation and honor of this master and genius of American Letters.

Ralph Ellison and the Floating Self

It seems to me that Ralph Ellison may be this country’s most important writer. Not so much for his production or even his style, but because of his deep wisdom and his remarkable understanding of the links between literature, politics, and our national struggle with the culture of Continue reading →

Along With Ecstasy: an Ex:Urbia ex:cerpt

~ davidbiddle ~ 2 Comments

Below is a work-in-progress passage from my novel Ex:Urbia.

Singapore Marriott Hotel

 Along With Ecstasy

I pass a crumpled pickup on the road tonight heading home from the city. I had given a dinner speech at the Center City Marriott on contract fund management. Red and blue police lights spin in the darkness, a slight fog enshrouds distant traffic lights candied lime, lemon and cherry — an awful combination. One person lies on the ground, another staggers toward the police car. It is fragility that drives us inward at moments like this. We see danger, or are reminded of death, and retreat seems the only option. Retreat into the mind. Retreat into fear. And yet, how precious, anyway, this worthless life. It’s all we have. I am Julia Davenport and the world revolves around me the same way it does around you.

Fear was already beating in my chest when I stepped onto the sidewalk away from the shimmering lights that line the driveway to the Marriott after talking about money and public works projects for an hour. I know it was fear. I don’t like that feeling. I was afraid that first night with Danny. I was afraid my first day at work. I am afraid so much of the time. I feel okay by myself at the mall or driving. Being alone out in public has that effect on me. I like Continue reading →