I’m used to it now, finally. The last two times I wrote about the Lower Merion Players productions I was very sad. Very despondent. This time, I don’t know. The clouds parted. The clowns were sent. It was so patently absurd I had to laugh. Maybe the fact that the show this time around is The Outsiders, starring an all female cast, softened the blow. The play is such a dumpster fire to begin with—a dainty handful of melodramatic teenaged boys from the wrong side of the tracks whining about their lot in life does not an engaging spectacle make, even when a couple of them save some kids from a church fire, which is not cliché in the slightest. Or maybe it was that my adult niece joined me and she couldn’t stop laughing every time I pointed out another aberration of nature. Or maybe it’s simply because this is the last Lower Merion High School play I will ever have to attend, and though I adore my daughter and love watching her perform, I hate the theatre department with all my heart for its enabling and encouragement of so many fauxmosexual identities.
A glimpse into the current status of my dynamic with Mr. Miller: on the way to the show in the car, he suddenly remembered that we never took out an ad like we used to in the playbill, to congratulate our daughter (which we would never call her in the little booklet lest we upset her) and thereby donate to the theatre department.
I was like, I didn’t forget shit. I’m not giving them one penny for the shit they put us through. For the bullshit they promote.
And Dear Reader, he didn’t even clench his teeth or grip the steering wheel tighter. He seemed to get it, instantly. That is a win in my book. I mean, no, I’m not happy he didn’t readily intuit that the theatre club is a postmodern death cult that should not receive any financial help from us or anyone. But he’s—well—he’s not me. Like, on a cellular level he’s more of a mensch. More of an everything’s fine kind of guy, and a ready supporter of anything Miss Miller is passionate about, regardless of the attached gender ideology. He’s just so much better at seeing all the other parts that aren’t soaked in evil.
And whereas before the show he casually played the latest Wordle on his phone, I sat with the playbill open in my lap, pen in hand, counting up the students who identify out of their birth sex, and simultaneously explaining to my niece what I mean when I call the school our local Marxist Indoctrination Factory.
15, 16 17…
The lights go down.
18 of 54 cast and crew members use wrong sex or they/them pronouns. That’s 33.33%.
Three of the 18 trans-identified adolescents are boys who identify as girls. The other 15 are girls.
Three of the girls who use he/him pronouns are sisters. One of the sisters is on testosterone. Her girlfriend also identifies as a boy and also takes testosterone.
Two additional girls are on testosterone, bringing the total to four out of 18 trans-identifying kids on cross-sex hormones. The jury is out about the boys. Maybe one? I’m not sure though so I don’t count him, even if he is wearing a cat ear headband over his long silky blond hair and floor-length vampire cape.
Standing ovation.
After the play we wait around in the atrium for Miss Miller to greet us from backstage. In the meantime I snap a few pics for posterity, and to document that everything I write here is true.
A curly-haired boy shuffles up to my niece and me. He thanks us for coming and asks who we are here to see. My niece and I exchange impish smiles. Do we say her name? Emboldened by the lunacy and the fact that this kid is what we now call intellectually disabled, I say that I’m here for my daughter F———. You know her as C—. He frowns and says, “C—-’s in the back. He’ll be right out.”
“That is the part that kills me,” I tell my niece after the boy walks away, and she knows I mean hearing my daughter referred to as a he. She nods soberly. “I totally get that,” she says. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Really.” I tell her I’m so glad she’s here to witness the crazy.
Finally Miss Miller emerges. I hand her a supermarket bouquet and a Starbucks gift card, which she clutches and pronounces “really useful,” with a big, satisfied smile. I receive a hug for my efforts and support. Victory. More hugs are doled out. Mr. Miller, my niece and I gush over my daughter’s performance without blurting her real name, and after a few more minutes standing around in Satan’s suburban anus, we finally head home.
🎭
Thanks for this dispatch from 'Satan's suburban anus,' and for writing that's always worth reading to the end.
“fauxmosexual” — brilliant!