Frank Bruni and transgender people

Frank Bruni is an American author and writer. Bruni has written for the New York Times since 1995.

While Bruni has occasionally covered transgender topics fairly and accurately, Bruni, who is gay, has also written nostalgic pieces about “the extinction of gay identity.” This view overlaps with the anti-trans “gay erasure” conspiracy theory that suggests gay and lesbian people are vanishing in the wake of more expansive identities, especially trans and gender diverse identities. The reality is that more Americans identify as gay or lesbian with each successive generation.

Taken as a whole, Bruni’s overwrought complaints about transgender rights activism suggest ideological alignment with more strident and vocal “gay erasure” proponents like anti-trans activists Katie Herzog, James Kirchick, and Andrew Sullivan.

Bruni also subscribes to Andrew Sullivan’s nostalgic and fact-free reimagining of LGBTQ+ rights activism that suggests we gained past rights through kindness and persuasion and not being rude to our opponents.

Background

Frank Anthony Bruni, Jr. was born on October 31, 1964 in White Plains, New York, to Leslie Jane (Frier) Bruni (1935–1996) and Frank Bruni Sr. (born 1935), a Navy veteran and retired accounting executive. Bruni has three siblings, Mark, Harry, and Adelle. Bruni attended the elite boarding school Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut. Bruni earned a bachelor’s degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1986, then earned a master’s degree from Columbia University School of Journalism in 1988.

Bruni wrote for the New York Post, then the Detroit Free Press. In 1995, Bruni joined The New York Times as a metropolitan reporter, contributing pieces to New York Times Sunday Magazine and the arts & leisure section before taking several bureau assignments. Bruni wrote restaurant reviews for several years and became a columnist in 2011.

Bruni has written about having a complicated relationship with food and about losing vision in one eye following a stroke.

Comments on gay identity “extinction”

In 2018, Bruni wrote, “I increasingly get the sense that gayness itself has scattered, becoming something more various and harder to define.” Throughout the piece, Bruni expresses ambivalence about this development and cites two works that espouse the “gay erasure” conspiracy theory: the 2005 essay “The End of Gay Culture” by Andrew Sullivan, and the 2016 book The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture by Bonnie Morris.

Comments on trans topics

In a piece on trans lawmaker Danica Roem, Bruni hints at a mild disdain for the identity politics and activism that created the conditions for Roem and Bruni to flourish:

“Being transgender isn’t the whole of her identity, the extent of her purpose or the crux of her mission. The obstacles in her life are particular, but the hell of rush hour is universal. And her job as a lawmaker is to attend to the nitty-gritty that has an immediate, measurable impact on all of her constituents. When circumstances warrant it, she can be every bit as boring as the next politician.”

In a piece on anti-trans attack ads by Ron Desantis, Bruni self-frames as the “reasonable centrist,” writing:

“Establishing guidelines for the age at which it’s appropriate for children in public schools to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity is legitimate. But what’s gained by inviting the word “groomers” into the conversation and casting yourself as a pulchritudinous gladiator who will teach them a pitiless lesson?”

The Age of Grievance (2024)

In 2024, Bruni released The Age of Grievance, a book about how modern discourse “exiles nuance” and “turbocharges conflict.”

The book is most notable for outlining Bruni’s views on transgender rights. Bruni claims that unlike gay rights, accepting transgender rights requires someone “to adopt a whole new philosophy of humanity.”

Andrew Sullivan, another early and profoundly influential proponent of marriage equality, has made similar observations, drawing a contrast between the approaches of gay rights advocates in decades past and the bearing of transgender rights advocates today. “Nothing in your life had to change to accept gay equality,” he wrote in his Substack newsletter in June 2023. Permitting gay people to marry didn’t have any substantive effect on straight peoples’ marriages – and, in fact, flattered those marriages, in as much as it saw them as models and aspirations. And while new laws end the firing or eviction of someone for being gay, lesbian, or bisexual, those laws didn’t compel anyone to adopt a whole new philosophy of humanity. “Compare that with the transqueer movement,” Sullivan wrote, detailing an agenda he regards as bullying. “They are as hostile to a free society as the worst fanatics on the far right.” In the spring 2023 issue of the journal Liberties the writer James Kirchick provided examples of what Sullivan had in mind.

Bruni then provides a remarkable distillation of the cis journalist groupthink that permeates the New York Times. Bruni says it’s unwarranted and unwise to denounce journalists who gin up moral panics about transgender athletes and healthcare for gender diverse minors. The journalists and the public might feel alienated by it.

Here’s how Bruni says trans activism harms the cause:

It does that in part by vilifying Americans who have expressed understandable questions or qualms about transgender women competing in women’s sports, and children below a certain age receiving certain kinds of “gender affirming” medical care. Yes, there are determined bigots out there, many of them state lawmakers enacting needlessly harsh restrictions and bans. But there are also plenty of well-intentioned people with unanswered questions and thoughtful reservations, and some of them are feeling forced into league with the bigots.

There are principled, exemplary medical professionals puzzling in earnest over how to treat children who identify as trans but may still be figuring out who they are, and there are journalists correctly reporting on disagreements among doctors and on clinics and clinicians too quick to affix trans identities to troubled patients. Denouncing those doctors and journalists is unwarranted. It’s unwise, as it risks alienating not only them, but also confused people watching from the sidelines. It’s also irresponsible: it elevates conviction over an honest inquiry with enormous relevance to the long-term welfare of patients making immensely consequential decisions. Across many causes, many advocates traffic in an absolutism that’s born of grievance and spawns yet more of it.

Duke “Independent Thinkers” series

In June 2021, Bruni was appointed Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

In 2024, Duke University announced The Provost’s Initiative on Pluralism, Free Inquiry and Belonging. As part of that, Bruni was announced as host of a new Independent Thinkers series, “a collection of conversations with public figures who defy reductive political labels.” Bruni said of the program, “Most of us do not have a set of beliefs that conform exactly to one political label. In their own ways, none of the speakers are a neat fit for any political tribe and none tries to enforce an ideological dogma.”

Announced speakers included Kody Kinsley, Ro Khanna, Katie Herzog, and Bret Stephens.

The event platforming anti-trans podcaster and troll Katie Herzog is titled “The Bipartisan Betrayal of Free Speech.”

During his successful 2024 presidential campaign, President Trump called out Democrats for patrolling the language Americans use and stifling dissent. Then he took office and did likewise, but from a different ideological orientation. Are there any true free-speech warriors left in either of America’s two major political parties? Why this itch to restrict expression, and how do we correct it?

Herzog is known for co-hosting the “drama” podcast Blocked and Reported with Jesse Singal, where they try to cancel people they don’t like, which just happens to be a disproportionate number of transgender people. This includes segments and episodes on Marci Bowers, Judith Butler, Laverne Cox, Jude Doyle, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Liz Fong, Andrea James, Chelsea Manning, Sarah McBride, Dylan Mulvaney, Julia Serano, Elisa Shupe, Clara Sorrenti, Chase Strangio, Brianna Wu, and Natalie Wynn.

References

Casey, John (July 13 2023). The New York Times Parrots GOP Lies About LGBTQ+ Youth. The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/voices/new-york-times-gop-lies

Broverman, Neal (April 30, 2018). Sorry, Frank Bruni: Gay Identity Isn’t Extinct, It Evolved. The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2018/4/30/sorry-frank-bruni-gay-identity-isnt-extinct-it-evolved

Selected writing by Bruni

Bruni, Frank (July 6, 2023). Ron DeSantis Is Running One Freaky Campaign. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/opinion/ron-desantis-presidential-campaign.html

Bruni, Frank (April 10, 2021). Republicans Have Found Their Cruel New Culture War: Arkansas lawmakers’ move against trans people reflects a larger strategy. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/opinion/sunday/transgender-rights-republicans-arkansas.html

Bruni, Frank (April 28, 2018). The Extinction of Gay Identity. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/28/opinion/the-extinction-of-gay-identity.html

Bruni, Frank (November 14, 2017). Danica Roem Is Really, Really Boring. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/opinion/danica-roem-virginia-transgender.html

Books

Bruni, Frank (2024). The Age of Grievance. Avid Reader Press / Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-1668016435
Bruni, Frank (2022). The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found. Avid Reader Press / Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-1982108571
Bruni, Frank; Steinhauer, Jennifer (2017). A Meatloaf in Every Oven: Two Chatty Cooks, One Iconic Dish and Dozens of Recipes. Grand Central Life & Style, ISBN 978-1455563050
Bruni, Frank (2015). Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania. Grand Central Publishing, ISBN 978-1455532704
Bruni, Frank (2009). Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater. Penguin Press, ASIN B005UB1WBK
Bruni, Frank (2002). Ambling Into History: The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush. Harper, ISBN 978-0066213712
Bruni, Frank; Burkett, Elinor (1993). A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church. Viking, ISBN 978-0670848287