Go, Greybull Standard! The small-town paper’s lead paragraph (or “lede,” as we journos ostentatiously and wrongheadedly spell it) recently came out swinging in a story about some eyebrow-raising words from a state senator:

Last Thursday, April 20, U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) visited Greybull High School for a scheduled Q&A with students in grades 6–12. During his visit Enzi called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “illegal,” said Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ job will be to shut down a large part of the Department of Education, and responded to a question about LGBTQ rights in Wyoming with an anecdote about a man being surprised at the fact that he gets beat up for “wearing a tutu to the bar.”

Nicely done, Greybull Standard. Deadpan, lets the facts stand for themselves, uses that long comma-filled second sentence to express YOWZA without explicitly saying YOWZA. Some equivocate-y big-city newspapers could learn a lot from this. (I also am predisposed to like this newspaper because it used one of my favorite words, “contumacious,” in a headline about aggressive crows.)

Anyhoo. A kid at the event asked Enzi what he was doing to improve life for LGBT people in Wyoming…which, the student noted, is nicknamed The Equality State. According to the paper, Enzi replied that he enjoys Wyoming because “you can be just about anything you want to be, as long as you don’t push it in somebody’s face.” He observed, “I know a guy who wears a tutu and goes to bars on Friday night and is always surprised that he gets in fights. Well, he kind of asks for it. That’s the way that he winds up with that kind of problem.” Enzi said that “everything can’t be done by law — the biggest thing that we need is civility.”

What a…baffling thing to say to a group of tweens and teens. Be yourself, but don’t “push it in someone’s face”? Because if you get beaten up, you were “kind of” asking for it? Was Wyoming resident Matthew Shephard asking for it? One wonders. (Actually no, one does not. If one is civilized.)

Local residents took matters into their own hands. Communities around the area scheduled tutu-wearing bar crawls and posted pictures of their tutu-clad selves (and pets, and musical instruments) on social media, tagged #LiveandLetTutu. On Thursday night, the Gem City Art Team in Laramie led a tutu-making workshop. And constituents pointed out, less festively, that Enzi’s Congressional record has not been littered with tolerance.

On Friday, as tutus were pressed (does one press a tutu? poetic license) and bar owners prepared for a posse of patrons (discounts were offered, of course, to suitably clad balletomanes), Enzi apologized. He issued two statements, the first some general palaver preaching that “Our live and let live approach is one of the great aspects of our state. It is important that our students learn that the importance of respecting all people and how it is incumbent on those in the communities we live in to treat others as you would want to be treated.” Uh huh. The second was an apology. Ish.

No, Mike. This is bad-apology-bingo-worthy. You LEAD with “none of us is infallible”?? The lead (or lede) should be the apology, not the justification. Furthermore, don’t apologize to “anyone who has taken offense.” Apologize to EVERYONE. Your words hurt everyone by helping intolerance fester. No, too, to the always-iffy-in-apologies passive voice, and your asking for other people’s “understanding” when you didn’t show any yourself. No to still more passive voice (“my message was intended”) and no to the veiled, wounded accusation that your remarks were taken out of context, which, dude, is an assertion made by many people who say terrible things. There is no context in which saying that a man in a tutu should expect to be beaten up and that being oneself is ok as long as it’s not in anyone’s FACE is ok. This was not a poor choice of words, Mike. This was a poor sentiment, a sentiment you clear felt and still feel, based on this pee-poor apology. Also, don’t think we missed that “during part of my presentation” throwaway — the implication being that the REST of your presentation was THE BOMB OF TOLERANCE. Nice try.

But back to the happier subject of tutu crawls — many organizers and participants shared this warning from Ezra, who identifies as LGBT and who uses the pronoun “they,” who asked that the weekend’s tutu-wearing imbibing not be done mockingly.

It certainly seems that Hanson’s dictum was listened to. So many fun pictures on social media, and none that I saw that felt transphobic or homophobic! Please enjoy a selection of tutu-clad humans  and companions. (Folks in the pix: Let me know if you want me to add/subtract your name and/or link and/or take down the pictures.) Oh, and do note the name of the building that UW student Tyler Wolfgang slyly poses next to.

Senator Enzi: If I have to use your building, then I’m sure as hell going to wear a tutu in it. I guess I’m “asking for it”. #LiveandLetTutu pic.twitter.com/C4DNR9GrNP

— ?LER ?GANG (@TyWolf111) April 28, 2017

 

Happy International Dance Day from all of us at West Potomac’s Billy Elliot. #liveandlettutu #BillyElliot #tutu #dance #ballet #tap #theatre pic.twitter.com/jOppBi4vNy — West Potomac Theatre (@WestPoTheatre) April 29, 2017  

Hooray for love, music, dance, glitter, tutus, equality, joy, respect…and better apologies in the future.