Wearing pink nail polish can make otherwise heterosexual boys become gay – or so some socially conservative commentators would have the American public believe.
Last week, J.Crew published an advertisement that showed the company’s creative director Jenna Lyons painting her son Beckett’s toenails pink. The text beneath the photo read, “Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.”
As soon as the ad went live, FOX News commentators attacked Lyons and J.Crew for publishing what Erin Brown of the right-wing Media Research Center dubbed “blatant propaganda celebrating transgender children.” While the company has not yet offered comments regarding the content of the ad, liberal media voices have spoken out against the absurdity of Brown’s claims.
Both Wayne Besen of the Truth Wins Out campaign and psychology professor and author Dr. Peggy Drexler have offered their thoughts on the J. Crew ad – and the ensuing conservative backlash – with articles for the Huffington Post. Besen notes Brown’s comments in conjunction with those made by FOX commentator Dr. Keith Albow, who chastened Lyons and said, “it may be fun and games now, Jenna, but at least put some money aside for psychotherapy for the kid — and maybe a little for others who’ll be affected by your ‘innocent’ pleasure.”
As far as Besen is concerned, “anti-gay forces are gearing up to exploit this situation” – despite the fact that experts insist there is no link between such superficial behavior and adult sexual orientation.
Psychiatrists like Dr. Jack Dresher, who discussed the controversial ad on ABC News, insist “with 100 percent certainty” that “a mother painting her children’s toe nails pink does not cause transgenderism or homosexuality or anything else that people who are social conservatives would worry about.”
Gender scholar and author Dr. Peggy Drexler agrees, and argues that none of the media “kerfuffle,” as she calls it, would have arisen had the advertisement featured a father putting eye-black on his daughter’s cheeks before a baseball game instead of the incendiary image of a mother painting her son’s nails.
Besen suggests that LGBT allies and equality seekers should celebrate the ad, as well as J.Crew’s willingness to publish it despite potential criticism. Besen states,” in my view, J. Crew published a terrific ad that showed real family values — not the contrived kind put forth by social conservatives,” and that “it is time to fight back and stand up to irrational homophobic attacks and ‘conservative correctness.’”
