Ex-romantic partners and friends in Washington D.C. keep asking: “Isaac, why in the world are you still writing for the News?” Seven years after graduation, I have published columns in the Washington Blade and written some erotic poetry for a lovely magazine. I have put out two humble poetry books but am vigorously working on more projects, with the intent of actually going to print this time. Less talk, more action. In the midst of this, the News is still my favorite outlet to write for. Yet people don’t understand why. 

All columns for the Washington Blade have to be focused on LGBT issues. That is the Blade’s official policy, and rightly so: the newspaper promotes the rights of lesbian, gay, transgender and intersex people at every turn. Moreover, language for the Blade — and for many other mainstream, well-circulated publications — has to be a bit dumbed down to the general public. This is not an insult to these outlets, but rather a realistic acknowledgement that much of America prefers to ingest words when they are of average length and not twelve letters long. Mainstream publishers don’t want hyper-intellectualized prose; they want the same words that Karen and Mark use in their white picket-fenced kitchen in suburbia. 

In this vein, I penned a Feb. 28, 2023, column called “Watch your language” that implores students to not act as gatekeepers when using multisyllabic, niche words like “social constructionism” to describe everyday phenomena on campus. I stand by this advice, and argue that speaking colloquially is a positive skill for any student to harness, in any career. 

Simple verbiage has made its case both in media and in literature. Writers like Ernest Hemingway prided themselves on their simple prose. In “The Old Man and the Sea,” Hemingway writes “I’m clear enough in the head, he thought. Too clear. I am as clear as the stars that are my brothers.” Other writers like Salman Rushdie and Toni Morrison would have hesitated to write these three easy sentences — Rushdie, for sure, would have felt compelled to complicate the prose. Yet Hemingway didn’t. Perhaps as a former war correspondent, Hemingway understood that writing to the masses entailed using short words and clauses. 

In any event, there is a time and place for digestible language. But contrary to the point I make in my previous column, there is also a time and place for more intricate language and ideas. Material that examines the world around us and communicates theories in a nuanced, sophisticated and beautiful way. 

Here’s where the News comes into play. Much of the News’s audience is intellectually charged. I am, at the very least, writing to a university readership who scored high on the SAT, can do well in organic chemistry and might fall in love with Shakespeare and Kant, although I don’t know how well-regarded the former playwright should be. Yale students are thirsty for new ideas, creative ways to articulate any point and digesting a wide array of content, ranging from transgender rights to mental health and notes on the MIddle East. A News columnist, indeed, has the leeway to be a dilettante — a Renaissance man at every turn — someone who can offer unfiltered thoughts on a million things underneath the sun. Other media outlets, like philosophy journals, don’t allow me the chance to talk about men reciprocating in bed. And sex columns don’t offer me the chance to pontificate on Obama’s red line in Syria. And, alas, foreign policy journals don’t want a column on Toni Morrison. But the News can take all of those things, and take them with grace, and relay them to a knowledge-driven audience of 20,000 daily readers. 

Herein lies the draw of the News. It is friendly to former columnists, and now, more so than my time in 2015 to 2017, has a more diverse staff — a talking point that was controversial years ago, when the paper seemed whitewashed. The News has an uncanny ability to pluck fine voices out of the student body, and also solicits non-university voices — something I witnessed when New Haven residents would write to me in emails. 

So, the paper should be sustained, it should live on, and it should continue to offer a camping ground for the thousands of ideas that cross my mind. And, on occasion, it should allow a literature lover the opportunity to tinker with the edges of unfettered, but maybe fleeting, brilliance. 

ISAAC AMEND graduated in 2017 from Timothy Dwight College. He is a transgender man and was featured in National Geographic’s “Gender Revolution” documentary. In his free time, he is a columnist for the Washington Blade. He also serves on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Contact him at isaac.amend35@gmail.com.