When the Truth Doesn’t Fit the World You’ve Built

By LONNIE KING

Over the past several days, there’s been a wave of online chatter and reporting about Kristi Noem’s husband—claims about how he dresses in private, paired with the observation that there hasn’t been a clear public denial.

And like most stories that hit this particular nerve, it didn’t take long for it to turn into something else entirely—mockery for some, outrage for others, and certainty from people who don’t actually know the full story.

I don’t know exactly what to do with this story.

Not because it’s complicated on a political level—but because it’s complicated at a personal level for a living, breathing human.

I want to be clear about something up front:  I’m not interested in mocking or shaming anyone.

If this is an authentic expression of who he is—whatever that means for him—I don’t see that as something that hurts anyone. I’ve come to believe that people should have space to explore and understand themselves without being turned into a headline or a punchline.

In fact, there’s a bit of lament involved in thinking that he has to go outside the space of his marriage to get what he needs. This idea that his spouse is not his most-trusted confidant in his self-expression is somehow very sad to me.

But, at the same time, I also can’t ignore the context.

The Environment Matters

The world he’s connected to hasn’t always offered that same space to others.

In fact, it’s often been just the opposite—sharp lines drawn around identity, rigid definitions of gender, and very little grace for people who live outside of those expectations.

And that’s where this gets uncomfortable for me.

Not because I want to point fingers—but because I don’t know what it means to hold both of those realities at the same time.

On one hand, I feel compassion.  On the other hand, I can’t pretend the environment surrounding him hasn’t made life harder for people navigating those same types of questions out in the open.

What We Don’t Know

I don’t know his story.  I don’t know what this means to him, or how long he’s wrestled with it, or whether it’s something private, something evolving, or something he’s only recently begun to understand.

And I think pretending I do would say more about me than it does about him.

Because the truth is, sometimes people come to understand parts of themselves later than expected.

Not because those parts weren’t there—but because they were taught, directly or indirectly, that those feelings were wrong…or off-limits…or not something to even examine.

And when that realization does come, it doesn’t arrive neatly.  It comes with questions. With tension. With a quiet sense of, What do I do with this now?

And often, it comes with guilt.

The kind of internal weight that forms when you’ve been raised to believe that what feels natural to you—what draws you, what intrigues you, what feels honest—is somehow inherently wrong.

And guilt has a way of doing something subtle but powerful: it doesn’t just make people question themselves—it teaches them that staying hidden is safer than being known.

And maybe that’s not unique to one person or one story.  Maybe it’s more common than we’re willing to admit.

Because a lot of people—especially in environments that talk a lot about right and wrong—learn early on that parts of themselves are better left unseen.

And when enough of those parts stay hidden, something else starts to happen: 

• It becomes harder to truly know other people…because you’ve never really allowed yourself to be known.
• It becomes harder to extend empathy…because you’re still carrying the weight of your own unspoken questions.
• And it becomes harder to love openly…because somewhere along the way, you started to believe that parts of you were unlovable.

Caught Inside the System…or Part of It?

It also raises a question I don’t have a clean answer for: when someone is connected to a system that limits others…are they fully responsible for that system—or are they, in some ways, navigating it themselves?

I don’t know what pressures exist behind the scenes. I don’t know what’s chosen and what’s endured. And I’m not comfortable pretending those lines are always clear.

The Hardest Part Isn’t the Discovery

Maybe the hardest part of discovering who you really are isn’t the discovery itself—it’s realizing whether the world you’ve built around you is a place where that truth can survive or a place where it has to be hidden to avoid ridicule.

And if the answer is the latter, that doesn’t always mean you chose the wrong life.  Sometimes it just means you didn’t yet know what parts of yourself would eventually ask to be seen.

What This Really Says About Us

Maybe the easiest thing to do here is pick a side—sympathy or criticism.  But real life rarely fits that cleanly.  Sometimes it’s both.  Sometimes it’s neither.

Sometimes it’s just a reminder that the categories we argue about in public don’t always match the realities people are living in private.

And maybe the better question isn’t what we think about him—but whether we’re willing to create space for honesty in people we’ve never met…or never agreed with.

A Final Thought About the Story Itself

And one more thing.

Whether this story is accurate, exaggerated, or something in between, the reaction has been predictable.

We’ve taken something deeply personal—something we may not fully understand—and turned it into a public spectacle.

• About how quickly we’re willing to use personal identity as a weapon.
• About how easily someone’s private life becomes public currency.
• About how little it sometimes takes for us to forget there’s a real person underneath the headline.

And maybe, underneath all of it, there’s something even more revealing:

How many of us are still learning to live with parts of ourselves we were taught to hide—and how different the world might feel if more of us believed it was safe to be known.

Grace and grit to you!  — LK