Could we be kind to Noem's husband?

[KT2000]

This is not about politics. Kristi is fair game as she is a politician. Her husband is not. This man is being publicly humiliated because of his private behavior - not political behavior. This is not the age of the Scarlet Letter. Let's let him be. So many in the country are enjoying his pain right now and we are not sure if it may have dire consequences for this man.

[._.]

1. No.

He'll have to suck it up.
If he is tough enough to be married to that piece of trash he's tough enough to take a doxing.

[AncientOfDays]

2. She had to know

She had to know about her husband's proclivities, and still signed on to an administration that politicizes against that sort of behavior. In fact, she may have literally bought herself a place in that administration. I say she's fair game.

[Intractable]

3. "his private behavior" -- He's public-figure adjacent.

I'm sure he has benefited much from Kristi's political positions.

He put himself on internet chats showing the boobs. He forfeited his privacy at that moment.

[Shellback Squid]

4. no quarter

[J_William_Ryan]

5. "This is not about politics."

Actually it is.

It’s the hateful, bigoted, authoritarian right that’s hostile to expressions of individual liberty, seeking to compel conformity and punish dissent – by opposing the right to self-determination.

Liberals have no problem with men dressing like women and defend the individual right to do so.

In a society that celebrates diversity and inclusion – a society opposed by conservatives – this wouldn’t be an issue.

Noem and others on the fascist right have only themselves to blame.

[KT2000]

7. So we do to him what they do?

We are better than that.

[NJCher]

15. Who is this "we"

of whom you speak?

This person did what he did publicly. Not only that, but he even made references to his notorious wife. That alone is a judgment error that makes him deserving of nothing but scorn.

I'm not up for being "kind" to another moronic republican, especially one who puts balloons in his T-shirt and puckers up for the camera.

I'll save my kindness for a more deserving person or animal.

[Scrivener7]

45. I'm actually not better than that, but this story is Stephen Miller

manipulating us to take attention from things that actually matter.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221138717

So I'm with you. We should drop this and not play into his hands.

[H2O Man]

6. Does he read DU?

[KT2000]

8. Who knows

The point is about who we are.

[H2O Man]

23. We are a group of individuals.

Some find the situation as a source of humor, just like some laugh at Druski. Others don't. That tends to happen when it comes to groups of individuals. It's who we are.

[H2O Man]

24. PS

I think you likely know he isn't a DU community member.

[C Moon]

9. Yeah, I just don't see the big deal. It's his choice and it's not harmful.

[LeftInTX]

10. Hey, this is the best thing that's happened in the last month! I'm enjoying it!

Kristi Noem deserves this.

No one will remember him, but they will remember her. This is her downfall.....

She's destroyed so many lives....

I bet he's also into BDSM and other things and only acceptable images were released.

[pat_k]

11. People who have no problem with cross-dressing are shrugging.

And I don't imagine there are many people on DU that have a problem with cross-dressing.

Who is being "mean" to Byron anyway?

His cross-dressing is only "inappropriate" to the vile people with their fixed notion of "appropriate" gender roles who are hellbent on dictating what is "appropriate" or "inappropriate" to every other human on the planet.

Yeah, Kristi Noem is one of those vile people.

And apparently Byron pretended to be one of those vile people too.

It's the pretense that's the problem. For his sake, I hope he sheds that persona.

If he does, I imagine the cross-dressing community would welcome the guy.

[B.See]

20. This is along the lines of what I was thinking.

From the few comments I read, seemed the ridicule wasn't for him (you do you, as long as you do no harm), but for Noem's and the right's hypocritical ideology of hate and exclusion that deigns to determine for all, what gender people must be, what constitutes a family, a marriage, what people shouldn't read or learn, who is acceptable and who is not. Quite a comeuppance, I think... for HER.

[RockRaven]

12. No. They are married. That makes him involved w/ her decades-long political activity.

They married in 1992. She's been in political office since 2007. South Dakota is a no fault divorce state, with a 60 day period between filing and finalization. Either one of them could have split with the other at any time. They didn't. And since they are married, she is involved with him, and he reflects on her. That's just how free association and partnerships work.

We can, and should, avoid kink-shaming.
We can, and should, respect the sex workers he was interacting with as workers.

But the hypocrisy, the security risk (creating blackmail fodder because of the hypocrisy and secrecy), and their vile political positions mean that we do not have to be kind to them. Fuck them.

As for him being humiliated by this: a) some people are into that, but if he isn't then fine, moving on, and b) if he is ashamed of what he gets up to during his sexy time with other consenting adults, that is a him problem not an us problem, we aren't responsible for his hang-ups.

[poli-junkie]

13. It's the fake Christian

hypocrisy that we’re all condemning — especially from this christofascist regime!

They’re all repressed, mentally ill m’fers!

Can’t stand them

[Phoenix61]

14. Nope. I couldn't care less what he likes to dress as

I do care that he aligned himself with someone who spews hate. Maybe he should have thought about that a little harder.

[JHB]

16. No, we can't

I appreciate your appeal to better angels, but they're not here right now, the worse demons are, so the right course of action is to curbstomp them at every opportunity.

[JMCKUSICK]

17. I'm with you KT2000,

This sounds like a hatchet job on Noem. Done solely to hurt her, especially with the lewendowski rumors.

Using another person's hidden secrets to bring pain to her is out of bounds for me too.

I don't know who this man is, the fact that she's been openly treating him like a cuck with her affair and the unnecessary details of private bedrooms in jets etc...makes this even more painful to imagine.
I only wish there would be a way to force her to explain her hypocrisy and shame her.

[Billsdaughter]

18. I hope in some aspect he feels a bit

more free to be than he did yesterday.

As for her, this "scandal" is the least of her problems. And yes, the scheuden freude is delicious.

[Pototan]

19. Ya, like they all left Hunter Biden alone

Fuck Byron. Let him face his humiliation for marrying an evil person. After all, he is not humiliated in my eyes, only in the eyes of the people he voted for and associates with.

Who do you think he voted for? The same people who publicly humiliate and torture perfectly innocent people in America. Again, I say, fuck him.

[Skittles]

21. I saw where a DUer called him a freak

I don't think he is anywhere near as freaky as Kristi or Donald

[rampartd]

29. "freaky" sounds like a terms and conditions thing

but if the only choices are "freaky" and "not freaky" there but for the grace of god go i.

sarah longwell said "noem wasn't protecting her own homeland" but

gov noem seems to like "dressing up" as fetish. maybe how she and husband made 30 years?

[Skittles]

34. oh for sure it's a spectrum

it ain't an us vs them thing for sure

[rampartd]

37. spectrum

that is when i began to think that i am in no position to judge how far out on the kinkometer each of us might fall.

we are all bozos on this bus.

[Skittles]

39. everyone is weird in their own way

yes indeed

[meadowlander]

30. To me that's where the discussion has been crossing the line into kink shaming

because what that person is saying to anyone else in the world that is into bimbo-ization as a kink is that they're freaks too, and by extension lesser humans.

I don't care what Bryon wants to do in his free time that doesn't hurt anyone else. He's fair game to the extent that he was a hypocrite and apparently on board with persecuting trans people with his vile wife. But he isn't a "freak" because he has a fetish and neither is anyone else who does (at least 50% of the population).

I guess my other general suggestion would be that kindness is free and about the sort of person you want to be, not the target of scorn (and other people like him). Maybe think about how you'd feel if you found out tomorrow he killed himself over this and then have a second think about any comment you might feel doesn't represent your best self.

[ecstatic]

22. I think the focus is probably on kristi not him

I truly don't give an f about him.

I don't give an f about her either but I will say that I had a good chuckle when I heard the news tonight. It's not like she cares anyway. She's having an affair herself. Smh.

[pnwmom]

25. The only ones I feel for are their 20-something kids.

[Raine]

26. No, absolutely not

I wonder what his thought was about the dog she murdered, did he care about that.

[rampartd]

32. the husband knew that it was a demonsreation of

what might happen to him if he didn't wear the panties.

gov noem seems to like "dressing up" as fetish. maybe how she and husband made 30 years?

[Lars39]

27. He was "outed" so that the trans-phobic

would have a specific target on International Trans Visibility Day. Whoever did this wanted him to be the topic of the day, and they succeeded.

[SunSeeker]

28. He deserves approbrium for his hypocrisy.

Like so many closeted evangelicals who shame gay and trans people, this guy was aligned with a bigoted cabinet member who serves in an administration that has done everything it can to hurt men who don't dress like society expects men to dress.


They are both hypocrites and right wing nut jobs.

The above picture is from this NY Post story: https://nypost.com/2026/03/31/us-news/kristi-noem-weighs-in-on-report-husband-bryon-lives-cross-dressing-double-life/

[sfdennis1]

31. Sorry but nope

I’d bet my last dollar that the cross-dressing cuck voted for Trump…I have NO moral judgement on his bimbo cross dressing fetish, but to support MAGA while being a closeted freaky-deaky person??? That’s just your own karma literally BEGGING to be revealed. Total FAFO situation and I have ZERO sympathy left for ANY of them.

[Mister Ed]

33. Thank you for your kindness. I'm surprised, sickened, and saddened by most of the replies on this thread. n/t

[Roy Rolling]

35. The Word "Kind" is the Problem

To answer your question, “of course I can be kind”.

This isn’t on me and my views on his cross-dressing (which I didn’t know until this article).

I don’t think editorial censorship is the solution here (to the “problem” that Noem is unfairly portrayed in mass media). Manipulating the news to be friendly or unfriendly to particular issues is the problem, more coverup isn’t the solution.

A person cannot be any more fairly portrayed in media than to be quoted verbatim with pictures. There is no measure of kind or not-kind about it. It’s like trying to measure sound decibles with a meat thermometer.

[eShirl]

36. I'm worried he may now end up like Cricket and the billy goat.

That woman likes to gun down living things when she gets pissed off.

[Aussie105]

38. A better hobby choice may have helped.

Stamp collecting or collecting He-Man figurines.
Or model cars.
Even gun collecting.
Building model aeroplane or ship kits from plastic bits and painting them up, perhaps?

Someone one step removed from a public figure really should know better!

Who is to say he is feeling shame, remorse or pain?
Or even capable of such feelings?
I mean, look who he is married to!

[Irish_Dem]

40. We give no quarter to our enemy.

They will kill us all in our beds if they can figure out a way to do it.

And we are supposed to nice to the bastards.

No way in hell.

We fight.
And we gd fight to win.

[Irish_Dem]

41. I don't care if the man uses balloons as sex toys.

But his wife is murdering American citizens in cold blood and terrorizing the world.

[Scrivener7]

42. I assume he's as bad as she is, but I do agree with you. And this article says

the "outing" was engineered by Stephen Miller to take attention off him and blame Noem for the deaths of Pretti and Good in Minnesota, for which Miller was to blame.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221138717

Thoughts about the husband aside, I don't want to be a pawn in Miller's ratfucking.

She's gone. He's still wreaking havoc. Let's put our attention there.

[Celerity]

43. No. He married ICE Nazi Barbie, a horrific human being. He gets no pass. Fuck him and the tits he rode in on.

[Sympthsical]

44. Worst. Rodeo. Ever.

[WSHazel]

46. Celebrate his choices

And celebrate how Noem, Lewandowski, and everyone else that knew about his fetish is so tolerant.

That is all bulls*** of course, but by taking that approach we don’t kink shame while simultaneously humiliating everyone around Trump for their obvious hypocrisy. Assume everyone knew, and then make them deny it. The more they talk about it, the more they piss off their intolerant base.

[mainer]

47. I agree.

His private behavior doesn't affect us. Give him some grace.

[Blues Heron]

48. Im not sure starting another thread on him is there best way to achieve that, but thanks for your concern?