In Wisconsin, white people account for 87.3 percent of the population. In the 2016 election, President Trump took all of the state’s 10 electoral votes. Ryan Morgan may not be the American boy some want, but he is the American boy who is.

Still, his presence in Esquire sparked rage online. Zara Rahim, a spokeswoman for Clinton’s 2016 campaign, called out Esquire for running the story during Black History Month. “Imagine this same ‘American Boy’ headline with someone who looks like Trayvon talking about what it’s like to have your mother sit you down to tell you how to stay alive,” she wrote on Twitter. Others echoed the complaint.

One can debate whether the article should have run a month earlier or later, or whether Esquire runs enough stories about teenage boys of color. But few if any of those criticisms actually engaged with the story itself: Was the portrait wrong? Did it add value to our understanding of America in this moment?

While many in the press attacked Esquire, others went for Ryan Morgan. Some suggested he needed to be punched. Some suggested sending him hate mail. Others just swore.

If in 2020, he chooses to go to college, the Esquire story and the reaction to it will come up during his interview. If in 2025 he finds himself online dating, it will be right there, on Google, for any potential dates to find. People change, pictures don’t.

Katie Herzog is a gay journalist who knows exactly what it feels like to wear a digital scarlet letter. In 2017 she wrote an article called “The Detransitioners” for the independent Seattle newspaper The Stranger. In the piece, she reports on people who’ve transitioned to a different gender and then transitioned back. The piece was met with visceral hatred. Ms. Herzog received hate mail, including videos of people lighting her article on fire.

I was part of the pile on. In a now deleted tweet, I called her “ trash. ” I feared that her piece somehow discredited my own identity. In fact, it was just adding nuance to a debate in queer culture.