While discussing our appreciation for certain books, I said to Clara, “To each his own.”
Her response:
“Yup. To each their own.”
See what she did?
She shifted the pronoun without thought, stripping the gender from my remark without even realizing it.
She did so automatically.
This is a big deal for some people. Gender-neutral pronouns, gender fluidity, transgender rights, and similar issues are a big deal in our country today. These subjects have upset a great number of people, in part because politicians of a particular stripe have weaponized them for political gain.
Absent any ideas or solutions with broad appeal, they instead use social issues to gain political traction.
When 95% of Americans support universal background checks for the purchase of firearms, 61% percent support a ban on assault weapons, and 62% believe that abortion should be legal, it’s hard to win elections opposing these positions unless you find some boogeyman to frighten your constituents.
And yes, some debate, like the fairest ways for transgender people to compete in sports, for example, is certainly reasonable, but for an unfortunate many, the mere existence of transgender people and the realities of gender fluidity are offensive.
These people are ignorant, small-minded, frightened by change, invested in buffet-styled religious dogma, trapped within tragically fixed mindsets, or sheep-like beings who are easily misled.
Maybe some combination of these things.
The good news:
The younger generations suffer from none of this nonsense.
In the same way that previous generations once rejected interracial marriage, same-sex marriage, school desegregation, sexual harassment legislation, financial independence for women, smoking bans in public spaces, mandatory seatbelt laws, and many other common-sense reforms, so, too, will this stupidity about gender go the way of the dinosaur.
Those who cannot see the light will eventually find themselves living on the margins, the member of an ever-shrinking minority, and someday, sooner than later, pariahs.
Possibly extinct.
It starts with people like Clara, who demonstrate respect for her fellow human beings by not placing one gender above another or even making gender relevant in conversations like the one we were having that day.
Eliminating the unnecessary reference to gender automatically, without even having to think about it.
That is real change, and it is coming.
It’s just annoying that so many fools are still standing in the way.
