Surprise?

When my father said that one of the graduate students had a sex change and was now to be addressed by the feminine form of his name, I thought: there it is, then, it’s a thing that is and is going to be. I mean certainly my father introduced this as a shock, but we were in the 1970’s. Everything in the 1970’s came on a continuous line of shocks, spooling off the 1960’s. This was just another phenomenon to be absorbed into normality, barely worth mentioning in two years. I thought I’d know gender-altered people like you know straight folks. So really, it comes as no surprise that Barack Obama is elected President.

I’m too young to know about the Civil Rights Movement first hand. For me, I grew up thinking tension between black and white people was all settled and it really didn’t matter anymore. With respect, I think the achievement means more than the struggle. I’m only surprised that this election didn’t happen a long time ago.