I always think about Christine Jorgensen, who was the first American to be widely known as having a sex reassignment surgery in 1952. She went to Europe to have the surgery and sent letters back home to inform her friends and family about the change. The letters she sent to her parents were leaked to the press and it was front page news by the time she returned home.
At the beginning, the press and public at large was fascinated. It was a weird story that people had no experience with, and they were mostly fine with accepting it as confusing but interesting. Over time, however, people learned to hate it and started to be more critical of the concept. It’s from before my time, so I’m not really sure of how it was received, but the impression I get is that most people weren’t bothered by it until somebody told them to be bothered by it. And that’s ultimately what seems to happen with children.
If you tell them that somebody is different, they find it amusing and then move on. But if you also tell them that it’s wrong and that they should hate that person for being different, they’ll hate them as well. The hate itself is what’s unnatural. Young kids encountering something new and confusing is entirely natural. When you’re young, everything is new and confusing.
I always think about Christine Jorgensen, who was the first American to be widely known as having a sex reassignment surgery in 1952. She went to Europe to have the surgery and sent letters back home to inform her friends and family about the change. The letters she sent to her parents were leaked to the press and it was front page news by the time she returned home.
At the beginning, the press and public at large was fascinated. It was a weird story that people had no experience with, and they were mostly fine with accepting it as confusing but interesting. Over time, however, people learned to hate it and started to be more critical of the concept. It’s from before my time, so I’m not really sure of how it was received, but the impression I get is that most people weren’t bothered by it until somebody told them to be bothered by it. And that’s ultimately what seems to happen with children.
If you tell them that somebody is different, they find it amusing and then move on. But if you also tell them that it’s wrong and that they should hate that person for being different, they’ll hate them as well. The hate itself is what’s unnatural. Young kids encountering something new and confusing is entirely natural. When you’re young, everything is new and confusing.