No one is born with prejudice and hate in their hearts. Prejudice and hate are learned. And can be unlearned. People have a clear choice. No one need remain ignorant. No one need continue a tradition of bigotry or hatred. In fact, we can forgive our parents or guardians who inured us with incorrect information and biased assumptions based on their own lack of knowledge or understanding and move on. Information, education, support is readily available from reliable, knowledgeable sources. Do your own research. Ask questions. Own your decisions and your life. Be and believe in who you are. As far as others are concerned, drop your own assumptions and understand that they will tell you who they are. Then, respect and honor what you learn. Be kind, just, and respectful.

In the fall Olympic relay race, Crepe Myrtle, summer’s last contestant, sprints  brilliant reds, pinks, fuchsias, lavenders, and gentle whites, then turns golden leaved in fall’s chilly winds and passes the baton to the chrysanthemums.

We make a lot of assumptions about people when they are born — especially those assumptions based on the physical features we have traditionally used to determine a person’s gender. The time has come to rethink these assumptions. Actually, it’s past time we did away with these assumptions. But we have to start sometime and I’m suggesting that the time is now.

I do understand where our assumptions came from and their usefulness, at one time, in determining what a person might be allowed to do, what jobs were appropriate for someone, who a person could be, what salary might be offered. Those assumptions are no longer (and never were actually) legitimate or even worthy of the ignorance and prejudice that engendered them.

Given time and new information people can learn new things or new ways of looking at things. After all, we went from believing that the sun travels around the Earth to understanding that the Earth travels around the sun. Even though we continue to say “sunrise” and “sunset,” we do understand that it is the Earth’s travels around the sun that make sunrise and sunset appear to happen.

We now have information that allows us to understand that the physical manifestation of our old definition of gender is an assumption and not reality for many people. We know that the appearance of physical genitalia happens at one stage of fetal development and that gender identity happens during an altogether different stage of development. This makes gender identity an inborn developmental trait rather than a post natal decision or a lifestyle choice.

Gender identity then can be but is not necessarily consistent with the outward appearance of genitalia. So, why do we continue to indicate gender on an individual’s birth certificate when we cannot possibly know a person’s gender until that person is old enough to articulate their gender identity? Perhaps it is time to celebrate the birth of a human child indicating date, time, birth weight, parents’ information, and leave gender identity off entirely. Or, perhaps, leave it blank to be completed at a formal family celebration when the child declares who they are.

What I need is a direct mind/blog link. When I’m walking on the treadmill, showering, driving to wherever, watching the grand kids, just drifting off to sleep, or a hundred other things and these terrific thoughts and complete concepts practically leap into my mind fully formed and articulate and later when I sit at the computer or tablet to write it all down and it all vanishes somewhere between my brain and my elbow and never makes it to my fingertips to tap the appropriate keys that would make the words appear where these are now — that’s  when I need a direct mind/blog link! Arrgh! And it’s not even Talk Like a Pirate Day!