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At Least The Millennials Get It

One prominent educator, when asked about the issue of transsexuals in public bathrooms, said that the kids get it but the parents don’t. This is an old story.

When I was a kid, I was far less afraid of change than my parents were. They had lived longer and knew that bad things could happen. I was young and foolish. Even so, sometimes their worries were over the top.

Studies do indicate that Millennials are much less worried than their parents are about male-to-female peers in the ladies’ room, and female-to-male peers in the gents’ room. Are Millennials just more tolerant than their parents are? Maybe. But I have another theory.

Millennials have grown up in a world where identity is something you can invent. They do it all the time on line. They can forge Facebook personalities and take special online names. They can take selfies of themselves and doctor them. On the Internet, no one knows who you are for sure.

So all their lives Millennials have known a world where identity is fungible. This is also true of their consumer habits. They have always known a world where it’s possible to find and buy almost anything. Millennials can search online for the sorts of things they tend to buy more than any other group does, and this includes pet snakes, yoga pants, organic foods, and craft booze.

Custom-made identity and purchasing stuff out of the mainstream are “normal” for Millennials. And this is one reason why transsexuals in the bathroom just doesn’t seem like a big deal to them.

I’m Tom McBride; that’s my perspective.

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