A tiny bit of progress in my mind
by digby
A funny thing happened to me today as I was reading this piece in the Washington Post. It’s a lovely story of a friendship between a writer and the man who saved him from drowning and how the writer presided at the man’s wedding and told the story to those assembled. I encourage you to read it.
But the funny thing that happened to me was that I read this story about a man named Mike and his friend Jason who married someone named Alex and I assumed without giving it even a moment’s thought that Alex was a man. I didn’t question it, just went forward reading the story until about halfway through the writer used the female pronoun and I was stopped short realizing that the relationship I’d been picturing up until then as between two men was between and man and a woman. And the new picture of a marriage between a man and a woman actually felt a little bit odd after the whole thing had come to life in my mind as a gay relationship. And it took me a moment to shift my perceptions.
Now I know that Alex is also a woman’s name and that I could have just as legitimately thought the opposite. And I know that until very recently I would have. What’s interesting to me is that I barely noted the fact that this was a gay wedding to the point that it came as a total surprise when it turned out not to be. The world is changing, assumptions are shifting. Progress.
h/t to teacher Ken