The following are snippits of conversations that have transpired between kids over the past few months.

The following snippits are proof that things are changing (for the better).

The following snippits give me hope.

—

4th graders.

“I’m going to draw the kid and the mom and the dad.”

“I have two moms.”

 

“Oh.”

“Do you have two moms?”

“Nope, I have a mom and a dad.”

“Cool.”

—

8th graders.

“Bruce Jenner is the man.”

“Dude. You can’t say that anymore. It’s Caitlin Jenner and he’s now a girl.”

“I can still call him Bruce.”

“No, you really can’t. He’s a woman, and his name is now Caitlin.”

—

8th graders.

A problem-solving scenario reads: “A student made fun of a boy for liking the color pink.”

“That’s so mean. And it doesn’t even make sense. There’s no such thing as boy colors and girl colors.”

“Yeah. Like, at the hospital, they only picked pink and blue to tell the boys from the girls. But those aren’t even boy and girl colors, it was just a system they came up with.”

—

6th graders.

“Can we use ‘they’ instead of ‘he’ and ‘him’ in that example?”

“Sure.”

—

7th graders.

“So for example, if a boy was wearing a suit….”

“At my sister’s school there are a lot of transgender students. Anyone can wear anything and some people are boys and some are girls and some aren’t really either.”

—

5th graders.

“Ooh, can I be purple?”

“You like purple?”

“Yeah, it’s the best color.”

“Yeah, true.”

—

6th graders.

“That rainbow you’re drawing is SO beautiful.”

“You like rainbows?”

“Oh yes, they’re magical.”

“I like rainbows too. We have that in common.”

—