This Boomer woman remembers. An American past.

In the fifties in America it was still the late forties, and a not insignificant social preoccupation was the considerable amounts of time necessarily spent in assiduously maintaining and promoting ones utter conformity to the agreed upon standards of normality. It seems to me now that no one was fully cleared for passing as acceptable. The wrong address, the lack -or presence- of a hanging loop on a shirt, assigned by birth to the not quite top tier of bestChristian sect, (forget the other planetary possibilities of Atheism, or being Jewish, Heathen, Quaker or Mormon) wearing glasses, not wearing braces, being too loud, cheating, being too quiet,  not cheating, not knowing the popular songs or singers, being poor at sports, having freckles, wearing the wrong gymn shoes, getting bad grades, getting good grades, labeled with an ethnic identity other than European (and the distinct and unchangeable hierarchy of European and other nationalities and ethnicities with Polish -in my village, in yours you know perfectly which place of origin was utterly off the playlist- being dead last). An out of wedlock birth and or child of divorced parents was not merely suspect, but utterly branded as somehow flawed in some essential and unreedemable  way. I have never forgotten my childhood friends' wedding taking place outside the most sanctified corner of their church, since as an adopted child, clearly, the bride had been been born in a state of sin so dire and complete as never to be expunged, much less forgiven. Add to this  the 50% possibility of being born an actual female. A category of not quite qualified for full humanity that was bestowed randomly by nature. Eligible to vote, but not qualified to possess personal credit, wear trousers to school or work, informally banned from certain professions, and mocked as a bluestocking, frigid, or immature if seeking to acquire any intellectual or professional distinction. Lesbianism was a variety of oddity so obscure and secret that there was no means of addressing the possibility. At my womens' college, parents (really only fathers counted, as they were the potential donors) were assured that Lesbians were not admissible. Students sexually approached by faculty left in disgrace, and males other than family banned from dorm room visits. Proudly they now welcome the qualified transgendered, though not males (yet). Oh Hillary, we know what you have had to overcome, and the scars this journey must have left. But until you win this our scars will never go away and the wounds still limiting men women, and genders not yet fully determined will remain unhealed.