I recently changed my pronouns to "It" and "Itself" because pronouns are not something I wish to address in my life. However, I still say "yes sir" and "yes mam" without regard for the nuances in public discourse.

We may think that gender is pretty cut and dry, but some think oppositely. Maybe you could fear your inner woman or your inner man because you are worried about how this could impact your social standing. However, the pursuit of happiness is the goal for most Americans as we live our daily lives. So, if releasing your inner man or your inner woman makes you happy, it should not be an issue.

It was not that long ago that I faced a decision to support my daughter in her quest for gender identity. She thought she might identify differently, although she was unsure at the time, and she always seemed to have a boyfriend. Unfortunately, her discussion about it caused her to be expelled from Catholic School.

I thought if that is what it is, then it is what it is. She was attending a school that was a private institution that was religiously affiliated, and they did not deem it appropriate to entertain such talk. I thought the $15,000 a year school was her best option for success, and she would have been the school's valedictorian her senior year, but times change, and so did she.

Maybe it was a hard lesson to learn, but maybe it was not a lesson at all and just a matter of social control that she felt limited her happiness. She certainly was not happy she was expelled, but I viewed it as a badge of courage as she spoke up for herself.

In the world today, people have finally been able to speak out about their gender identity and commonly use pronoun usage to make them happy. Again, or maybe still, the school is a battleground for gender identity. 

School for me during the '60s taught me that it was not a good thing to be different. So, I always sought to make friends with those who were somehow ostracized. My father was pretty straight with me about not looking down on anyone because of their circumstance or preferences. 

I knew of one gay boy who wanted to be my friend in my class. We hung out together at times, and he was creative and fun to be around. In Jr. High School, I saw him be ridiculed and looked down upon. I remember that he got dressed next to my locker in gym class and had an incident happen in front of me where someone tried to force him to do something. I watched as others stood there with a smirk and said nothing. 

The incident led me to be suspended from school because I intervened. The guy initiating the incident pushed me away, and at that point, I had to punch him because I did not want to be pushed. I did not like that guy anyway.

Incidents like that played out for decades in schools across America as kids were driven to the proverbial closet with their sexual identity. So, with the move now to normalize the identity, there is a question of how far you can go to enable normality in sexual gender.

As a recognized Laureate Agent of Change, I realize that you can never go halfway. You have to go to the bounds of what is pleasant and cross it to get your point across. I do it all the time and live with the fact that people do not like me at times because I am the voice of change. 

Today you may not want to use a preferred pronoun for someone, but one must realize it provides them with happiness. It is more an inconvenient pathway to you but a right to them in achieving their happiness. Since I had been in this fight more than I wanted to be, I sought to divorce myself entirely by rejecting pronouns altogether and being "it."

People must exceed the realm of what is comfortable to them to achieve their happiness. It is happening on many fronts with the "new left" as they continually overplay their hand on any number of issues. But one must realize that gender identity is a current from the underclass and the privileged elites at the same time. 

Now… and here is the point of this whole explanation. Think about the kid in Virginia who identified as female and raped two girls in the female restroom in high school. If the child that allegedly committed the offenses were a minority in the Philadelphia school system, he would have been expelled. I know people get expelled for a lot less. 

How could this child get a chance to commit the offense a second time? Could it be that they do not want to infringe on his sexual identity? Even when confronted with the evidence of the second incident, the School Superintendent denied he knew anything about it. The father who brought it up was arrested for his effort. I am not sure that sexual identity played a role other than the perpetrator of the crime experienced a pronoun change. There should be no "special class" status for deviant sexual predators.

Barry Cassidy is a freelance grant and economic development consultant. He can be reached at barrycassidy@comcast.net.