i'm sorry it's that complicated

 This came up in one of my feeds:

...The field that grew out of this posture argued that there was nothing simple or straightforward about the way we consume a text. It’s always a negotiation, always more complicated than anyone on the outside might assume.

The problem, then, is that some people don’t want things to be complicated. They don’t want to hear people talk about why they like things, because if they listen long enough, it will challenge neat understanding of things that are “good” and “bad” — especially when it comes to children, or teens, or women. Those groups of people aren’t often trusted to know themselves well enough to articulate why something matters. Or, when they do, we simply don’t believe them.

I'm resisting the urge here to be sarcastic about the need to listen to children, teens, and women, because, as a male white Anglo-Saxon (used to be) Protestant, people too often take me seriously when I sarcastically downplay the rights of anybody who's not white, Anglo-Saxon, and male. (I'm an out-of-the-closet atheist, so people generally know when I'm getting ironic about religious idiots [not all religious people are idiots]).

I have family members who want to get back to what they consider the good old days, when there were only two sexes, and when everybody knew their place. Well, I'm sorry the world is more complicated than you think it is. I'm sorry that what you thought was promised to you because of accidents of birth is not materializing. I'm sorry that people who once hid in the shadows, who once ate only your parents' castoffs, are now demanding rights.

The world has changed. Catch up, or be lost. If you try to hold on to the corpse of the dead past, you will be defiled.

I don't know the original citation of the quote; I got it here.