http://www.intraa.org/amanda-simpson/
What wonderful news! Though I strive to appear as progressive as I can, I must say that even while I am delighted with this news I also find myself thinking that he should have waited until his second term to hire her. As credulous as I am, and would never deny being, I had been walking around with confidence that our president would be re-elected. Now? Not so much. I hate to say that I am "proud" America voted a black man into office because I am embarrassed that it was even an issue. BUT we did, and apparently it was a step in the right direction, hearing this over and over gave me a new found faith in our country that I lost when our George Bush was re-elected. That being said- in 2004 I went to college and took Psych 101. Gender identification and gender roles were the topic at hand and the professor asked the class our views on transsexualism, cross dressing, transvestites, ect. YES these were all grouped together (Insane? Yes!, Unheard of? No!). The class was in an immediate uproar with comments such as "That is disgusting", "If god intended for them to be the opposite sex, he would have made them as such", "They should stay the way god made them".
I went home that day shaken up (I will never claim to be anything other than unstable) but with a new outlook on our society. I felt out-casted by myself because I could not relate to these people. I think people are mean and scared to expose themselves to things that they are not familiar with or that someone told them was wrong instead of educating themselves.
While I am happy that we have a person in our highest office who is not easily swayed by the "politics" of popularity, I am sad because I do not have the faith that Americans will look at Amanda's credentials and say "yeah, she was the best person for the job", but they will look at our president and think that he is too far left and be afraid of moving forward.
We are not done patting ourself on the back for voting in a black man to run our country, and American are like an eight year old girl who can only have one friend at a time.
