Reading Time: 4 minutes Maybe the troglodytes who beat up Smollett believe the idea implicit in the MAGA slogan—that there was a time when all was well with the world, or at least, close to it. When, to quote “Those Were The Days,” the theme song from All in the Family, “girls were girls and men were men.” If so, Smollett is definitely anathema: an articulate, openly gay man of mixed Jewish and African-American heritage. Once and for all, guys, the genie is out of the bottle (and I do mean, out). It’s too late to turn back the clock. The Supreme Court just upheld the ban on transgender people serving in the military, however, my daughter’s generation is more comfortable with gender-fluidity than mine.

They are the future.