Many of my conservative friends are lamenting on Facebook this week how our world is becoming more confused about gender and sexuality issues, based mostly on marriage equality and transgender bathroom access. Their general point is that our children are losing their innocence because of the changes that our society is making regarding these issues. They feel that society is declining morally and calling what is evil good. They feel that our culture is out of control and getting everything wrong, because we had it so right in the past.

Or did we?

For hundreds of years, our society thought it was okay to look at people of color as less that human, leading to racism, slavery, hatred, and lynchings. We got that wrong for most of our time as a society, and are still struggling to get it right.

For hundreds of years, our society thought it was okay to look at women as property, leading to patriarchy, sex slavery, inequality, and gamergate. We got that wrong for most of our time as a society, and are still struggling to get it right.

We thought smoking was good for you for a long time, leading to cancer, death, and massive health problems.

We find out every year that the way we have eaten for years is wrong.

We find out every year that the way we teach our kids and ourselves is wrong.

We find out every year that we know less about the universe than we thought we did.

We are finding out that the way many of us sit and work all day is bad for us. That the way we treat our spouses is not healthy for them. That the materials we make our stuff with is killing us. That all kinds of ideas are not helpful but harmful.

And let’s not forget that almost all of these societal constructs we got wrong were adamantly supported by people claiming that the Bible was “clear” about these issues. Oh, and let’s also add in the problems caused by one religious interpretation forcing their beliefs on others, causing witch trials, inquisitions, and holy wars.

So suddenly certain parts of society can claim that what our culture has claimed is “normal” about sexuality and gender for centuries is completely okay, when it has a horrible history of getting so many other things wrong? Pretty much every time that a religious male forced their image as standard on others that were different, we see horrible things resulting: sexism, racism, slavery, religious cleansing, genocide, etc. But let’s also not forget that these men are also heterosexual cis males. What has been the result of the society that heterosexual cis males have created? Bullying, hate crimes, murder, and rising suicide rates among those that are LBGTQA. Have I made the pattern clear yet?

What if we are just now getting sexuality and gender right? What if the “right answers” are not as simple and clear cut as we would like them to be?