This post is approximately 250 words, and today’s topic considers personal beliefs and human compassion.

Nearly 400 years ago, Galileo was forced to recant his statement that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Sometime later, as he stared into sky, and then looked at the ground, he said, “E pur si muove.”

And yet it moves.

He knew he had proven that a long-held belief, going back millennia, was incorrect. He challenged something every person in the world believed. When 350 million people believe something, it is an undeniable fact.

And yet it moves.

I recalled this story today, specifically those four words, when the debate on gender erupted again this morning. I read the words of people parroting science they didn’t understand to defend a belief they had never taken the time to question. I read hateful declarations by the small- and closed-minded. I read selfish protestations from people living comfortably within the embrace of societal acceptance.

Is human gender black and white? Have we already discovered all there is to know about gender and human physiology? I believe the answer to both is no, though it’s a surprisingly more complicated problem to solve than the movement of heavenly bodies, no offense to Galileo.

Perhaps it’s not so difficult a thing to understand, considering people from the Middle Ages were asked to believe that they lived on a planetary orb floating through space around a gigantic fiery ball of gas.

And yet it moves.

Just imagine what we’ll know 400 years from now.

–Michael