”My Amendment” by George Saunders

In a short story written by George Saunders called My Amendment, Saunders talks about his idea of how if you are a feminine man that you should become manlier, and if you are a masculine women that you should become more feminine. George Saunders is a New York Times bestselling American writer for his short stories, essays, novellas and children’s books. Saunders claims “Like any sane person, I am against Same-Sex marriage and in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban it”.

In the beginning of the short story Saunders mentions how he is not a credible source and that this is only his opinion on how marriages should be. He states that if you are having a “Samish-Sex Marriage” then you have some options. One option he proposes is to get a divorce then followed by a remarriage to a more suitable partner. Another option he proposes is one that is “more preferred” which is to repair the current marriage from a Samish-Sex Marriage to a Health Normal Marriage by having the feminine man become more masculine and/or by having the masculine women become more of a feminine women. Obviously it isn’t as easy to change as is it to read about it, but Saunders believes it is possible since he himself had to change in order to keep his own marriage alive and strong with his wife. Every month he would recalculate his manly scale to see that every month he was becoming more and more manly which has helped him help others.

Everyone is entitled to believe their own gender expressions and is not required to believe or follow what Saunders has to say. It is our diversity that makes us strong and mature. Without diversity nothing would change, and without change we wouldn’t be able to grow. We are all different and since we are that means we can learn something new from each and every single person. If we expect everyone to act within a rigid and strict set of gender rules, we are putting a barrier on not only their life but our own. Diversity is good because we learn from it. We build off new ideas and become better people when we rise above and beyond our ignorance we see and learn from the immense world we are surrounded by.