A story for Pride month

When Fairy Goddaughter was about to turn 5, her parents mentioned to me that they wanted to introduce her to social issues (but hadn't gotten as far as deciding which issues).
So when I was buying her 5th birthday present, I took this vague instruction to Mabel's Fables, where the awesome employees cheerfully recommended a wide range of age-appropriate books on a wide range of social issues, some of which had LGBTQ+ characters and/or themes.

Which, of course, is completely unremarkable in 2016 (the year this story takes place).

Which, in turn, is awesome!

Within my lifetime, children's books with LGBTQ+ themes and characters have been non-existent, and, once they came into existence, have been radical.  Now they're just sitting there on the shelf unremarkably.

On top of that, I'm an unmarried, childless adult buying books for someone else's child.  (All of which the employees knew or could conclude - the fact that it's someone else's child came up in conversation, the fact that I'm childless is apparent from the way I talk about kids, and the fact that I'm unmarried is extrapolable from my lack of rings.)

Within my lifetime, it would have been seen as questionable for an unmarried, childless adult to buy books with LGBTQ+ themes for someone else's child (especially with the child being the same sex as the unmarried, childless adult).  But now, it's just one among many valid options.

And on top of that, I don't come across as woke at all! (Even less so in person than online.)  I'm an conservatively-dressed white woman of below-average coolness, with my chronological age and rejection of current trends combining to make me come across as middle-aged to people who for whom leggings have been a valid fashion choice their entire adult life.

Within my lifetime, there have been periods of time where LGBTQ+ themes were safe among woke people, but it isn't safe to assume the frumpy middle-aged white lady won't get all offended and complain to the manager and start a boycott of your business.  But now, we're in a place where the baseline assumption is that even non-woke frumpy middle-aged ladies will see LGBTQ+ themes as benign.

My teenage self could not have imagined a context where an innocent shopping trip for a 5th birthday present leads to a recommendation of LGBTQ+ books, and this is seen as benign and unremarkable by all parties.

For my 30-something self, it was so benign and unremarkable that it went unnoticed in the moment, as I admired the age-appropriate descriptiveness of the refugee experience in one book, and then squeed over the idea of introducing Fairy Goddaughter to another book that was an old childhood favourite.

Progress!