> I know they literally can't hear it, but I always have the urge to tell Gen Y and later that for a minute in the mid-late 90's we had this shit mostly, not totally - that'll never happen - but mostly figured out.

I disagree. We didn't have it figured out - it just did not get on many folk's radar because of the differences in network effects prior to the internet. If you were a lonely kid in a farming town who wanted to dress and act like someone from the other biological gender you were shamed or shunned or cut-off. You were the weird one in your town. And that was something that everyone - EVERYONE - else in your town, no matter how empathic or sympathetic, would agree upon.

People who were "odd" just didn't know they could expect a better world. If you were coloured you just sucked up the jokes. If you were gay you hid - or you ran away to places where the network effects were more beneficial. You just dealt with it, and left the normal people to the belief that shit was figured out.

Except for us spectrum types - from about 1997 onwards EVERYONE wanted a piece of us.