You know, I first read this celebrated short story when I was a closeted gay teenager in high school a very long time ago.

I was closeted because my community, including my church, were reflexively opposed to my innate sexuality. My church had not yet tried to send me to a conversion therapy camp, but that would what happened soon. I would be ostracized soon after I refused to go.

It was interesting to me how different my reaction to The Lottery was from so some other students's reactions.

In fact, I wrote a paper about the dangers of tradition and traditionalism — particularly religious superstitions, which I argued were centered in the story without being explicitly mentioned. My teacher gave the paper good mark and asked me to read it aloud.

But when I finished, she and much of the rest of the class debated with me about how my point of view was perhaps missing Jackson's actual points.

Maybe. But then, I didn't read the story to try to understand how Jackson thought. I read it as fiction that can reflect my experiences in my society.

And when I read the headlines today about gay and transgender teenagers being mistreated at school or suffering random street violence, I think about The Lottery and unthinking societal superstitions.