What the hell was going on 50 years ago that sparked Mr. Rogers to write and sing this little tune??

Yeah, that's what I thought!!!!

Okay. I see no one else wanted to reply. So I will.
what was going on back then is what's going on today. The whole "transgender" thing. Mr. Rogers was pretty much stating that if you are born with a penis, you are a boy. If you are born with a vagina, you are a girl.

If a boy has his penis cut off, and a slit put in its place, then has his body pumped full of female hormones, that will never make him a girl. His DNA will still show male. And if he was to stop taking the female hormones, his body would revert to male. Like lower voice, body hair, breast would get small and so on . "Wanting" to be female doesn't make it so. And of course the same would be for a girl wanting to be a boy.
I do NOT hate transgender people. I think they have problems, but I don't hate them.
God created Adam and Eve. Not Adam and Steve. 
 

Oh good, Alan is back and posting his garbage political views. No one saw that coming.

Sarcasm aside, the reason that nobody has responded to this dumbass thread is that Fred Rodgers was, famously, all about inclusivity. If you could describe his goal or greater purpose in life, it would be best summed up by that singular word.

For context, Fred revised the original lyrics to make it clear his song was not some sort of anthem for anti-trans bigotry. 

Fred went down in history as one of the very few people to employ and encourage homosexuals in his era* - an era in which this sort of thing was career suicide. His costar François Clemmons was both black and gay, in a time when being either meant you were either not allowed on TV or tight-cast in very specific roles.

As it relates to sexuality, in Fred's own words "Well, you know, I must be right smack in the middle. Because I have found women attractive, and I have found men attractive.”

Fred is not the macho hetero binary role model you hope him to be. Is it too much to ask that we stop perverting history for the sake of a cheap gibe?

---

*I'll add the disclaimer that Fred encouraged François to marry a woman and appear straight to be more socially acceptable - in François's own words: 

“Franc, you have talents and gifts that set you apart and above the crowd,” Rogers told him, Clemmons writes in his memoir. “Someone has informed us that you were seen at the local gay bar downtown. Now, I want you to know, Franc, that if you’re gay, it doesn’t matter to me at all. Whatever you say and do is fine with me, but if you’re going to be on the show as an important member of the Neighborhood, you can’t be out as gay.”

Clemmons tells PEOPLE that he began to sob. “I could have his friendship and fatherly love and relationship forever,” Clemmons remembers today. “But I could have the job only if I stayed in the closet.”

He had given Clemmons inspiration and stardom but told him there was a cost. “ ‘You must do this Francois,’ he told me, ‘because it threatens my dream.’ ”

Though it is worth remembering that in the early 1970s, with civil rights barely a few years old and gay rights decades in the future, this was very much the norm.

Another quote:

"Rogers evidently believed Clemmons would tank his career had he come out as a gay man in the late 1960s. But — and this is a crucial point —Rogers later revised his counsel to his younger friend. As countless gays came out more publicly following the Stonewall uprising, Rogers even urged Clemmons to enter into a longterm and stable gay relationship. And he always warmly welcomed Clemmons’ gay friends whenever they visited the television set in Pittsburgh."

Healthy people learn and grow. 

Well, going by what Mr. Rogers sang in the song, I still think it was pretty obvious. 
MY view is not "political". Mine is BIBLICAL. Yes, I'm one of those wack job Bible believers .
And I'm not going to apologize fir that 
God created us male and female.
Tell me how what I wrote was wrong?
Was I  wrong about how WANTING to be a different sex and lopping off your sex organs and filling your body with hormones doesn't make you a different sex? Does it change your DNA? NOPE.
Just because you CHOOSE to accept that it somehow does, does not make it correct. It sure isn't science. 
Hitler CHOSE to believe that Jews and blacks were lower on the evolution  chain and it was ok to kill them to speed up evolution. Because he believed it, was it right?  Oh, and the "god" of evolution, Darwin, believed there were races that were farther down the evolution chain as well.
Was he right, because he believed it?
Yes, I base my beliefs on the word of God. I'd say it's a good foundation.
Transgender isn't science. Biology proves what a male and what a female is. It's a closed case . It's SCIENCE FACT.
You can believe what you want.
I'm just giving reasons why I believe .

earthquake;456922Oh good, Alan is back and posting his garbage political views. No one saw that coming.

Sarcasm aside, the reason that nobody has responded to this dumbass thread is that Fred Rodgers was, famously, all about inclusivity. If you could describe his goal or greater purpose in life, it would be best summed up by that singular word.

Why you gotta make it personal? Just attack the point, not the person. Remember, when there is less others posting, that means more of me. You really want that? Didn't think so.

Cheesey;456924Well, going by what Mr. Rogers sang in the song, I still think it was pretty obvious. 
MY view is not "political". Mine is BIBLICAL. Yes, I'm one of those wack job Bible believers .
And I'm not going to apologize fir that 
God created us male and female.
Tell me how what I wrote was wrong?
Was I  wrong about how WANTING to be a different sex and lopping off your sex organs and filling your body with hormones doesn't make you a different sex? Does it change your DNA? NOPE.
Just because you CHOOSE to accept that it somehow does, does not make it correct. It sure isn't science. 
Hitler CHOSE to believe that Jews and blacks were lower on the evolution  chain and it was ok to kill them to speed up evolution. Because he believed it, was it right?  Oh, and the "god" of evolution, Darwin, believed there were races that were farther down the evolution chain as well.
Was he right, because he believed it?
Yes, I base my beliefs on the word of God. I'd say it's a good foundation.
Transgender isn't science. Biology proves what a male and what a female is. It's a closed case . It's SCIENCE FACT.
You can believe what you want.
I'm just giving reasons why I believe .

I think we only use science when it helps our narrative. It's kind of like stats in that way. We use it when it applies leverage for our angle, otherwise it's poopoo.

Cheesey;456924Well, going by what Mr. Rogers sang in the song, I still think it was pretty obvious. 
MY view is not "political". Mine is BIBLICAL. Yes, I'm one of those wack job Bible believers .
And I'm not going to apologize fir that 
God created us male and female.
Tell me how what I wrote was wrong?
Was I  wrong about how WANTING to be a different sex and lopping off your sex organs and filling your body with hormones doesn't make you a different sex? Does it change your DNA? NOPE.
Just because you CHOOSE to accept that it somehow does, does not make it correct. It sure isn't science. 
Hitler CHOSE to believe that Jews and blacks were lower on the evolution  chain and it was ok to kill them to speed up evolution. Because he believed it, was it right?  Oh, and the "god" of evolution, Darwin, believed there were races that were farther down the evolution chain as well.
Was he right, because he believed it?
Yes, I base my beliefs on the word of God. I'd say it's a good foundation.
Transgender isn't science. Biology proves what a male and what a female is. It's a closed case . It's SCIENCE FACT.
You can believe what you want.
I'm just giving reasons why I believe .

Alan, do you have such a dearth of meaning in your life that you need to get upset at a group of people for simply existing?

It’s a fool’s errand. The path to anger and bigotry will never fulfill you.

Zero2Cool;456925Why you gotta make it personal? Just attack the point, not the person. Remember, when there is less others posting, that means more of me. You really want that? Didn't think so.

Kevin, yes, I would love to see more of your posts about Packers topics. Each one of those has more value than 1000 of Alan's tirades.