Discrimination has always existed in our society. No matter how many attempts we make to repeal it, it always finds an opportunity to keep going. African American people have been the ones who have suffered most from this atrocity rejection. Society used to exclude them for the simple fact of their skin color. The racism and discrimination have always been linked, and those who believe that are superior to the rest are the pioneers to spread them to the world.
Besides, homosexual people were discriminated too in the United Stated and are still discriminated in other parts of the world, by not having the same rights of those who consider themselves normal. However, today’s discrimination is focused in a modest group, which not for that must be considered less important. This is the case of transgender people. For those who do not know what means to be transgender, transgender people are those who gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth.
Transgender people have always been hidden from society. The fear these people suffer from being different does not allow them to live their life with extraordinary normality. In addition, recent laws that have been passed by anti-LGBT states stand as a reminder that discrimination is still alive in society, and transgender people are the ones most affected on this occasion. It is time that society accepts these people how they really are and permit them to interact freely without judgment based on the gender identity they identify as.
Over the past months, a controversy has been unleashed in the country by anti-LGBT laws in North Carolina, which seems to be discriminatory against transgender people. On April 1 would go into effect an ordinance passed by Charlotte, N. C that would protect LGBT people in public accommodations. Specifically, this ordinance would allow transgender people to use the bathroom based on the gender identity they identify as.
However, before the ordinance went into effect, the North Carolina Assembly passed a bill called “House Bill 2” that would set religion, color, national origin, age, handicap and biological sex as the classes protected against discrimination. Therefore, transgender people will not be granted of protection in public accommodations, which means that they cannot use the bathroom according to its gender identity (Foley). LGBT activists have risen against it, claiming that this law is discriminatory. The Obama Administration had also joined and supported this claim.
The Obama Administration, supported by the U. S Department of Education, has sent letters to public schools expressing that students must be allowed to use the bathrooms and locker rooms based on the gender identity they identify as. In consequence, if a public school is found to be discriminatory, the school will face the loss of financial funds due to the violation of title IX, which protects students from discrimination based on sex. Society is always trying to isolate minor groups of people that share different interest and have uncommon personalities.
Transgender people can be identify as a member of these groups due to the simple fact that they act, as they are not supposed to according to their physical appearance. It is not fair for these people to be judged and excluded from the society because they were born in the wrong body. To be more accurate, what I mean by “born in the wrong body” is that those people did not chose to be born that way. Rules in society are implemented to be performed under the same pattern; men must do activities that match with their gender.
By doing so, they fulfill the role that they have as men in our society. Likewise, women must do the same as well. They must do feminine activities, and when they do not do so, other people will start to judge them harshly. That is why transgender people are being rejected. They started to set a patron of doing things that are seeing as abnormal by what it is our mainstream society, the heterosexual people. One of things they started to do, and caused many rejection and repulsion feelings towards them, was the need they feel to enter the restroom in which they feel identified to.
As they feel they need to engage the behaviors of the other gender, transgender people started to think that it was appropriate, since they feel like the opposite gender than they physically are, they feel uncomfortable entering to a restroom that it is not appropriate for them. As a normal person would feel ashamed entering, even by mistake, the other gender’s restroom, Transgender people suffer with that everyday they want to use a public restroom. In this close-minded society, it is not well seen catching a men entering the women’s restroom and vice versa.
Transgender people are still seeing as what they physically are, not by what they truly feel they are. Consequentially, people even started to report to the police when they encounter a transgender in their respective restrooms. People do not feel affected and excluded for problems in where they are not involved. We do not even think about how the person could be felt when we take decisions that affect their lives in an indirect way. In this case, the only faction that is affected by these discriminatory decisions is transgender people.
For them, the fact that they cannot use the bathroom based on their gender identity represent another reminder that society does not integrate those who are different from the rest. They are obliged to live in a world that does not accept them how they are. Even with the family, transgender people are evicted from their home due to the lack of comprehension and acceptance from their parents, and the majority of them remain homeless in the years to come.
On the other hand, depression, low self-esteem, and discriminatory issues tend to be added to the causes why these people commit suicide. According to Danielle Paquette, “forty-one percent of transgender people had attempted suicide, compared with one percent of the general population. ” (Paquette). This sample shows the only solution a big portion of transgender people finds to end the suffering that society has given them for not being normal. Society always creates a problem as an excuse to restrain the freedom of those who implore it.
In this case, anti-LGBT groups argument that allowing transgender people to use the bathroom that matches with their gender identity will permit sexual predators to sneak into the woman’s bathrooms and therefore commit their crimes. Even though it sounds coherent, the truth is that this anti-LGBT argument is based on a myth. According to German Lopez, over the 12 states and 17 school districts that protect transgender people, none of them has reported any public safety issues since the anti-discrimination laws were enacted (Lopez).
Therefore, this argument is only trying to create fear among the society without historical evidence to support it. This kind of myth is what creates and maintain alive discrimination in the society. In conclusion, transgender people must be allowed to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity because they must be accepted by how they really are and not from their appearance. Besides, the high rejection they often suffer tends to cause them to live with high level of depression and anxiety that in most of the cases induce them to commit suicide.
Lastly, while others argue to ban the transgender people of entering the restroom they feel identified with, because it could be dangerous for those who are considered normal and are using their respective restroom. The acceptance of allowing them to use the bathroom does not incentive an increment of sexual assault, which stands as the argument anti-LGBT groups support to continue creating discrimination in society. Society reacts with disgust when facing anything that is unknown towards them, and that have been tangible over the past of the years with many different situations.
Transgender are misunderstood by society because they represent something that is unknown by them. They represent something that breaks the boundaries of what is normal for the mainstream society, which ends representing a problem for them because they usually do not think out of the box. As someone said once the every head is a world, I personally think that each person should be able to do with his or her world what he or she like the most. We said that we live in a free country, but those who judge so harsh other people should ask themselves, is this truly a free world?
Those who are different: transgender, gays, lesbians, etc. They clearly do not leave in a free world. All of them are judged and excluded by society every day. So, if we aim for peace and union in the world, why not start by a single step as simple of accepting others life’s choices without judging them? We must accept what others want to do with their life’s, and most important understand that every head is a different world, which means, nobody is going to see the same consequences to an act. Being transgender doesn’t mean that you stopped being human; they have rights too, and we should treat them like every other person.
