Dear Mr(s). President,

We have been developing amazing new technologies. New cars, new phones, new everything. We have been reinventing genius things to make them more and more safe for the public, but we haven’t been making the people safe. At least not all of them. The LGBTQ+ community are experiencing more and more hate crimes all over the world. Especially the transgender people. There are bathroom laws, religious hate crimes, and many hate crimes against coloured transgender people keeping the community unsafe. We need to keep the people safe by enforcing protection laws for the transgender community.

Have you heard of the saying, “All people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”? I sure hope so because it’s written in the Constitution. Notice how it says, “...the pursuit of happiness”? This means that everybody has the right to be happy and nobody can or should take that away from you. Hate crimes against transgenders, religious or not, take away that right. Transgender people deserve these unalienable rights because they are still people. These people that were once miserable and depressed in their old skin, but happy and comfortable in their new one. These hate crimes are unconstitutional.

In 2015, at least 21 trans women were murdered; 19 of them were women of color. According to self-reported data, transgender people are four times as likely to be poor compared with the general population . Twenty-two percent of trans women report experiencing domestic violence at home. These women also often face poor treatment and even sexual violence when they access supportive services like shelters. This is on top of the everyday exclusion transgender people experience, including the controversial “bathroom bills” that require people to use the bathroom that aligns with the gender they were assigned at birth, not the gender with which they

identify. Transgender people have to live in fear. They have to live, praying, that they won’t be the next victim of rape, or murder, or cruelty. If these transgender people weren’t transgender, would you still hate them? Would you still treat them with such malice? Transgender people are still people. They are now happy, amazing people that are comfortable in their own skin. Treat them like you would another.

However, some people believe that God created us to be the gender we were born with. He believes that we have a purpose to reproduce and live our lives as one single gender. Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that God wants us to hate and be so cruel to each other that we start another war? Or do you believe that God wants peace among man? Which one sounds more reasonable? God created us for us to be happy. Not to be hated on and be killed. God wants man to live life to the fullest and accept people for who they are.

Being transgender shouldn’t affect how you live. You should never start a war of hate crimes just because you don’t like difference. You should never start a war of hate crimes because you think God believes that being gay, bisexual, transgender, or any other sexuality is a sin. You should never hate. We need to enforce protection for the LGBTQ+ community so we can keep everybody safe. Everybody is equal. If the transgender community is comfortable out in public and in their own skin, we have succeeded. Please enforce a law to keep everybody safe and happy. Everyone deserves it.

Respectfully,        Jillian F.