Mr. President,

Hello, I’m Jim. I am a straight tenth grader from Maryland, and I know many people part of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender community, better known by the mnemonic phrase LGBT community. I myself, personally, am a straight male, so I am not part of this community, but I know enough people from it to know it’s full of very nice people. That is why I get mad when their rights and freedoms are abused not by them, but by others.

The LGBT Community are people, too, they just like/identify as different people, so their rights should be the same as everyone else. Only 9 million, or about 3.8% of all Americans are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender; 1.7% are lesbian or gay, 1.8% bisexual, and 0.3% trans, to be more precise. If that little, that little, amount of people are gay, lesbian, or trans, why can’t their rights be accepted by everyone? Recently there were two huge events that affected two different aspects of the community: the Orlando Nightclub and the public bathrooms controversy. The Orlando shooting, though it was more ISIS driven, it did shake up the gay part of the LGBT community. That shooting, as of the typing of this, was the deadliest in US history. And a lot the victims were gay. Another incident would be the public bathrooms, and being able to use the bathroom of the gender you identify as. The most notable example: Target stores. Once it was announced that transgender women can use the women’s restroom and vice versa for transgender guys, everyone was outraged. Over what, you ask yourself? Nothing at all. Everyone was flipping out about the fact that “Oh, guys in the girls’ room? NOPE!” they didn’t take into consideration the fact that rapes and pedophilia cases in public restrooms are significantly lower than they believed. Stereotyping, that’s their main issue. Stereotyping like that can only cause more trouble.

Now, for a story. In 8th grade there was a girl, and for the sake of privacy, we’ll call her Alexia. I did not know her then, as she went to a different school than I. All her life she had these weird feeling about herself, but she was too young and didn’t bother with it much. But one day, in that 8th grade she attended, she started to question. Why was she feeling so weird? What was wrong with her? Then it hit her—she was actually he. That’s right, that little 8th grade girl named, for the sake of privacy, Alexia realized she was not she, but he; not Alexia, but Alex; not cisgender, but transgender. Later on, in 9th grade, there was a boy who we’ll call Joe for the sake of his privacy. He was happy, creative, and talented. One class, he met that beautiful girl named Alexia, but Joe didn’t know the truth. The two became friends, and after Joe broke up with his then girlfriend at the time, he asked Alexia, and she said yes. They were happy together, as happy as can be. About a week into their relationship, she told him. Alexia explained how she was not she but he, not Alexia but Alex, not cis but trans. Joe was shocked at first, but he eventually adapted to it, slipping up here and there, but for the most part became fully good with it. But the sad part: only a select few know the truth. Why? With all of the anti-transgender people in the world, he’s a little scared. With the whole bathroom controversy, Alex is now saddened and upset he can’t use the correct bathroom until he transitions (if he even wants to) unless he wants to get made fun of, or hurt, or be even MORE miserable.

There are many ways to fix this, however. You could implement that all LGBTs are treated equally like different races, or we can have “designated areas” for them, or maybe replace most of the men/women’s restrooms with gender neutral, many many things we can do. We need to do this so we don’t discriminate or section off the community, and so we don’t have thousands of needless suicides or hiding “in the closets” because they’re scared to come out because they know they’ll get instantly shot down if they do. That is not right. Imagine for a second, Mr. President, that you are not where you are right now. Imagine you are a teen in the LGBT community. I know you can’t technically choose, but for the sake of an example, you choose what you are, Trans or lesbian/gay. Now imagine, with all of what’s been happening in the world that pertains to who you are (Orlando if you’re gay, the bathrooms and all that if you’re transgender), but all of the fear/controversy is still there. Imagine you being a trans-boy/girl going to Target, and you have to use the restroom, but you’re uncomfortable using your biological gender’s bathroom, so you go into the bathroom of the gender for which you identify as, but when you do, all hell breaks loose, and you get insulted, maybe assaulted, accused of being a pervert or pedophile or rapist, when all you need to do is use the toilet. Imagine how awful you’d feel, how humiliated you’d be, how scared you’d become to be open about it anymore. That is exactly what that beautiful girl named Alexia went through after he said he was Alex, and that’s probably what most other insecure transgender teens feel. Do you honestly think that’s ok? It’s not, which is why you—we—need to change, and fix it before it gets worse, and we could end up extrapolating them from society as “something else.”

Even though I’m not in the LGBT community, you can see I am a pretty strong supporter of them. My uncle is married to a man, my significant other is transgender, so I am well immersed in this community. I am a whole-hearted supporter and believe they are just people, too. They deserve the same respect as any Average-Joe on the street, but they don’t get it. Why? Because they identify as the opposite gender, or are attracted to their own gender, which, to me and many others, is not right and needs to stop immediately.

From, Jim