Dear Madam President,

My name is Terrace and I’m from Baltimore, Maryland. Right now I’m writing to you about discrimination of sexual orientation in our country. More than one third of LGBT employees feel compelled to lie about their personal lives at work. I feel like people in the LGBT community should not have to hide their personal lives in order to feel comfortable in the workplace. Fewer than one in five LGBT workers in the U.S. (18 percent) agree with the statement “This is a workplace entirely free from homophobia”. This is very sad because people that a in the LGBT community are still humans and they shouldn’t have to feel like the place that they are at for at least 8 hours a day for at least 5 days a week. That’s approximately 251 days of feeling like you have to hide who you are because of what you fear other people will feel about you.

In my opinion I feel as though it shouldn’t be a problem with the lgbt in ALL U.S states. According to www.aclu.org/map/non-discrimination-laws-state-state-information-map only 16 out of all 50 states in the United States of America have sexual orientation laws in the state. I feel as though this is not fair knowing that depending on the states that I go to there is possibility that I may get discriminated against just because of my sexual orientation. If the America was really united we would have a law in EVERY states instead of just 15 states. How can I feel free in a country that won’t allow me to be who I am without feeling insecure because of certain people not knowing how my sexual orientation will affect them. So if you really want the support from the lgbt community please find more ways to make us equal with other communities if our country is, REALLY, united.