Dear Future President,

I’m writing to discuss the growing issue of discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. In recent years teens and adults have been more open about their sexuality. They also have more rights than ever before. While some people have been supportive others have been lashing out in vicious attacks. The discrimination on LGBTQ+ needs to be stopped.

The recent attack on Orlando has been the biggest attack on the LGBTQ+ community in history of the United States. It left devastating effects on their community. Forty-nine people, with their ages ranging from 18 years old to 50 years old, lost their lives on that day. Each one of those victims had a life and a family, and each one of those families is morning the loss of their child, their parent, or partner. Hate crimes like this happens all around the world, but some are so small that no one knows about them. What we needed was a wakeup call, and this did just that, people are now seeing oppression-taking place everywhere, even in the littlest of places.

LGBTQ+ students who reported that they were harassed in school had lower grade point averages than others who were not. One survey revealed that more than one-third stated that they missed an entire day of school because they didn’t feel safe. Schools should have a safe learning environment where kids don’t have to dread waking up and be harassed daily for something they can’t control. Students repetitively go to the school board about it and yet some do little to nothing about it. This goes to show how much our schools don’t care and yet they claim that they do. What we need in our school systems is a safe haven for LGBTQ+ students. In my school, we have this thing called The Fellowship of Christian Athletes it is a club where kids who are in the Christian faith can gather, talk about their religion, and grow in faith. What we need in our school systems is a place where LGBTQ+ students can go and just feel safe, and not feel so alone.

In my experience, I hear on a daily basis derogatory remarks about the LGBTQ+ community. Sometimes what they say is a joke to make fun of their friends but sometimes those jokes can be taken way too far. Just going down the hallway and hearing those remarks can really hurt someone who hears it constantly. The LGBTQ+ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide or have suicidal thoughts than the general population, and three times more likely to have major depression or anxiety. What we can do to prevent it is where we can have a class or maybe even a seminar about learning about LGBTQ+ and the oppression that they have to deal with on a daily basis, it can also decrease the amount of bullying in our school systems. Some people need to be educated on LGBTQ+ community because what they know is passed on from their parents, and sometimes those views can be biased.

As one can see from the information above, this is a growing issue in America. We claim to be this all-welcoming country but in actuality, we have many issues that need to be addressed. This is just scraping the surface on what we need to fix in our society. We need to find a way to integrate learning about LGBTQ+ into our school systems; I suggest we start to introduce LGBTQ+ in middle school and build on it as kids get older and move up grade levels. 

Yours sincerely, Willow