LGBTQIA+ Rights

Have you ever seen a gay person? Maybe someone you thought was gay by how they acted? Or somebody who identified as non-binary? The community of Pride is everywhere. And Pride people have many rights, but a lot of people, *cough, government, cough, cough, * believe that Pride people shouldn’t be. That males must be males and females must be females, and they can only be attracted to each other. But us people of Pride, we can choose who we are. We don’t need other people’s permission to be who we are. 

A lot of people in Pride struggle with being accepted by people around them, myself included. When I first came out, my father didn’t accept me. He didn’t like how I changed my name, changed to genderfluid, wasn't only interested in men. I was crushed when he refused to call me by my right pronouns and my preferred name. After he didn’t accept me, I thought maybe he was right, that because of him, I should go back to I was for him. But my mom and my teacher convinced me otherwise, and helped me see again that I am not who my father decides I am. (That’s also when I realized when my father and I didn’t have a connection anymore.)  

I learned what my rights are and why I need them. Why everybody deserves to thrive in the place they call home, and why just because we’re different doesn’t mean we get treated poorly. Everybody deserves equal protection, safety, security, and freedom from discrimination no matter what their gender, attraction or skin color is. People accepted women’s rights and people with different skin color’s rights, so people who changed who they are get to be accepted as well. 

Stereotypes are useless. Nobody has to act a certain way based on their gender, skin color, attraction, or anything else. Gay men aren’t always girly, hyper-sexualized, unable to commit to a relationship. Nonbinary people deserve the right to be seen as who they are, not as a freak or someone who can’t just fit in. People of Pride are who they are, not some stereotype that says they are this or that. We deserve the right to be basic or complex, interesting or boring, smart or average, to be free from stereotypes. 

Our president, Donald Trump is part of the people who believe there are only two genders. Just recently, he signed an executive order than the U.S. government would only recognize a person’s gender by the one they were at birth. Just because he’s our president doesn’t mean he’s our boss or our parent. He can’t say ‘no electronics until Monday,’ or ‘no dessert for you, Billy.’ If he tries to put us in jail, okay. I can find some new friends of Pride! Remove us from America? Almost anywhere has better rights than here. I don’t care what Trump says what I can and can’t be! 

Anyway, to conclude. Pride people deserve to be accepted, to be free from stereotypes, to be free from Trump’s unreasonable executive orders. We deserve as many rights as cisgender men, cisgender women, people with different skin colors, anybody who identifies as anything. I learned my rights and that I don’t have to be accepted by anyone, my father or not. I hope whether you are part of Pride or not you’ll feel safe where you are and thrive.