Everyone deserves equal rights. We all know and agree with this. No one would like to be treated lower than others. Especially because of race, religion and sexuality. Being transgender is looked down on, and many transgenders are murdered or commit suicide. A few days ago a news article caught my eye. “Feds: School violated rights of transgender student.” What happened was beyond ridiculous and many found as unfair treatment.  On November 3, 2015, CNN released an article on a transgender student that was denied access to the girl’s locker room. The student identifies as a girl. Despite being identified as a girl, the school still wouldn’t let her into the locker room. 

As word got around about this incident, the U.S. Department of Education told the college campus that if they did not stop discriminating against the girl, they would take away all funding. The government found evidence that the school officials violated a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual identification, and for denying her access to the female locker room.

One example of a transgender woman that killed herself due to people pushing her around is Leelah Alcorn. She was beautiful and had her life ahead of her. Her parents on the other hand, with a whole handful of people, did not support her. Her mother said, “We don’t support that religiously.” If  “religion” keeps you from supporting your own child and their choices, then you don’t deserve such a wonderful child. Leelah posted her suicide note on Tumblr. Many people prayed for her while others made offensive post and talked rubbish about her. Saying it’s a sin to be transgender and saying how it’s good that she killed herself. In her suicide note it says, “The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living because I’m transgender.” While many post are hateful to Leelah for being transgender, many are directed to her parents for not supporting her. I understand that many people find not only Leelah and the girl from Illinois to be boys by birth, but also that being transgender is disgusting and that they are only confused. I have to disagree. We all can agree that bashing someone just because they identify as a different gender than when they were born is not the right action to do. Being ignorant and not accepting someone by his or her personal identification is a problem we face everyday in society.

Many transgender people are murdered for simply living as a transgender. Almost 15 people were killed this year for being transgender. Most murders happen to be transgender women of color. Transgender people have reported to be harassed, physically assaulted and murdered. This risk is high for transgender women of color who have to deal with transphobia as well as racism. In 2014, sixteen of the twenty murdered transgender were of color. This needs to stop and we need to learn to accept others for who they truly are.