In the 21st century, self-identification has become a huge part of our culture. Everyone identifies as something. Imagine having someone tell you that you can’t identify as yourself and how that would impact you.

The LBGTQ community has always been a minority. Being a minority group, members are potentially subject to ridicule. A blaring form of ridicule toward people who identify as transgender comes from the government.

The Trump Administration wants to eradicate the term transgender. According to a recent memo from the Department of Health, a person’s gender should be defined by the genitalia they were born with. During former President Obama’s term, the definition of gender was loosened to an individual’s choice. 

On March 29, 2017, a bill relating to the act of Human Rights stated, “A person’s sex is either male or female as biologically defined.”

By trying to eliminate transgender people, it affects society as a whole. Our rights as human beings are being threatened by the possibility of a part of society being erased.

Understanding that concept, the possibility of being erased isn’t limited to transgender people. Any minority can be targeted.

Being born into a body that you don’t feel comfortable in is difficult. Knowing that you can go through the process of changing your gender acts as a comfort or solution. The possibility of the administration going through with the eradication removes that comfort or solution. At that point, the people in that situation are basically left feeling trapped.

“This has been the best thing that I’ve ever done for myself,” Nick Girard, a female to male transgender individual, said.

Going back to the beginning of history, it has been said that all men were created to be equal. All men being created equal means that we should all share equal rights. There has always been and probably always will be discrimination of some sort though. Just because someone doesn’t feel comfortable in the body that they were born into, doesn’t make them any less of a human being.

Discrimination has often been addressed toward people of different skin tone. Back then, people were treated unfairly to the point of being considered less than a human being.  However, they continued to fight to earn their rights to be treated as equals.

In today’s society, discrimination is still a recurring issue. The only difference is, a different group of society is being targeted based on self-identification. No matter what color your skin is, what your sexual orientation is, or what gender you want to define yourself as, that shouldn’t cause yourself to be considered inhuman.

Growing up, people would always preach that you should just be yourself and be happy with who you are. If that is the case, then why do people get shamed for being different? The government has no right to rip away the rights of any individual who is trying to make the best out of their situation.

The Declaration of Independence even declares that humans are entitled to the right of the pursuit of happiness. When someone has to go about their everyday life trying to pretend that they’re someone that they’re not, it seems a lot harder to pursue. No one wants to live a life where they can’t be who they are. With freedom of expression, people should be allowed to express themselves how they want to.

“You feel like God made a mistake or that you must’ve done something to deserve to be living pretty much on a different spectrum than anyone else,” Girard said.