Anne goes out with her girlfriends almost every Saturday, but last Saturday Anne was making out with a guy she had never met before. He started touching her but before she could push his hand away, he felt something he thought shouldn’t be on the body of a woman. Furious and disgusted with Anne he took her out to the empty car park and beat her then left.
Anne is transgender. In 2015 countless women and men who are openly transgender have either been murdered, raped, abused or committed suicide. The majority of them had not had the chance to see thirty. What message does this send to the youth? Of course you can’t expect seven billion people to accept the fact that being transgender exists because we don’t live in a perfect world, but we should be able to expect people not to abuse, murder or rape transgender youth and young adults.
Transgender youth are often abused (physically and mentally) by parents and family members who do not accept or understand them being transgender because the relatives believe everyone should accept the gender and body that they are born with. If the child’s family are religious parents may tell their child that not being happy with their body and wanting to change the lord’s creation is to sin against God. Some parents will even go to the extent of putting their child into religious counselling or sometimes even the more extreme religious or fundamentalist parents would have their child undergo an exorcism.
Religious counselling is when priests, ministers etc. talk to the child about how changing their body would not only be a sin against God, but would be humiliating for their parents and family name. Most of them suggest that by being more involved within the church you will be able to recognize that you were only confused and you didn’t understand what you were saying. This has happened to young teenagers all around the world. Sadly many religious transgender teens have committed suicide due to overwhelming feelings of guilt and their inability to see a solution to their predicament. .
Hormonal changes play a key role for transgender people. Doctors suggest that the hormone medication is to be taken at a young age. It goes to show the beginning of the transition from being a boy/girl to girl/boy is more than a few snips and tucks. Trans-phobic parents will not allow the child to go through with fully transitioning. A mother of a transgender child who committed suicide told reporters “We don’t support that, religiously, but we told him that we loved him unconditionally.” The messages their child are receiving from this is “If you won’t allow me to have prescriptions for my transition I will find a way to transition on my own.” From research I have found many transgender teens say this to their parents and run away to find a way to transition by themselves. Not only is this dangerous, but creates a barrier between the child and parents. Though a lot of parents do accept their child being transgender and allowing their children to choose their own path which they want to follow and feel comfortable with.
Hormonal changes play a key role for transgender people. Doctors highly suggest that the hormone medication is to be taken at a young age. It goes to show the beginning of the transition from being a boy/girl to girl/boy is more than a few snips and tucks. Trans-phobic parents will not allow the child to go through with fully transitioning. A mother of a transgender child who committed suicide told reporters “We don’t support that, religiously, but we told him that we loved him unconditionally.” The messages their child are receiving from this is “If you won’t allow me to have prescriptions for my transition I will find a way to transition on my own.” From research I have found many transgender teens say this to their parents and run away to find a way to transition by themselves. Not only is this dangerous, but creates a barrier between the child and parents. Though a lot of parents do accept their child being transgender and allowing their children to choose their own path which they want to follow and feel comfortable with.
Of course, being transgender comes with struggles, but it can be hard for the bystanders, family members and friends, many people forget to include them in the matter. Parents and relatives also have struggled when finding out someone they love is transgender. Grandparents tend to find it harder than the parent because they find it harder to accept and understand how being transgender isn’t a little kid being a “Tomboy” or “Metro.” Some parents struggle with their child’s choice of preferred pronouns and choose to call their child by their birth name nouns. Buying new clothes and hormones just adds to the discomfort for parents because it makes the parents realize that their child is changing into someone they don’t want or struggle to understand.
Other struggles parents face is the high percentage of attempts of suicide, 46% of transgender Males attempt to kill themselves and 42% transgender Females also attempt suicide. This is because they do not want to be surrounded by hate and body imprisonment anymore. Leelah Alcorn (a transgender female.) Aged 17 left in her suicide note pleading society to “fix itself. Don’t let me become a number in another statistic.” She also blamed her parents for her suicide and depression. No parent wants to think of themselves being the cause of their child attempting to commit suicide. It all comes down to how we are raised and what we are willing to learn and open our minds to.
- A mother of a transgender boy who was raised in the church, to believe in God and have faith that we are put in our bodies because God made us that way and we shouldn’t want to change one of God’s miracle’s. Trying to change the mind of this women would be as disrespectful as trying to change the mind of a transgender child.
It is one thing to be looked at and treated differently at home or at work, but when you are a teenager you want school to go as smooth as possible because school is hard enough as it is without the added pressure of checking if your binding is coming undone/showing or other things that young transgender teens face on a daily basis. Of course, anyone from the age of 13 to 18 is worrying about their own little problems the topic of being transgender has received a brighter spotlight than before when it was a hushed topic because of this spotlight more young people are aware and not afraid to voice their own opinions about the matter.
Wellington High School is a very open school that is accepting of most things about students, I wanted to see how open minded students were about transgender people, if wellington high school bathrooms should be open preference and if they believed in equal rights to do this, I sent out a short survey for students to complete. The results that were received from the survey showed that 154 students out of 161 gave positive feedback about their feelings and thoughts towards transgender people. When I asked about if students believed in equal rights the positive results were also high with 158 students. The only results that didn’t show similar results was if the school were to have open preference bathrooms, 124 students said they thought it was good, 18 had a negative view and 24 were not sure if they would like to have open preference bathrooms. These results are only a fraction of the students that attend Wellington High School.
It was very interesting reading what students had to say about everything asked them, one response that stood out was “Might as well be asking me what are your views on people There is no difference.” This wasn’t the only answer that stood out, the survey not only showed what was going on in the student’s minds but also the diversity and openness that Wellington High is known for and that students should be proud of.
People, no matter what age, look at transphobic people think they don’t understand and are some of the cruelest people on earth, but really both transgender and transphobic people don’t understand each other. Everyone on earth has an opinion and a right to state that opinion and sometimes people just don’t like what they’re hearing.
Wellington High School is a very open school that is accepting of most things about students, I wanted to see how open minded students were about transgender people, if wellington high school bathrooms should be open preference and if they believed in equal rights to do this, I sent out a short survey for students to complete. The results that were received from the survey showed that 154 students out of 161 gave positive feedback about their feelings and thoughts towards transgender people. When I asked about if students believed in equal rights the positive results were also high with 158 students. The only results that didn’t show similar results was if the school were to have open preference bathrooms, 124 students said they thought it was good, 18 had a negative view and 24 were not sure if they would like to have open preference bathrooms. These results are only a fraction of the students that attend Wellington High School.