Welcome to my Hail Mary! My name is Jack, and I'm writing this for thousands of people I've never met because I am today years old when enough was enough.
I've always seen "Anyone can write for Bored Panda!" at the bottom of their articles, so here goes. Hopefully this works. Do me a solid, please take 1 min and read to the bottom.
The bills being introduced against the transgender community here in the United States are simply out of control. Several states are introducing and passing new bills aimed specifically against gender-affirming care daily. Many of which are expanding the age to deny care to those under 26 years of age. (Yes, WELL beyond the legal age of adulthood: 18.)
Matt Sharp, with the Alliance Defending Freedom believes transgender patients should be getting mental health treatments like "psychotherapy", instead of gender-affirming care. I'm sorry, WHAT?
Oklahoma and Florida are both set to pass bills that not only bans care for those under 18, but will prohibit health care coverage for any gender-affirming or gender-transition care for ANYONE, regardless of age. With Florida going the extra step by adding an additional restriction for transgender adults by making them submit a written consent form every time they have an appointment to their provider.
This has gone beyond the scope of anything resembling the United States of America. These people are human beings and they are being stripped of the unalienable rights afforded to them by the United States Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
So, if you're 'today years old' when you decided enough is enough, please write, email, call, or visit your district representative for your state legislature, as well as your U.S. congressmen/women.
These bills are being passed effortlessly in Republican legislatures. (That's not an intentionally political statement. It's a statement of fact. There's literally not 1 Democrat controlled state legislature passing any of these unconscionable bills.) They are not being put on any ballot, the people are not voting on them, but the YOU the people can still influence your legislative representatives before it's too late.
This community has done nothing to deserve this. We cannot let these bills take away their dignity, and that's exactly what these bills are meant to do. They're meant to shame them and expose them when they've done NOTHING wrong.
Their only 'crime', is wanting to be happy. In fact, most don't advertise they're trans. The whole purpose of their journey is to be seen in our eyes the way they've always seen themselves- either as a man, or as a woman. It literally defeats the purpose of the hormones if everyday they have to explain themselves. So forcing a big, ripped bodybuilder looking man with no breasts to use the women's restroom or face jail and a 10k fine (that's the bill that's set to pass here in Florida- it will soon be illegal to use any public bathroom of the sex you identify as), is not only going to be humiliating for him, but dangerous! Because now he's got a target on his back. For WHAT?! How can that level of humiliation possibly be allowed here in America?
I could go on and on, but I'm asking you to please, please look up what your own State is passing. Do you OWN research on any numbers supporters of the bills are relying on as "evidence", and remember... There's a good chance you've already met dozens of trans people in passing. Restaurants, banks, and yes, the bathroom. If you think you haven't, that's exactly what they want you to think. So why punish and humiliate people who've finally achieved what they've always wanted? For YOU to see them on the outside the way they've always felt on the inside.
Fingers crossed, I hope this works...
-Jack
This post may include affiliate links.
If anyone has any other ideas, I made a new email address in case anyone wants to drop me a line. clemsonandclover@gmail.com
Yes, I'm a real person. No, I'm not an a$$hole. No, this isn't clickbait. No, I won't try and sell you Herbalife. No, I am not an African prince who's gonna ask you for money. No, I am not on tinder, and yes, I know it's crazy to put my email on a public sight. Don't care about that. I'm in northern Florida, and if by the grace of the universe this makes it out into cyber space and you wanna help brainstorm, that'd be awesome.
Thank you for being a decent person and being ready to do something when you see things that are wrong.
The worries about transgender people are a part of an even bigger problem, that legislation is going backwards, with denying rights and human needs that were fought for for many decades (and longer). Let's deny people from being their true selves, if they are a little different from the majority. Let's force women (and children!) to give birth to children they can't take care of/don't want/were the result of violence/are danger to their health. But at the same time, let's make it even easier to buy and carry guns, and let's raise the prices of food and homes, while keeping the minimum wage at the same amount it was decades ago (without counting inflation), and let's see how close we get to slavery without being called out for slavery...
But yeah, back to the subject of the post. I'll just share one of my encounters with transgender people. (Myself being cis female, if that matters.)
At my job as an MD, I had a young adult male patient with symptoms and findings of urinary tract infection. I was already planning the antibiotic treatment (longer for men than women because prostate etc.) and finding the causes of the infection (much rarer in men, if not elderly), when he remembered to point out that he is biologically female, with "lady parts" still down there. So he got the more simple and shorter medication and no need for more tests, and was fine.
Instances like that are (in my opinion) one of the very few cases when a person's biological gender is relevant, the other one being choosing a sexual partner (matters for some, doesn't matter for some).
Cry about it.
Oh, hey man! I was wondering when the next time I'd see you pop up would be. 😁 I'm still on the lookout for some of those Revolutionary war artifacts we talked about a while back... But I'm still looking. 🤞 Hey, your lawyer still thinking you should take a plea for your Jan 6th trial? Man... I don't know... Public sentiment is just gone for that whole message. The intolerance and the büllsh!t, the whole 'conspiracy' and hateful rhetoric? We're just over it. We want to move on. If I were you I'd take the plea. I hear federal facilities are a lot better than state facilities, so that's something. 👍 But hey, you might be the one person acquitted!
