Declaration Project

Gender is not a choice, and it’s not something that can be decided by someone else for you.  Gender is your own personal identity, and all people are equal, right?  Then why are trans people not included in this idea?  Why can a trans woman not use the bathroom that she identifies with?  She is just like all other women who enter said bathroom.  The sex  of the genitalia between your legs do not define your gender, your gender defines the sex of your genitalia.

Many states do not define murders of trans people as hate crimes, so of the 21 trans murders that happened in the first TWO months of 2016 none of them were prosecuted as hate crimes!

The presence of trans people in learning environments is not even disused.  You are unlikely to be faced with the concept that you might be trans until you are already in high school where peer pressure is so substantial that many try to rationalize with themselves or ignore it so much it can send them into a deep depression or something more substantial that will take therapy later in life to begin to undo.

Speaking of which trans people are often the butt of a joke.  How many times have you seen in some type of comedy movie a man dressed in traditionally feminine attire, and the entire theater bursts out in laughs.  Can you think about how it might feel for someone going through the same thing or relating to hear that type of response from dozens of people?  And if a man wears makeup he is called something along the lines of “faggot” or “gay”.

Even the most basic of human rights are not given to trans people.  They frequently are called by the wrong pronouns, and are told that they “are going through a phase” or “are just looking for attention”.  Who would want that type of attention?  Who would want that constant fear that while they walk down the street they may, at any time, get brutally beat or even murdered.

My declaration is to stop the views of trans people or gender non conforming as something other than equal to everyone else, to treat them as I wish to be treated, and to be the best me I can be while encouraging them to be the best them they can be!

— Connor Ramshaw, Mt. Shasta, CA