LGBTQ+ problems are a big deal to me, because I have so many friends and I myself am

connected to this community. One of my best friends Jonathan, said that the worst thing for
him was not being accepted by his family and friends, having come from such a religious
background. At first, he had thought it would get better with his family. However, they kept
telling him it was just a phase. After a few months he became accustomed to them denying
who he was.
Jonathan, recently came out to his catholic private school. He wanted to be honest about
who he is, which should be accepted, well not at his school. One day, Jonathan, got told to
by his principal to take off is rainbow flag he had on, for it was making others
uncomfortable. He didnt take it off however, he cant be silenced, and its who he is, and he
left the pin on all day and didnt care. A few days later Jonathan and a few of his friends
decided to make a protest signature sheet, which was the purpose for you should be able to
talk about who you are as a human being. They got over 50 signatures which was their
goal. Until a few days when Jonathan was told to come down to the principals office, when
he got to the room, he was told he may be expelled, for disobeying and not going back in
the closet.
When I was young I heard adults say, be who we are and stand out. Ultimately that is not
true, apparently if you are not exactly that picture perfect child, white, stick skinny, blue
eyes, blonde hair, rich family, amazingly talented, and straight, you are not picture
perfect. One of the worst things is that hate crimes have been around for centuries, it
started with women, then African American, and now LGBTQ+ rights. All my life I have
heard in school, Listen up, because you need to learn this so we dont repeat history. For
wars over land, not over peoples rights.
In school we dont touch on all the hate crimes in our communities, whether its different
race, womens rights, or LGBT rights, we focus on older things so we dont start fighting
with each other on our opinions about different communities. Heres the thing though, we
need to learn to discuss our world as of right now. When we grow old, we wont know what
to say or what to think, because if we do learn anything about our opinions. Its from our
parents who imprinted in our heads to think one thing. Not to have our own opinion on
topics of discussion but on ones they want you to have the same opinions on. Lets start
with one idea, a daughter of a male and female Christian family goes to church just a few
weeks after she is born and continues till the end of her life. She doesnt know any better
than to go to church, because her parents make her think that is the right thing. This
continues on for centurys, passed down from family member to family member.

First, I am not saying that having religion is bad, Im just saying that the way some people
use religion as a way to prove that being any part of the LGBTQ+ community is bad, is
wrong. We all grow up with beliefs. I grew up being told that it is important that to
understand all points of view on life and religion. From there I can then develop my own
point of view and understanding of what my values are. I can then believe in what makes
the most sense to me.
Bullying and abuse happen way too often. Its as simple as that. People decide that
dragging others down will make their lifes better, when in reality it will end up making
them feel bad about themselves.
There

is so many people out there that vote against bullying,

but heres the thing they do it too. Most people
forget that verbally harassing someone is

form of bullying. I thought we are supposed

to make the world a better place and I
thought that parents were supposed to help us

feel

safe in this world. In this graph you can see how

frequently (blue) people speak their mind in a hurtful way.

Well apparently most adults do not make LGBTQ+ feel safe because a lot of times they are
the
a

ones being a bully, and they may forget that they can be
bully too but it happens, all the time. I think what just
makes me hurt the most is we are all
human, every single one of us, and yes this

is

going back to what I said before but, we

cant help being a certain way it comes naturally but

what

we can help is society, the people that are

demeaning and hurtful towards us. And seeing that some teachers, the people that should
inspire us, are demeaning others in such a harmful way, well thats something that can
make me cry.
Verbal and physical harassment of people for their sexual orientation or gender
identifications. I have some statistics, to help me prove how bad it is for the victims of this
abuse. 63.5% felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation, and 43.9% because of their
gender expression. 81.9% were verbally harassed (e.g., called names or threatened) in the
past year because of their sexual orientation, and 63.9% because of their gender
expression. 38.3% were physically harassed (e.g., pushed or shoved) in the past year

because of

their sexual orientation, and 27.1% because of

their gender expression.

In

class we learn about topics of the old

world,

and
about

things that shouldnt repeat themselves. But heres

the

thing, when Im in World History class all I can think about

is how

we are already repeating what happened with rights for

women, and African Americans. We talk about all the things
that have been mostly changed, like equal rights, but we never

in history
fully discuss

it. For most teachers are probably afraid of different opinions that people will have on
LGBTQ+ topics. There is literally a rule in our school about not wearing a jersey to school
because they are afraid that kids will get into a fight about different teams. Heres the thing
though it is so important to talk about LGBTQ+ topics, one because there is so many kids at
our school that probably have no idea what this topic is possibly about and two because it
will help them learn in the long run that yes we all have different opinions but we should
except each others opinions and not hate on them.
Physical

assault does not happen as much as verbal

assault. But that definitely doesnt mean that it doesnt happen at all. 6.2% because
of their sexual orientation, 4.1%
because of gender expression, 2.0%
because of gender, 1.0% because of
religion, 0.8% because of race or
ethnicity, and 0.8% because of disability,
are

frequently harassed. The reason I put

because in front of each thing was because I would hope you would catch on about how
weird it is that someone would hurt someone on purpose just because of this one thing. You
would put someone in the hospital, and mental/physical pain just because of this one thing.
Really? This one thing that is just who they are, you would hurt them.
The thing I hope you take away from this essay about how I would change the world is
something I wish would be so simple but really is hard, is to be nice to one another. We are
all human, we all are different, we all have something about us that is different (which
makes us cool), something that we shouldnt be afraid to share with the world. Because

truthfully why would we want to hide something that sets us apart from everyone else.
Maybe its societys fault, well yes society. Heres the thing, society is all of us, from the
people all the way in Africa, to the people that are traveling around Antarctica, we are all
one whole. So if we want to change the world, we need to get everyone in on it, we need to
use our power as human beings to change some of the bad outlooks on life some people
see. Im , I want to change the world for LGBTQ+.

Citations
Gay, The Experiences Of Lesbian, Bisexual And Transgender Youth, and In Our NationS
Schoo. (n.d.): n. pag. Web.