Frederick Douglass

1411 W St SE
Washington, DC 20020

26th September 2016

His Holiness, Pope Francis

Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City

Dear Pope Francis,

I am writing to you as a black man who knows all too well about
being oppressed and as a religious man who believes in equality for
everyone. I am writing to address a certain controversial issue that
has come up in the United States of America. In the state of North
Carolina, a law has been passed that specifically targets the LGBT
community in the state. The most spoken about topic in the media
about House Bill 2 is in section one of the bill that says that
everyone must use the bathroom that corresponds with the sex on
the person's birth certificate. Governor Pat McCrory states that by
allowing people to only use the bathroom that matches up with the
person's sex on their birth certificate is protecting women and
children from being sexually abused by men who lie about being
transgender just to get in the women's restroom. By enforcing this
law, McCrory is not only making it sound like transgender people
are predators but hes also putting the transgender community in
danger. The bill forces people who have even had a sex change but
havent changed the sex on their birth certificate, to use the
bathroom that doesnt correspond to what they identify as which
will most likely lead to them being attacked. McCrory, however,
states that if the person can prove that they changed their sex on
their birth certificate, they can use the bathroom that corresponds
to what they identify as. This sounds very similar to what the United
States did with African-Americans and what Germany did with
Jewish people by forcing them to show proof that they were free if
they were black or not Jewish if they looked Jewish. Another

similarity between these three are that religion is being bent to

justify their discrimination. Just like how Hitler used God to
persuade Germans to believe that Jewish people were evil and how
slave owners used God to allow them to abuse and even own
slaves, Governor Pat McCrory and supporters of House Bill 2 are
using God to justify the discrimination against transgender
community in the bill he created. I am bringing this to your
attention because you of all people know that God is accepting of
everyone, no matter what gender they identify as and I want you to
help unite the church against House Bill 2. We must not let the rest
of the world believe that the real believers of God and religion
believe in what House Bill 2 has to say. We must unite to prevent
another holocaust against Gods children. We must unite to prevent
the transgender community from being treated like African
Americans were treated by the government and by the people in
the country. We must not let Gods children be oppressed and
purposefully neglected any longer.
Sincerely,

Frederick Douglass