Just Reality

Like most in our class, I am absolutely shocked that the Daily Trojan would okay a piece like this. There are so many things wrong with it, I really don't know where to begin. I have read through the blog posts and a good amount of the comments on the actual piece, and I don't think there's much left to say, but I am squarely set on the idea that the author is transphobic and failed at hiding it.

I do think she thinks she's progressive or open-minded but none of them could come through her rather ignorant piece. First, this question is a great bother to me: "Does there have to be a specific prohibition against discriminating for “gender identity and expression”? Surely there are larger problems to worry about."

I can't help but think that during the civil rights movement, there were people saying, "Aren't there more things to worry about?" There will ALWAYS be problems in the world to worry about, but they are not always fixable by a government bill. Something like LGBTQ rights perhaps CAN be, so if we have the ability to make the world a better place for anyone, we should take advantage of it. Her disapproval for the government working on providing transgender people more equality under the law, something we are promised in our Constitution is mind-boggling to me.
The author continues, saying, "The truth is, many people might not be comfortable accepting others for their personal decisions." This is true. However, is that a good basis for not giving people rights? As some have brought up, someone may not be comfortable with one's religion, but the law asks everyone to respect each other on those terms, and that is the right thing for our society. For the law to allow us to discriminate people on any basis like sex, religion, race, is to untie all other establishments of toleration.

Starting from this sentence on, "Changing one’s gender is a personal decision in most cases, and people who choose to identify themselves in a different way need to be aware of the effects of such decisions," I don't really understand what the author is saying. She says things like we need protection under the law, but there has to be a law drawn on how much toleration we are asked to show. She says that it's "just reality" that there will be people who won't be willing to accept transgender people. That is also true. But that is precisely why we need a law to protect these individuals and their inherent rights as citizens.
The way she words the article makes it seem that transgender people are choosing to change their gender on a whim, but identifying yourself as transgender is a difficult process and certainly not something many would call a "choice". I just feel like the author should have done some more research and re-thought that she was saying before posting such an article on the Daily Trojan, a representative of our Trojan family as a whole.