In the article, Salama asks, "Does there really have to be a specific prohibition against discriminating for 'gender identity and expression'?", and my answer to that question is yes, there really needs to be a law that gives and protects the rights of transgender people. If there weren't a law passed for people of colored skin and a race other than Caucasian to have equal rights, or for females to have the same rights as males, who knows if we would be where we are right now? Did there really have to be a specific prohibition against discriminating for gender and race? Yes, we needed those laws because without them, people of different races and women in general would not have been given the same rights as Caucasian males.
Also, Salama states that, "many people might not be comfortable accepting others for their personal decisions", and yes, this may be true. Everyone has the right to their own opinions, but it's another story when you try to force your opinion onto other people. For the people who are uncomfortable accepting that there are transgender people in the world, well it's not you who are transgender. It's not you that will be marking the transgender box, so why does it matter to you? It's the rights of the transgender people that are being discussed. We are talking about their lives, not yours. It was their choice to make, and I believe that it should be respected as much as it is respected that many people choose to keep their biological sex.
And lastly, in response to Salama's statement that "in an ideal world, everybody gets along and there's no such thing as discrimination," well, the world we live in is not an ideal world. There is discrimination present and people are getting hurt by it every day. And because we do not live in an ideal world, that is why we need to pass such laws to protect our rights whether it be as a woman, as a minority race, or as a transgender.
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