I'm not quiet about being trans and participating in the fight for trans rights, so let's talk about college.
Being trans, especially non binary, can actually make it harder to get into college. Some schools genuinely don't recognize non binary as an existing gender and will simply deny the student instead of considering how they should improve their systems. Along with that, single-sex or religious schools especially express that they do not want queer/trans students attending, and I've even personally seen schools that actively denounce or oppose being queer as a whole. This makes it significantly harder for the members of the community who are religious to continue their faith in a religious school.
Even if a trans person does get accepted, safety becomes an issue. According to UCLA's website, in a survey of over 27,000 trans adults, 24% said they were harassed, be it verbally, physically, or sexually. That is horrifying. That is over 6,480 people. These people also face high rates of bullying, even from teachers, who are meant to be authority figures and role models.
Let's add to this lovely stew with debt. It's no secret that college is expensive, that's its own problem. On top of that, though, many trans people have to deal with lack of funding from family that may have disowned them, or the worry that they won't be able to afford HRT or surgery in the future to help alleviate dysphoria. That shouldn't have to be a luxury.
But wait, there's more! According to Lambda Legal, many schools don't acknowledge a student's preferred gender identity. They will be placed in the dorms assigned with their sex from birth, made to use locker rooms they aren't comfortable in, and required to use the restroom assigned to their gender at birth. They make it difficult and sometimes impossible to change your gender on your student ID and in their systems, and some don't even use preferred names, leading to deadnaming from teachers and staff, and by extension, fellow students.
Now, of course, things are better than they used to be. But settling for better never made any progress. Think of it like baking. Your first cookies came out way too salty, so you halved the amount you put in. They're less salty now, sure, but it's still too much salt. Don't settle for 'less salty', keep improving your recipe. We shouldn't have to settle for "at least we have more rights than we did in the 50s". Of course we do. We have better medicine, better women's rights, and better computers too! We shouldn't just settle though. We should keep fighting, we should make it so people in the future can look back and say "we're doing much better than how we were doing in the 2020s". Don't just give up because things are "better".
janainaart
snowghoul
blakekathryn
baratheonpilled
kaledo-art
vaporwave
kianamaiart
jbbartram-illu
turnnoffyourmind
