Transgender Rights and Issues
Transgender people have faced issues for decades. From lack of acceptance from peers to straight out murders, trans issues are a big deal. Almost daily, transgender people face discrimination for not being their gender assigned at birth. Doctors choose the gender of a baby based off genitalia, which is sometimes inaccurate. While a good amount of the population is cisgender, where your gender corresponds with that assigned at birth, transgender people are a minority. With being a minority, comes fear and discrimination from the majority.
Suicides, murders and violence against transgender people have been more common than most people think. Almost 80% of transgender people in Ontario have considered suicide …show more content…
74% of Canadian trans youth face verbal harassment in school, and 37% experience physical violence. Parents or caretakers with heavily religious beliefs can play a role in discrimination as well by refusing to accept their children because of their beliefs. Conversion therapy can be used by parents to “change” the gender or sexuality of their child. This is banned in Ontario, but in other provinces and territories legal. Being unaccepted at school and home can have an emotional toll on trans people and youth. It can spike depression, anxiety, and possibly other mental disorders, which add to already bad gender dysphoria. While not everyone experiences it, it still is an issue for those who do. Unemployment also plays in with being unaccepted, with the unemployment for transgender people being 3x the national rate in Ontario. The bathroom issue is an infamous one, with transgender people not being allowed into bathrooms of their gender. People accuse them of being child molesters, and believe that their gender assigned at birth is their actual gender, which isn’t true. The Canadian government still hasn’t passed any laws so that gender identity is included in protection against …show more content…
Inaccurate portrayal in the media is a struggle, from the high standard idea of trans people due to people like Caitlin Jenner, to bad transgender characters. In the previously mentioned study, transgender people were cast in a victim role 40% of the time. The Power Puff Girls reboot (2016) aired an episode titled Horn Sweet Horn, which received a lot of backlash for being inaccurate, exaggerated and transphobic. The story is about a unicorn named Donny, who people believe is just a pony. Donny is a metaphor for a trans-person, undergoing a magical procedure to “become a true unicorn”. Bubbles is only shown wanting to be friends with Donny because he’s a unicorn, Buttercup knocks off Donny’s replica horn and the show makes him look whiney and like a joke. The list goes on, with him turning into a horrific monster and much more. This television show is being shown to children, giving them an already poor idea of who trans people are at a young, impressionable age. Stars like Caitlin Jenner tend to give society a very high standard of trans people, without realizing that a good amount of them aren’t like her. Not everyone can afford surgery, not all of them are what society deems “attractive”, and this puts pressure on transgender people who can’t fit her image. If a transgender person does not “pass”, it does
Transgender people have faced issues for decades. From lack of acceptance from peers to straight out murders, trans issues are a big deal. Almost daily, transgender people face discrimination for not being their gender assigned at birth. Doctors choose the gender of a baby based off genitalia, which is sometimes inaccurate. While a good amount of the population is cisgender, where your gender corresponds with that assigned at birth, transgender people are a minority. With being a minority, comes fear and discrimination from the majority.
Suicides, murders and violence against transgender people have been more common than most people think. Almost 80% of transgender people in Ontario have considered suicide …show more content…
74% of Canadian trans youth face verbal harassment in school, and 37% experience physical violence. Parents or caretakers with heavily religious beliefs can play a role in discrimination as well by refusing to accept their children because of their beliefs. Conversion therapy can be used by parents to “change” the gender or sexuality of their child. This is banned in Ontario, but in other provinces and territories legal. Being unaccepted at school and home can have an emotional toll on trans people and youth. It can spike depression, anxiety, and possibly other mental disorders, which add to already bad gender dysphoria. While not everyone experiences it, it still is an issue for those who do. Unemployment also plays in with being unaccepted, with the unemployment for transgender people being 3x the national rate in Ontario. The bathroom issue is an infamous one, with transgender people not being allowed into bathrooms of their gender. People accuse them of being child molesters, and believe that their gender assigned at birth is their actual gender, which isn’t true. The Canadian government still hasn’t passed any laws so that gender identity is included in protection against …show more content…
Inaccurate portrayal in the media is a struggle, from the high standard idea of trans people due to people like Caitlin Jenner, to bad transgender characters. In the previously mentioned study, transgender people were cast in a victim role 40% of the time. The Power Puff Girls reboot (2016) aired an episode titled Horn Sweet Horn, which received a lot of backlash for being inaccurate, exaggerated and transphobic. The story is about a unicorn named Donny, who people believe is just a pony. Donny is a metaphor for a trans-person, undergoing a magical procedure to “become a true unicorn”. Bubbles is only shown wanting to be friends with Donny because he’s a unicorn, Buttercup knocks off Donny’s replica horn and the show makes him look whiney and like a joke. The list goes on, with him turning into a horrific monster and much more. This television show is being shown to children, giving them an already poor idea of who trans people are at a young, impressionable age. Stars like Caitlin Jenner tend to give society a very high standard of trans people, without realizing that a good amount of them aren’t like her. Not everyone can afford surgery, not all of them are what society deems “attractive”, and this puts pressure on transgender people who can’t fit her image. If a transgender person does not “pass”, it does