Brandie Rose DeVore September 28, 2017
As our fight for our rights Continues, I find a new strength in me to push that much harder because I know the foe would love to see all the LGBTQ Rights Activist stop caring and just let it be. Well I’m not the type to lay my sword down when there’s still many battles to fight and plenty of floor to do my victory dance after I have won yet another battle. From the overall viewpoint of the movement we are going through, we are ahead and still moving in the right direction. I say we are ahead because we are out and visible, we are fighting together and we have a vast number of LGBTQ Community members standing up and fighting. Our rights are very important and the law makes it clear we HAVE rights, and laws that protect us. Not all laws are the same in every state, and even so on a federal level, so you should first check into the State and federal laws to find out if your state is LGBTQ friendly.
No human being should be pulled through a traumatizing discrimination issue, which may also be classified as an assault, and later possibly suicide due to the discrimination and harassment. Acceptance and diversity classes are at the top of my list of ways to fight back. If they assault transgender people just because they are feeling insecure about themselves, then the perpetrator needs to be brought to justice for not only braking the law, but also for the unsociable ways they live with no regard to life or individuality of equal human beings. Hate crimes are very real and continue to be a burden in our society, we must find legal and helpful ways to deal with such behavior.
Look at the Matthew Wayne “Matt” Shepard case, he was an American student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured, and left to die near Laramie on the night of October 6, 1998. Six days later, he died from severe head injuries at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. A hate crime and one that will forever be remembered. People should not have to be subject to such brutality and hate, but yet we are every day. More needs to be done to stop these needless attacks on the LGBTQ community.
Just a few days ago we had our 21st transgender person killed in 2017 Ally Lee Steinfeld, a young transgender girl. The body discovered by police had been butchered — eyes gouged out, genitals slashed. “It was brutal,” the remains of the 17-year-old transgender girl were also torched. Her bones were stuffed in a plastic bag and placed in a chicken coop near a dented trailer in Cabool, a small Ozarks town in southern Missouri.
Where does it end? At what cost do we put up with these unnecessary assaults and murders on our community? Something needs to be done. We need the Equality Act of 2017 to change the federal laws to protect the LGBTQ community. We need the law both federal and state to give us the protection we need, and to put away those people who spread their hate around through these vicious acts.
We all have Human Rights and no one has the right to victimize another just because they don’t agree or like the way the other lives or sees them self. Not at any point do they get an approval or a right to harm another because they are transgender, gay, lesbian, bisexual, pan sexual, or any other indifference to the perpetrator, it just is not the right thing to do. Harming, assaulting, or discriminating against another does not solve anything, it makes it worse. It brings me to a point of determination to have justice served on the perpetrator and to get closure for the victim and their family. That’s why I fight so hard for our rights, because we need them and it’s the right thing to do. I find it a necessity to donate my time and effort to helping the LGBTQ community. I am transgender and I am standing up for every member of the LGBTQ community because I know how it feels to be raped, assaulted, made fun of, laughed at and drove to the point of suicide. I believe in change, and I believe it happens when we make it happen by pushing for our rights as human beings, and equal rights as morally as it’s supposed to be. We are not separate from the rest of the world, we do not deserve less than equal respect. We are as equal as the next person and we deserve the same respect for our lives as everyone else does. The LGBTQ community will always be a discriminated community if people are allowed to do just that, “Discriminate,” and be reinforced with the idea that assault and even murder are ok. It’s not even close to being ok, and this needs to change in order for humanity to improve its morals. And show their fellow brother and sisters some love and respect instead of violence and hate.
Brandie Rose DeVore
