Summary: On Wednesday, we received poll data from a Pew Research Center study painting a picture of the state of transgender awareness in America. It showed that less than a third of the people polled personally knew a transgender person. As we can see in many of previous polls and votes, not knowing a transgender person can severely increase their chance to support using the bathroom that matches a person's sex assigned at birth. Although this is quite dismal news, a poll posted by the Human Rights Campaign last year shows that awareness has grown quite quickly. In the duration of one year, the amount of people who know transgender folk rose 14%, a pretty fast climb.
Analysis: This news comes at the time of the presidential debate which has no doubt made a large argument in America today. Although this dilemma has been going on for quite some time, it seems that there have been an increase in awareness of the issue and the people directly affected by it. It may be incredibly slow, but it's obvious that we are improving in our understanding of the people around us, however different they may be. In addition, it really is quite hard to truly know the makeup of the people around you. Many transgender people are still in the closet and not telling the people around them due to the overwhelming negative response to them in previous years. It's extremely hard to know who you can trust, especially when more than two-thirds of people feel dismissive of their basic human rights. This event coincides with the debate about gay marriage in America. Although it was made a law to allow all people to marry, many churches and companies refuse to acknowledge this, giving a grim reminder that if we don't enforce it correctly and efficiently, we will be forced to go the same way in transgender rights as we did gay marriage rights.
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I think its great to show how much our country has improved for equality for everyone. We are still not fully there yet but, we are getting there. Everyone deserves who they want to be and everyone else should except that.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad pople are realizing how underrepresented transgender people are, and I agree that there are more transgender people than can be predicted due to some being forced to remain in the closet. It is easy to oppress a group that one has never knowingly made contact with. Coming out is difficult, and for many it is a safety hazard (some, like me, just end up forgetting and then being too awkward to ever bring it up).
ReplyDelete-Cal Thompson
I know for a fact that a lot of people in our community still have a bad impression about transgender people,they view them as dangerous because they're different but that's not the reality.
ReplyDeleteThe transgender community has the right as citizens to choose what bathroom they want to use no matter their sex .