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March 31, 2019

Chasity Soto

How are LGBTQ+ still discriminated against regardless of non-discrimination

laws?

I am a proud Lesbian. Yeah, I know, what a way to start off an

essay but me being a lesbian is an important fact about who I am. A

lesbian is a homosexual woman or in simpler terms, a woman who is

attracted to only women. I am also a human being which is defined as, “a man, woman, or child

of the species homo sapiens.”- Google Dictionary. These definitions are crucial to know because

I am a human being who identifies as a lesbian. Lesbians are apart of a community named, The

LGBTQ+ Community. LGBTQ+ is an acronym that stands for, lesbian, gay, bisexual,

transgender, queer and plus (asexual and so on). This is an opportunity to better understand this

community and possibly learn new things along the way so I hope that you stick around.

So why exactly is the LGBTQ+ community so important? For years and years even

before the non-discrimination laws were created our community were prosecuted simply because

straight and religious people believed it was not an act of god or not meant to happen. They

believe that woman are meant to be with just men and vice versa. Religious people also believed

that it was sinning. A sin is an offensive act against a religious belief or moral law. In the bible

being homosexual or transgendered is a sin for the bible says, “a man lies with a male as with a

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woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their

blood is upon them.” (Leviticus 20:13). So what exactly is your point? Well, people should be

recognized as just people no matter what race, age, gender or sexual orientation. What I am

having a difficulty understanding is, how are LGBTQ+ still discriminated against regardless of

non-discrimination laws?

Discrimination is the unfair or prejudicial treatment of people and groups based on

characteristics such as race, gender, age or sexual orientation. The LGBTQ+ community has

been discriminated against for years and still to this day discrimination is still in full effect. The

majority of LGBTQ+ Americans have been harassed either verbally or physically. We have been

targeted to hate, threatened, called all types of slurs, and overall are poorly mistreated and

terrorized. People who belong to this community have been victimized in numerous ways. For

example, Pulse was a LGBT nightclub in Orlando. On June 12, 2016 a man named Omar Mateen

killed a total of 49 people and injured more than 58 with “LGBT people were the prime focus of

his murderousness.”- The Daily Beast. We live in a society where although it is completely legal

to marry a person of the same sex, we are being rejected by marriage officiants and are being

shamed because of the discrimination against us.

Death is certainly no joke and despite age, race, gender or sexual orientation we shouldn’t

be targeted to be killed. Anyone in that matter should have a target on their back. So why is it

that people are still getting away with discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community? What is

it exactly that makes people feel that their opinion comes before anyone else and what exactly

are we doing about this? This is not only a community issue but it is also a world wide issue.

People are being killed because of personal preference and its a disgrace to mankind. In New

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York alone they’re an estimate of 700,000 LGBTQ+ residents. So you can only imagine how

huge of a community we are as a whole stretched across the entire world.

This issue is extremely urgent and needs to be heard. They’re people that are apart of this

community who still get harassed and being bullied into suicide. They’re people who are being

denied entry because of “religious beliefs” at certain stores and being denied to be served

because of who they identify as. They’re people who are being killed at this very moment

because of who they are as a person.

I, myself, am a lesbian woman and I have even had my own experiences of being

discriminated against even in my own house. My grandmother is a religious woman and when

she discovered that I only like women, she automatically called me disgusting and hurt my

feelings to the core. For if I wasn’t strong enough to believe in who I am as a person, who knows

what could have happened to me. People are people and I can’t stress this enough. No one on this

earth should be judged by who they want to be. This issue needs to be taken care of and we need

to make more efforts in becoming better as a whole. I learned so much from researching and

learning about different situations of discrimination against my community of LGBTQ+. This

essay is directed to people in general. Not only those of use who identify as LGBTQ+ but those

of us who are heterosexual and who are religious. People don’t deserve to die if its not a death of

natural cause. This essay might effect a multitude of people because these are times that the

world is evolving into being an entirely different place compared to the past. New laws need to

be regulated to protect all the people. We should be treated as equal.

How are LGBTQ+ still discriminated against regardless of non-discrimination laws?

There is no direct answer to this question but upon research, they’re many loop holes within the

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laws that were created for this community that we need to face and address. Many things that

must be changed and altered.

I hope to learn about specific legal cases that have been taken place to better understand

how discrimination is being handled in the eye of the law. I would like to better understand the

specific issues with each identification such as being a lesbian, being gay, being transgendered or

being queen and so on. I would like to sit with a few people who are apart of this community and

hear their thoughts about discrimination that they have personally experienced despite there

being non-discrimination laws. I would like to read more on specific articles that target what our

discrimination laws are and how we can better them for our safety. I can’t wait for what research

I come upon facing this research question and I thank you for being such a great audience.

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