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Persuasive Essay On Transgender Youth

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Y’all Need to Change
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” This old adage is repeated on children’s playgrounds across the country in the face of bullying and name calling. What happens when the names actually do hurt the child emotionally, leading to physical self-harm? In a study of transgender youth conducted by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, 30% of respondents said they have attempted suicide in their lifetime. Many negative factors have influenced transgender individuals into being more at risk for suicide, including bullying, harassment, and shame. Whenever the topic of bullying comes up, people normally imagine the isolated incidents of kids being pushed down in the schoolyard, rarely thinking of verbal harassment. In the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 54% of transgender respondents in grades K-12 have been victims of verbal harassment, revealing the troubling reality that more than half of transgender youth are verbally attacked before the age of 18. Verbal harassment induces self loathing and reduces the chance of the child ever feeling accepted. One way to prevent the problem of transgender youth being bullied is to try to influence children to not see transgender youth as different. Transgender persons will never feel accepted into our society unless we change our discourse in the way we use gender pronouns. The universal “he” taught to children is problematic. Even using the term “he or she” to address the issue of
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