Born to Be Me
In our second quarter of my 2017-2018 school year, we were asked to choose between hosting an event, completing a project, or starting a business that would reach out and help the Parker Community--we were also given the option to also reach beyond that specific community if we wished to do so.
Around the same time, I became knowledgeable of H.R. 2796--or also called The Civil Rights Uniformity Act. Once I personally became familiar with the ins and outs of the bill, feelings of anxiousness and fear arose due to the fact that no one was talking about it--but what did the bill even state? Essentially, the bill's purpose was to "'prohibit the word "sex" or "gender" from being interpreted to mean "gender identity.'" To the eyes of someone who wasn't of transgender identity, this bill may have been seen as nothing too bad or of much negative effect--but it did have a negative impact to the millions of transgender people living in the United States.
For my project, I researched the basics of governing--specifically American governing--the process behind creating a bill and the stages it has to go through in order to get passed into law, and the meaning of H.R. 2796. I learned that some of the possible scenarios that could stem from the passage of this bill into law include the loss of private healthcare, fair housing, and employment, as well as education--the moment that transgender people would be stop being considered a protected class, and therefore taken out of civil rights legislation, the anxiousness and fear I mentioned before returned, but it was mainly because no one even knew that this bill existed.
The second part of my project was spreading the word about the basics of this bill within the Parker and Legend High School community--first, I contacted multiple political representatives to bring the bill to their attention, and then I scheduled meetings with political advisers within LGBT+ youth centers here in Colorado. I'm still in the process of getting the word spread around, so the project itself is still ongoing! Reflecting back on the project, there were many times I would run into multiple bumps and obstacles, but once the deadline had past and I was continuing onto yet another project, I felt a sense of comfort and pride with the new things I had learned. This project is one I will continue until I reach my ultimate goal--repealing HR 2796.
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Around the same time, I became knowledgeable of H.R. 2796--or also called The Civil Rights Uniformity Act. Once I personally became familiar with the ins and outs of the bill, feelings of anxiousness and fear arose due to the fact that no one was talking about it--but what did the bill even state? Essentially, the bill's purpose was to "'prohibit the word "sex" or "gender" from being interpreted to mean "gender identity.'" To the eyes of someone who wasn't of transgender identity, this bill may have been seen as nothing too bad or of much negative effect--but it did have a negative impact to the millions of transgender people living in the United States.
For my project, I researched the basics of governing--specifically American governing--the process behind creating a bill and the stages it has to go through in order to get passed into law, and the meaning of H.R. 2796. I learned that some of the possible scenarios that could stem from the passage of this bill into law include the loss of private healthcare, fair housing, and employment, as well as education--the moment that transgender people would be stop being considered a protected class, and therefore taken out of civil rights legislation, the anxiousness and fear I mentioned before returned, but it was mainly because no one even knew that this bill existed.
The second part of my project was spreading the word about the basics of this bill within the Parker and Legend High School community--first, I contacted multiple political representatives to bring the bill to their attention, and then I scheduled meetings with political advisers within LGBT+ youth centers here in Colorado. I'm still in the process of getting the word spread around, so the project itself is still ongoing! Reflecting back on the project, there were many times I would run into multiple bumps and obstacles, but once the deadline had past and I was continuing onto yet another project, I felt a sense of comfort and pride with the new things I had learned. This project is one I will continue until I reach my ultimate goal--repealing HR 2796.
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