Persuasive Speech About Gender Equality

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For no sum of money would I agree to repeat high school. Blessed with a heavy dose of femininity and absolutely no athleticism, my enrollment in an all-boys Catholic prep school seemed less like a privilege and more akin to a sick joke. Having bumped into my former classmates over the years, I know most memories are tied to my coming out senior year, but it was not about being the first openly gay student, and instead was done in hope that my confirmation would end the incessant need for calling me a “faggot”. Under the pain, you can find some good memories peppered in there, like my participation in Speech and Debate, which, alongside glee, band, and the robotics club, offered solace, as there was an implicit “No Bullies Allowed” rule. Here …show more content…

The same children we ask to place faith in honesty and to mind the Golden Rule are given an ultimatum: deny the truth your gender identity to conform with normative gender roles, or, if you fail in living a lie, you will be confronted with a system stacked against you. Even those with a confirmative gender can attest to hardships of the formative years, as a bully isn’t satisfied to pick on the extremes but will always go for the easiest target, but, for a moment, try to picture your child-self, and imagine piling on this level of rejection and harassment by your peers, school administration, and even your family. No wonder more than 50% of transgender youth have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday.

Again, I don’t know exactly what Brockington deemed, or any other transgender victim of suicide, sufficient enough to arrive at that fateful decision, but it doesn’t require an inordinate amount of empathy to see how without a paradigmatic shift, the failings of our system will always provide for the same result. In the words of William Shakespeare, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not

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