#TransRightsAreHumanRights

Recently, the tag #TransRightsAreHumanRights trended on twitter. Transgender people call out to their allies, asking for support. Cisgender people voice out their support, standing up for those whose voices cannot be heard. But, what started it? Well, there's a simple answer to that question, really. Donald Trump. I mean, who else can it be?

This all started when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services created a memo saying that government agencies needed a clear and explicit definition of gender determined "on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective, and administrable." To simple it all down, the Trump administration is considering narrowing down gender as a biological condition determined by genitalia at birth. Basically, they're saying gender is what's in your pants. Here's what's wrong with that: That's sex. Sex is what makes up species biologically, which is what's in your pants. Sex is male and female. Gender, on the other hand, is a person's identity and expression. Gender is not just male and female.

This memo has helped the discrimination against transgender students, who are being banned from school bathrooms and locker rooms that correlate to their gender identity. It supports the plans that the Trump administration has on refusing medical care to transgender people. It supports the attempts to ban transgender people from serving in the military. It supports the Department of Justice on its law allowing businesses to discriminate against workers based on their gender identity.

Activists in the United States have rallied for trans rights across the country. If this proposal goes through, it would oppress more than 2 million people, cutting their rights for equal health care, housing, education, business, and stop them from living a normal life. In 2016, it was estimated that more than 1.4 million people in the United State identify with a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth. Two years later, this number has grown, and with it, so has the knowledge of the existence of transgender people. With this proposal, the definition of sex and gender would narrow down, erasing the term 'transgender', and with it, an entire group of people and their rights.