Category: Resist

Transgender rights are human rights. 

Transgender rights are human rights. 

Transgender rights are human rights. 

I want to scream this from the rooftops. I want to write on walls, paint it on ceilings, and staple it across the sky. I want to write these words in permanent marker all over the Oval Office. I want to write these words everywhere possible, because they are so, so true. 

Personally, I have never wanted to join the military. War is a horrible thing that I like to avoid thinking about. Plus, it has totally scared me ever since I saw Saving Private Ryan. 

But some people want to fight for their country. They want to serve, they want to protect, they want to help. They throw themselves in harm’s way in order to protect our freedom and our lives. And that is a beautiful thing. 

Not only is it beautiful, but it is a basic human right. A right that belongs to anybody and everybody who is a citizen of the United States. 

The president has announced that transgender people will no longer be permitted to enlist in the United States military. And I could not be more appalled or disgusted. 

To take this right away because of someone’s gender identity is biased, inhumane, and just plain cruel. 

Transgender people show incredible courage every time they leave their houses. They have been treated horribly just for being who they are, and that is something we cannot forget. Transgender people belong alongside everybody else. Just because they are different does not make them wrong or unequal. 

If a person that is openly transgender want to join the military, than he or she should be allowed to do so. It is not an extra expense or a burden to have transgender people enlist in the military. The military is lucky to have strong, brave, courageous people, no matter their gender history. 

It is so, so simple. Transgender rights are human rights. 

Yesterday, at a local school that my friend attends, she and her fellow eighth graders received a speech about the dress code. The entire eighth grade was informed that if a girl’s bra strap is showing it is distracting to her male peers. One administrator even said that if a boy touches a girl inappropriately, it’s because she “gave him a pass” to touch her by dressing that way. 

I was appalled and shocked and furious. This was a lie and a perpetration of rape culture at the middle school level. Dress codes are already inherently sexist, but this enforcement crosses a line. Not only did the administration blame young girls for their own sexual harassment, but they gave young boys an excuse to sexually harass. 

So I stood up. I fought back for my fellow eighth grade girls who were being demoted and humiliated by this treatment. I wrote an email to the principals at that school and demanded they retract the statements. I resisted. I got in the way. 

Dress coding is still one of youth culture’s greatest debates. I believe that dress codes are written to prevent women from being distracting to others. The dress code on men is set to keep men presentable, not to keep them from distracting their female counterparts. I hope that I and others will continue to fight not only sexist dress codes, but sexist political leaders and legistlation. 

In this day and age we have to band together to resist sexism in all its forms, no matter how out of our way we must go to fight back. 

Today President Trump signed legislation that will allow states to defund abortion providers. He has allowed states to cut federal funding to places like Planned Parenthood. This legislation was signed without debate. This legislation was signed behind closed doors, with no cameras. 

Many people don’t understand the term “Pro-Choice.” I want to assure everyone that Pro-Choice does not mean Pro-Abortion. Someone who is Pro-Choice is someone who believes the government has no right to tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies. As the saying goes, “My body, my choice.”

The legislation signed today will go under the radar and behind the scenes. Nevertheless, this legislation will make healthcare for women, especially women of poverty, less safe. It will defund programs that help all women be safer, smarter, and more secure. President Trump has tried to let this groundbreaking bill go quietly. But we will stand up. We will not let something this loud go this quietly. The closed doors of the White House cannot keep out a revolution. 

As of a few days ago, you may have seen the viral video of a man being forcibly removed from a United airline flight. The flight was overbooked and the crew removed passengers at random. When one man refused, the United security guard forced the man out of his set. The passenger’s head was hit against a metal armrest and his practically unconscious body was dragged down the aisle. This horrible scene has outraged people all over the country. 

We live in a world of violence. There is war, crime, bullying, abuse, rape, torture, murder, and so much more. Sometimes it is too much to handle. Sometimes I get overwhelmed thinking about all the violence in the world. 

Everyone else must feel this way at some point, right? But for some people it is worse. Some people have been unknowingly corrupted by this world of violence. So now, violence is normal. It’s not unique, it’s not uncommon. 

Situations like this take place every day. A person will stand up and their actions will be met with violence. Yet they still stand up. The important thing, the most important thing is to keep standing up. As much as the violence overwhelms me, I’m going to try and see the positive things in the world. I’m going to try to fight on. I’m going to keep standing up. 

A family sits around the table, quietly munching on small plates of food. The woman makes faces at her young baby in his bassinet and the man teases his toddlers. Laughter and love fill the house. 

But one rich and privileged man can destroy this house. He can turn this loving family to bits of ash. He can make hundreds of civilians be gone in a second. 

The missles that have been launched on the warring country of Syria will do not one bit of good. Solving violence with more violence will never work. Ending warfare with more weapons is ludicrous. 

President Trump has launched a vicious attack. He claimed that he is showing compassion toward the Syrian children who were killed last week. But what about the Syrian children who are alive and living in Syria? What about their parents and older siblings and family members? What about their homes and toys and lives that we are obliterating?

This attack is uncalled for. We are murdering innocent civilians in an attempt to end a war by starting a new battle. 

Today is International Woman’s Day. It is not a day to mock or protest or scoff at. Today is a day to appreciate the impact women have on our society. Today feminists gather all over the world. Together they chant, “A day without a woman is a day without me.” Someone asked me why this, of all things, was the slogan they chose. They chant this because a day without women would be horrible. Women are such an enormous part of our society, and a day without their impact is something no one wants to see. 

Today someone asked me, “When is international men’s day?” I said, every day. Every single day. Men are respected and seen as equals every day, and they always have been. Women have had to earn their place in this world. Women have seen everywhere and everything to earn something as human as respect. 

Women across the planet are beaten, raped, bullied, tortured, and even killed because of their gender. There are people out there who believe that women are weaker, dumber, and less than men. We are living in the twenty-first century, and horrors like these still face us. 

Women and men all over the world are striking because women will no longer be ignored. Women will no longer be silent. We must speak up, rise up, and stand up against the evil misogynistic humans that live among us. Women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and men must join together now. Now we must fight the racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia that face us. 

International Women’s Day exsists to honor the women who have been pushed to the side and hidden in the shadows. Women will be hidden no more. Women will be silent no more. Today we join hands as humans to appreciate how women have so incredibly affected our world. 

It is seventy-five degrees today. It is February in northern Virginia. Global warming is real, and it is affecting each and every one of us every single day. Our planet needs our help to protect it. Our planet has been hurt by humankind, over and over again. We are the reason that this planet is in trouble. Shouldn’t we reach out to help it?

But to do that we need a voice. We need a leader. In a time like this, of environmental crisis, we need a president. We need someone to lead us in repairing the damage we have done to this world. We need agencies and companies devoted to helping the environment. 

But the president we have now has shut these programs down. The president we have now believes that global warming is a hoax. The president we have now is a man full of hatred and awful thoughts. 

Global warming is real. I’m fourteen and standing face to face with it. It’s time for our president to face the truth. 

Why would you give a job to someone who has never worked in that field? Why would you hire an employee who would, in the end, send the whole company up in flames?

You wouldn’t. Would you start a professional quarterback that didn’t know the plays? Would you send a diver to the Olympics that knew not to belly flop, and only that? Would you cast an actress who couldn’t memorize a single line, and could barely spell the title of the movie?

You wouldn’t. So why did you? It is beyond me why someone with absolutely no background in schools or teaching would be elected as the leader of our country’s education. 

It is beyond me why someone with absolutely no background in politics would be elected as the leader of our country.

These are people in way over their heads, and our fellow Americans have put them there. Our fellow Americans have put someone who can’t drive in the driver’s seat, and then started the engine. 

And who knows what they will hit with their car.