EqualiCom: What's the Big Idea??

NPR News, this morning, mentioned a story about a teacher who has traveled to Syria to film the violence and wrong doings. In her sound bite, she said something that was inspirational, film was as powerful as a weapon. This is true, and because it is true it means that words are just as powerful.

What you are reading here is not just a blog entry. It is an idea. This idea is built on the principle that people need to be treated equal. This is a truth that today’s society is on the cusp of accepting, but “we the people” need a little push to get us over the phobia cliff.

Rather than spending an exuberant amount of energy trying to end war and solve world hunger, this idea needs to be focused. An idea is defined as a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action. Equality can come through compassion, and compassion can be achieved through awareness. Awareness will occur through communication.

So this is the action—communication to generate awareness. It almost seems cliché. Still, it is not focused enough. Civil rights movements have worn many hats over the last century. There was desegregation, and women’s voting rights just to name a couple. Today, civil injustices are being discussed by elected government officials who believe they can exert their personal views on American citizens. The media has run more and more stories about abortion and gay marriage in the past few years. Since abortion is such a sensitive topic for so many (this goes for those who are against them and those who have chosen to have them), let us move our focus toward LGBT rights.

Thanks to the efforts of many activists over the last decade, awareness in society and in the media has grown tremendously in regards to acceptance of gays and lesbians. But what about the T? It stands for transgender. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the National Center for Transgender Equality are just two of the many organizations that are helping the movement for transgender rights.

Let’s back up a minute and talk about what it means to be transgender. A simple way to describe it is transgender is a term that refers to people who express their gender identity differently from the gender assigned at birth. In other words, a person is born one gender, but identify as another. There are many different ways to explain it, but those are the two that seem to be the most common.

If there are many organizations that are already working to create awareness and fight discrimination of transgender people, why form another one? There is yet another underdog that needs a champion, and that is transgender children. The American Academy of Pediatrics says that by the time a child reaches four, their gender identity is established and that “they know they will always be a boy or a girl.” Still, there are people who are uncomfortable with the subject of transgender youth, and because of that children are facing discrimination all over the country.

So this is the focus to which we put our action—generate awareness about transgender children through communication. However, there must also be a reason. What is the big idea? The answer is equality. Again, (from the third paragraph) equality can come through compassion and compassion can be achieved through awareness. Awareness will occur through communication. That makes communication the ‘how’.

To summarize the idea thus far: