Trans rights are human rights. Black lives matter. Healthcare is a right, not a privilege. No one is illegal on stolen land. Her body, her choice. Love is love. How are statements like these seen as controversial? They should not be. Human rights should not be up for debate.
If you claim that this is just a difference of opinions, I have some questions for you. What is wrong with you? Where is your empathy? Why do you feel that people who are not like you are beneath you?
For someone to wholeheartedly believe that human rights are up for debate, they must have no sense of empathy. Some conservatives love to preach about their individual rights and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but they stand against giving those rights to people who disagree with them.
What part of letting doctors deny trans people medical care or allowing police to get away with brutalizing and murdering people of color in cold blood promotes the right to life? Where is the right to liberty when peaceful protestors are beaten and tear gassed? Where are the individual freedoms when women want bodily autonomy?
They simply do not care about the rights of others; they only want submission and control. Criminalizing abortion and ripping up the rights to free speech and protest are just another step in the road towards a real-life “Handmaid’s Tale.”
This is not a matter of debate. For many, this is life or death. Discrimination in healthcare is illegal, people are being beaten in the streets by those sworn to protect and serve. Right-wing extremist groups are threatening mass murder.
As a nation, each day we inch closer to the dystopian hellscapes that filled the pages of young adult novels many of us grew up reading.
An impeached president that was openly endorsed by the KKK and the Taliban was somehow still viable for people. A man who built a platform off of bigotry and hatred got on the ballot. Trump called to “make America great again,” but when was America great? The only good answer I can think of is before 1492.
A nation built on the genocide of the native inhabitants of the land can never be great as long as those that were crushed by the building of this country are still trampled underfoot. As a country, we will never be great as long as there is inequality, and as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
