On June 4, 1919, Congress passed a law allowing women to vote.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination based on gender.

Friday, June 26, 2015 same-sex marriage was legalized in Michigan.

In May 2016. a law was passed so schools were prohibited from discriminating against transgender students.

“No law is going to change us. We have to change us.” – Macklemore

History seems to repeat itself over and over again. We enslaved those who had a darker complexion way-back-when, now reduced to fuzzy images printed in History Alive! We discriminated against those born of the opposite sex by not allowing them the right to vote or own land; these are basic human rights. In the Victorian Era, it was how needle thin your corset could deform you. In the 2000s, we didn’t allow those who loved each other to marry. The point is, as much as we don’t want to believe it, these ideals still echo from generation to generation.

We still discriminate against people with a different pigmentation from us. We still discriminate against those who were born of a different gender. We still discriminate against those who are over or underweight. We still discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community.

People invalidate those who are transgender and nonbinary. These people seem to forget that it is not a transgender person’s choice how they are born. It’s who they are and prohibiting them from being who they are is so wrong in so many ways.

Why do we judge people based on DNA? Why do we judge people based on the complexion of their skin? Why do we judge people based on who they love? Why should it matter? Who are you to decide how a person can dress? Who are you to decide how a person should act? Who are you to decide someone else’s preferences? Who are you to decide who someone else is?

Discrimination is useless. It doesn’t provide any positive impacts. It is condescending and suppresses people who just want to be themselves. It forces people to put on a mask and act like somebody they aren’t. And that is no way to live.

There are 4,200 religions in this world. We can’t seem to remember whether you believe there is a god or a goddess, or a something up there waiting with open arms, or if there is nothing but the end after death, whether you believe there is a heaven or a hell or anything; we all came from the same place. And despite where we grew up and how we were spiritually influenced, we should love each other. We all started in the pit of our mother’s womb, and we’ve all come somewhere in life.

We judge entire groups of people based on the doings of a small percentage within that group. Just because I like cats doesn’t mean that everyone who has my particular ethnicity likes cats. Maybe a percentage of the ethnicity does, but that doesn’t mean that everyone does. We only seem to use this theory to make us feel better about ourselves.

Did you know that more than 90% of terrorist attacks are by non-muslims?

Probably not. Because you only paid attention to the jeers unsupported by actual research that surrounds you. Nobody bothers to research the demographics. So, please. Do research before you form biased opinions on minorities.

We base our ideas of people on immediate impressions: the race, gender, style choice, and appearance of a human being is taken into account before the personality, compassion, and value of a person. Why? What does it matter? Why does it affect you so much, how another human being lives their life? Isn’t their happiness more important than your approval?

If we could just forget about gender, or sexuality, or race for a little while, maybe we would stop discriminating against women. Stop discriminating against transgender people. Stop discriminating against same-sex couples. Stop discriminating against African Americans. Stop discriminating against Muslims. Stop discriminating against Mexicans. Stop discriminating against anybody and anyone who is even the slightest bit different than you.

It’s 2017, and we still can’t accept people for who they are.