In today's update of Frontier: 2170, Sara tells her story (trigger alert: death, brutality, hate crimes, dehumanization). Transgender Day of Remembrance 2014 #TDoR2014 Today is a day dedicated to all of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and genderfluid people who have been murdered and brutalized for being who they are. How they identify themselves is not a choice, as some would have you believe; the popular theory in the field of psychology is that sexuality is det…ermined during conception (and is not a mental illness; homosexuality was removed from the DSM in 1973), and recent neuroscience studies have indicated that gender dysphoria is likely caused by the brain being wired for a body of the opposite sex. Decades of attempts to "cure" non-heteronormative sexual identities have met with no success, and tend towards abusive and horrific practices.
Studies performed by San Fransisco State University have estimated that non-heteronormative youth who have experienced high levels of rejection from their families during adolescence are more than eight times as likely to attempt suicide, more than six times as likely to report high levels of depression, more than three times as likely to use illegal drugs, and more than three times as likely to be at high risk for HIV and other STDs, all by the time they reach their early 20s. The Suicide Prevention Resource Center estimated that 30-40% of non-heteronormative youth have attempted suicide. According to the FBI, in 2008, although 4,704 crimes were committed because of racial bias and 1,617 were committed because of the victim's sexual orientation, only one murder and one rape were committed due to racial bias, while five murders and six rapes were committed due to the victim's sexual orientation. Furthermore, violent hate crimes based on sexual orientation tend to be especially brutal, even when compared to other hate crimes. It is rare for a victim to be simply shot; he is more likely to be stabbed multiple times, strangled, and mutilated.
Although Sara's account is a work of fiction, events like what she describes do actually happen in the real world, and it is both horrible and tragic. I can only hope that by the 22nd century we will have moved beyond such hatred and ignorance, but if history is any indication it'll take much longer than that unless proper action is taken. They don't have the time. Frontier: 2170 will resume its normal update schedule on Friday, November 28th 2014.
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