Eagleside Elementary school in Colorado has banned a 6-year-old transgendered girl named Coy Mathis from using the girls’ rest room.  Her parents quickly sued the school for discrimination.

It is universally known that children should be free to play, explore and communicate. They are meant to feel free among their peers and in their environment.

This also applies to transgender children.

It seems that nowadays, transgender children have to live through an unwritten set of rules enforced by society.

We are stripping them of their basic rights. It’s a conformist set of standards that say: be like us, or get out.

Mathis’s parents stated that they wish their daughter would have the same education as everyone else, but now they have to home-school her because they don’t want her to experience discrimination from other students.

Her school’s officials responded that they were worried about their students getting confused by Mathis, a girl with male genitalia.

Similarly, a Mississippi high school allowed one of its students to dress as a girl. The girl, who was born a male, went by Leah.

According to a story by the Huffington Post, her classmates were not supportive. They all arrived to school in shorts and sweatpants, which is prohibited by the school’s dress code.

They demanded to be let in, saying that if Leah were allowed to dress like a girl, they would have to be allowed to dress freely too.

Leah felt as devastated and confused as Mathis did, despite their age differences.
This situation might strike home in many parents around the country.

I don’t think any parent wants their six-year-old asking awkward questions about genitalia over dinner.

However, having a transgendered classmate can easily be turned into a life learning experience. Children can be taught from a young age that our genitalia doesn’t define our sexual orientation.

These children will grow up and invariably interact with all different kinds of people of different sexual orientations. His or her college roommate might be gay, their sorority sister may be bisexual, or their new acquaintance might say he can’t go on their camping trip because he is having sexual reassignment surgery.

It is 2013, and by now we are supposed to know how to accept and respect LGBT.

This is the reality of the world we live in; it’s the civil rights struggle for our generation.

While these girls are taking a step forward by dressing differently or changing their passport, they are also taking ten steps back when the world around them frowns at their decisions.

If we as a society keep viewing these girls through discriminatory lenses, they will never get the chance to live a normal life.