To the North Carolina State Government,

June 23 marks three months of your “bathroom law,” which is also known as the biggest stab at the LGBTQ+ community, ever. This law, for those who don’t know, prevents transgender and/or gender-fluid residents from using the bathroom with which they identify. For example, despite identifying as a woman, a male transgender citizen in North Carolina is not allowed to use the women’s bathroom, or if a woman who identifies as “gender fluid” feels more masculine one day, she is refused the ability to use the male restroom. North Carolina claims to have passed their bathroom law to help prevent sexual assaults, specifically in the women’s bathroom.

This law, however, prevents people from feeling themselves. So many people now undergo surgery in order to change their gender so they can feel comfortable. That is the reason many humans want a gender change: because they want to feel comfortable in their own skin. By prohibiting transgenders to enter the bathroom of their choice is making them feel uncomfortable, and you are disrespecting their choice to be whoever they wish to be.

Your fear of sexual assault is somewhat rational; I can understand why you are trying to protect the young women of your state. Yet, what you fail to realize is that women can rape other women, and men can rape other men. Your bathroom law cannot prevent that, nor can any bathroom law. Rather than protecting your citizens, you are limiting them. Women and men are at equal risk of being sexually assaulted at clubs or in an alley or any other public area where they choose to expose themselves. The bathroom law which you have put in place to protect your residents, has actually hurt and offended so many. You have put transgender and gender fluid citizens at risk of abuse, harassment, and confusion, much less have taken away their right to privacy and the opportunity to express themselves as they wish.

Your attempt at protecting the residents of your state has backfired and insulted more than just the LGBTQ+ community. The actions put into place have come off as ignorant and inconsiderate, which is precisely the opposite of what this country is based off of. We, as citizens, are told that we have freedom of expression, yet you, the state of North Carolina, has seemingly limited that freedom, and has made thousands of United States citizens question their trust in our government. We have made the LGBTQ+ community feel limited and unworthy, which is completely untrue. They are a powerful force, and deserve the recognition every other community in America gets. This means allowing them to choose their own bathroom stalls, protecting them from hate, and never allowing something as brutal or heartless as the Orlando shooting ever happen again.

Please open your mind to other perspectives: this goes beyond allowing anyone to use whichever bathroom they choose. This means giving each and every person an equal opportunity. This means saying goodbye to segregation and racism for good. Understand how confined these people must feel; put yourself in their shoes. Think about the policies you have put in place, and please reconsider. This law could have done more harm than it ever could do good.