As someone who attends a diverse school with an accepting community, it is easy to forget the monstrosities that exist in our country. But when discrimination knocks on the senate doors, and they welcome him in, I am reminded.

Missouri is currently leading the nation in anti-LGBTQ bills. Twenty-seven anti-LGBTQ bills that make up approximately 21% of anti-LGBTQ legislation in the nation have been introduced in Missouri.

These bills range from targeting gender transition therapy to eliminating or restricting talks of sexuality and issues regarding the LGBTQ community in schools.

Without open discussion in public spaces, LGBTQ+ youth will continue to be excluded and othered. The majority of one’s adolescence is spent in the classroom, and if they don’t feel safe there, where can they? If straight and cis students can talk about their issues, why can’t queer students?

Exclusion can be detrimental to queer youth, who might face discrimination elsewhere.

As the only openly gay member of the Missouri Senate, Sen. Greg Razer said it best in an interview with The Star:

“It hurts because I was a 17-year-old suicidal gay kid. I know what that pain feels like and that hurts. What I have to do is make sure that those kids that are out there and their parents and the people that love them know that somebody in the Senate is standing up for them. I may not be able to stop everything, but there’s going to be a fight.”

While it is comforting to know there is someone on the Senate fighting for my rights, it is only one person.

The possibility of Gov. Mike Parsons signing these bills into law is scarier than ever, now that Missouri’s Republican-dominated senate has shifted its priorities to the right in the new year.

Rather than sit idly by and watch these discriminatory bills be signed into laws, contact your local senator or representative and urge them to vote against these bills. Visit www.senate.mo.gov/15info/senateroster.htm to find your local representative and their contact information.