>>16768280"Imagine, young sir or miss, that everyone is given a card at birth declaring, 'You are to be a blacksmith,' simply because of how they looked as a babe. Yet one child grows up knowing, with perfect certainty, that they are meant to be a sailor instead. They are happiest, healthiest, and most themselves upon the sea. The card was mistaken; the child was not.
Some people in our time have this experience, not with trades, but with whether they are a man, a woman, or something else. We call someone transgender when the label they were given at birth does not match who they truly are. They ask others to call them by the name and titles that fit them, much as you would wish to be called 'Miss' if you were a lady, or 'Mister' if you were a gentleman.
Their rights are simply the rights most people desire for themselves: to live honestly, to be addressed respectfully, to work, to learn, to keep safe from violence, and to be treated fairly under the law.
As for the desire to live, every person hopes for a life in which they may wake each morning without fear, pursue happiness, and be accepted for who they are. When people are mocked, shunned, or forbidden from living as themselves, life can become unbearably difficult. When they are treated with dignity and kindness, they are far more likely to flourish.
So the matter is not terribly strange. It is less about becoming someone else, and more about being allowed to be oneself."