I have a question for you, my lovely friends.

Which of the following scenarios would leave me in a more overjoyed state?

a) The arrival of the Doctor (complete with TARDIS) in my front garden.
b) A marriage proposal.
c) Learning how to scan and borrow (while discreetly cancelling all outstanding fines) my own library books.

Oh yes. I have indeed become MASTER OF THE LIBRARY DESK. HELL YEAH.

I'm seventeen years old, and I don't know a thing.

Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy.

Okay, before I get into this rant:

I am aware that the world has a long history of discrimination against people who are seen to be 'different' and 'abnormal'. I am aware that I am a citizen of a country that offers every chance and every opportunity in life to such citizens, and I am aware that because of this, such chances and opportunities are often taken for granted. I am aware that I live in a conservative suburb and therefore must make allowances for the predominantly white, well-off, middle-class people with whom I share the streets of this suburb.

BUT.

I go to one of Victoria's top public schools. A fifth of my year level was in the High Achievers class, which is supposed to contain students in the top 5% of intelligent society. We have access to a high-quality curriculum delivered by, for the most part, genuinely well-trained and interested teachers. We are the educated middle-class that has it all. We are the ones who will be doctors, lawyers, engineers, politicians, scientists and leaders in the years to come. We are the only chance this country has to become open-minded, liberal, fair, equal, and we will achieve this only by being those things ourselves.

And yet when a teacher says "transgender"...the entire room erupts in nervous giggles and a chorus of "EWWW".

It makes me sick. I know a lot about gay, lesbian and bisexual issues. I speak with knowledge and authority on those matters, but I am the first to admit that I know very little about transgender issues. I don't know which labels are politically correct. I don't know what transgender people are fighting for. I don't know the difference between transgender and transsexual. I don't know anything, EXCEPT that the disgust and discrimination shown by my classmates is not okay.

That same teacher talked about transgender people in the context of clinical "normality", as if they are weird, alien, completely removed from our place in society. He used examples that did not reflect what I believe to be the truth; that transgender people are not aliens. They are a part of our world. And it disgusts me that in an educated middle-class environment, I constantly see this hatred of whatever is deemed to be 'abnormal' by bigoted individuals incapable of understanding what it is like to be part of a minority group.

It needs to change, because nobody, not one single person in this world, deserves to struggle with gender identity in the face of society's implicit disapproval, and then endure society's hatred. It's not transgender people who need to change, it's our entire society, and that society needs to realise that open-mindedness, liberal views, understanding and tolerance will get us somewhere. And I believe that when that day comes, and we reach that place, we will never look back.