Shawn Copeland is Ohio director of the Human Rights Campaign.

CLEVELAND -- A little more than three years ago, people across Ohio awoke to tragic news: Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old transgender girl from Kings Mills, near Cincinnati, had died by suicide and posted a heart-wrenching note to her online blog explaining her decision.

Leelah's final call was for all of us to "fix society" and fight injustice. Three years later, that call is one we must answer more urgently than ever.

In the painful weeks as we mourned the loss of Leelah, we learned that she had been a victim of so-called conversion therapy -- a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. In response, LGBTQ people and our allies resolved to honor her memory -- and the lives of all those impacted by "conversion therapy" -- with action.

Cities throughout Ohio have made strides in banning this practice over the past three years. City councils in Athens, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton and Toledo have all passed ordinances protecting LGBTQ youth from going through the same horrifying experience that contributed to Leelah's death. And the state of Ohio should ban the abusive practice of "conversion therapy" that led Leelah to take her life.

While addressing conversion therapy is an important start, we must do more to protect transgender people -- especially transgender women, people of color and youth -- from the abuse, violence and discrimination that often lead to the staggeringly high rate of suicide in the transgender community.

Melissa Alexander is co-chair of TransOhio.

We must also do more to stop the deadly epidemic of violence aimed at transgender people, and particularly transgender women of color.

In November, the Human Rights Campaign and the Trans People of Color Coalition reported that 2017 was the deadliest year on record for the transgender community. At least 28 transgender people, including JoJo Striker of Ohio, were murdered last year, and this violence continued to disproportionately impact women and women of color: Eighty-four percent of those killed were transgender people of color, and 80 percent were transgender women.

FBI data released in November also recorded an overall increase in hate crimes in 2016 across the nation, including a rise in bias-motivated violence based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

The data beg us to explore why -- at a time when more and more Americans support LGBTQ equality and report personally knowing a transgender person -- would violence be on the rise? And what can we do to stop the tragic violence against and suicide among LGBTQ, and particularly transgender people?

First, Ohio should establish nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people statewide, and ensure that when any hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ community occur, they can be prosecuted as such under state law.

In this upcoming legislative session, we have the opportunity to do precisely this.

This month, the Ohio legislature is expected to hold a hearing on the Ohio Fairness Act, which has been introduced by state Rep. Nickie Antonio, a Democrat from Lakewood. This crucial legislation, House Bill 160, would bar discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in areas of employment, housing and public accommodations in Ohio. Most importantly, it would save lives and demonstrate that state leaders are looking out for LGBTQ Ohioans.

But addressing Ohio's laws is only a fraction of our nationwide problem. The Trump-Pence administration's ongoing attacks on the LGBTQ community and efforts to undermine protections afforded under the Obama administration have emboldened anti-LGBTQ extremists.

One of the current administration's first actions was to rescind protective guidance for transgender students in schools across the nation, putting transgender kids at risk in what should be a safe, welcoming learning environment. Since then, President Donald Trump has also sought to ban qualified transgender service members from the military.

These kinds of actions send a message to LGBTQ people and particularly LGBTQ youth that they are second-class citizens, unworthy of the same rights and protections afforded to everyone else.

In the Human Rights Campaign's post-2016 election youth survey, 74 percent of Ohio LGBTQ youth surveyed reported witnessing bullying and harassment during or since the 2016 election, and almost half of LGBTQ youth said they have taken steps to hide who they are since Donald Trump was elected.

There are real solutions right in front of us to "fix society," as Leelah called us to do. Until we stand up to prevent this epidemic of violence, we are failing our transgender youth and we are failing Leelah.

Shawn Copeland is the Ohio director for the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ civil rights organization. Melissa Alexander is co-chair of TransOhio, a nonprofit that advocates for transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals.

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