When I first moved to Butler in 2009, I thought, “This seems to be a nice city to live in.”

For the most part that is true.

Being part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community — a transsexual female — I have learned Butler is not as nice as it looks on the outside. Butler does not have any anti-discrimination laws to protect the LGBT community like Tarentum in Allegheny County, where I lived before moving to Butler, and Cheswick, Allegheny County, where I still work.

Since Butler doesn’t have such laws, I can be asked to leave a restaurant, just because I am a transsexual and for no other reason, or lose my apartment for the same reason.

My friends who also are transsexual and who work in Butler can lose their job just because they are a transsexual.

When in Cheswick, 25 miles south of Butler, my job is protected by an anti-discrimination law. That’s the big reason why I don’t try to find a job in Butler.

I don’t want to take the chance of losing a job in a community that protects me by getting a job in one that doesn’t.

In fact, because Butler can’t seem to pass a law to protect me, there’s a good chance that I’ll be moving back to an area that does protect me and is close to my work.

So, even though Butler seems to be a nice city to live in on the outside, the LGBT community sees it with different eyes.

All I’m seeking is to be protected from discrimination in the city in which I live. An anti-discrimination law would make Butler a nicer small city to live in.

I want Butler to be the nice small city I thought it was back in 2009 when I moved here.