Today, we celebrate the resilience and accomplishments of the transgender community and raise awareness of the ongoing discrimination and struggles faced by transgender and gender non-conforming people worldwide. We recognize that more work needs to be done to protect the lives and rights of trans people and to empower them as a part of our community. #TDOV #TransDayOfVisibility
This month of March 2023, Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order protecting the rights of LGBTQ people from Minnesota and other states to receive gender affirming health care. Governor Walz proclaimed, “We want every Minnesotan to grow up feeling safe, valued, protected, celebrated, and free to exist as their authentic versions of themselves,” Walz said. “Protecting and supporting access to gender affirming health care is essential to being a welcoming and supportive state.”
Later this month, Minnesota also became a Trans Refuge State, by protecting trans people, families, and care-providers from a range of legal repercussions for traveling to Minnesota for gender affirming care, which includes a wide range of social and medical interventions.
More than half of trans youth have lost, or are at risk of losing, access to age-appropriate, medically necessary gender-affirming care in their state, according to Dr. Angela Kade Goepferd, medical director of the gender health program at Children’s Minnesota. This denial of care, she said at the news conference, singles out trans people for discriminatory treatment of their privacy, their family relationships, and their rights to access public accommodations and health care. Studies show that for young people who identify as transgender, gender-affirming care can decrease emotional distress, has positive effects on overall well-being, and reduces thoughts of suicide, Goepferd said.
Silencing LGBTQIA+ students and those with LGBTQIA+ parents or family members is dehumanizing and limits healthy and validating conversations about gender and sexual identity. We embrace the spectrum of gender and sexual identities and the discussion that contributes to our diversity as people.
Only 1 in 3 LGBTQ youth find their homes to be LGBTQ-affirming and 42% of LGBTQ youth, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth, seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, according to a national survey conducted by The Trevor Project. Making LGBTQ youth scared to discuss their identities, their community, or their families is as cruel as it is dangerous. If you or someone you know needs help or support, please call us 952-592-2200 www.serenitybhw.com
We All Deserve to Feel Safe. We Believe in Protecting the Rights of Trans people and of Trans kids. Be Free to Be You, Be Free to Be Well, Be Free to Be Simply….Whole. #transkids #transgender #trans #protecttranskids