{"id":67745,"date":"2024-09-27T12:20:44","date_gmt":"2024-09-27T19:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=67745"},"modified":"2024-09-27T12:20:44","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T19:20:44","slug":"gender-affirming-care-politically-polarizes-trans-rights-in-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=67745","title":{"rendered":"Gender-Affirming Care Politically Polarizes Trans Rights in San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Selen Ozturk<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As gender-affirming care grows ever-more politicized, efforts to ensure access have become a question of civil liberties in San Francisco.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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(L-R) Michelle Meow (moderator), Suzanne Ford, Katherine Thompson, Sarah Lentz and Jude Diebold discuss the politicization of gender-affirming care at a Monday, September 23 panel at San Francisco\u2019s Commonwealth Club. (Credit: Selen Ozturk)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As gender-affirming care grows ever-more politicized, efforts to ensure access have become a question of civil liberties in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Gender-affirming care (GAC) involves a range of social, psychological, behavioral and medical interventions \u2014 from counseling and social support to hormone medication and surgery \u2014 to support a person when the gender they identify with conflicts with the gender they were assigned at birth.<\/p>\n

Demystifying \u2018Protect the children\u2019<\/h2>\n

\u201cPolitically, \u2018protect the children\u2019 comes up time and time again as a scapegoat,\u201d said Doctor of Nursing Sarah Lentz, director of nursing operations at Dignity Health, at a Monday, September 23 panel about GAC as part of a United Against Hate Week summit at San Francisco\u2019s Commonwealth Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe start to formulate our identities as early as three months old,\u201d she continued. \u201cBut if a six year old told me they identified as a gender other than that they were born with, I\u2019d have the same conversation I would if they said they were a dinosaur, in that they\u2019re exploring themselves at this time. Let them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there comes a question of when we take it seriously and intervene or don\u2019t,\u201d Lentz added. \u201cThat\u2019s where the controversy lies: What\u2019s right or best for the youth?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sarah Lentz, director of nursing operations at Dignity Health, and Jude Diebold, mediator for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. (Credit: Selen Ozturk)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Although data is limited, a\u00a0UCLA Williams Institute<\/a>\u00a0study estimates that nearly 50,000, or around 2% of high school aged Californians (between ages 13 to 17) identify as transgender.<\/p>\n

In the U.S. overall, 300,000 youth aged 13 to 17, or 1.4%, identify as transgender.\u00a039.4%<\/a>\u00a0of them live in one of the 26 states that have passed bans on GAC.<\/p>\n

Of the 1.6 million people aged 13 and over who identify as transgender (0.6% of the U.S. population), one in five are between the ages of 13 and 17.<\/p>\n

Under California law, licensed health insurance plans are prohibited from discriminating against transgender patients; this includes denial of access to GAC to youth when the treatments are \u201cmedically necessary<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

California law also forbids the elective sterilization of people under the age of 18 \u2014 \u201cSo we don\u2019t do that at all,\u201d Lentz said, adding that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health releases\u00a0standards of care<\/a>\u00a0adopted internationally \u201cto increase safety for youth surrounding these health care interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n

94%<\/a>\u00a0of transgender and non-binary adults report that GAC bans make them feel unsafe, and 52.7% are considering moving to a new state due to passed or upcoming GAC bans.<\/p>\n

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Suzanne Ford, executive director of SF Pride, and Katherine Thompson, CEO of nonprofit Family House. (Credit: Selen Ozturk)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cTo me, good healthcare means everything that\u2019s medically possible so that our kids can be who they really are,\u201d said Katherine Thompson, CEO of nonprofit Family House. \u201cI\u2019m a parent of Clementine, a 23 year old graduate student studying to be a therapist in New York City. She started coming out when she was 17 \u2026 We have people who turned away, places we can\u2019t go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of this hate is based in fear, and I\u2019m trying to understand where the fear comes from, and understand that there\u2019s been fear in myself,\u201d she continued. \u201cThe arc of transition is very long. It\u2019s your whole family\u2019s life, and we\u2019re on this journey together. The bad stuff\u2019s out there, and we\u2019re trying to share our stories so everything feels less scary and more normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expanding protections<\/h2>\n

\u201cWhen someone comes with a discrimination complaint, sometimes the other party is malicious, but often there\u2019s just ignorance, and they\u2019re embarrassed not to have known what they did had such an impact,\u201d said Jude Diebold, mediator for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.<\/p>\n

They said the Commission is currently trying to expand the city\u2019s Fair Chance Ordinance \u2014 which prohibits employers from asking about arrest or conviction records until after a conditional job offer, and prohibits any consideration of convictions that are non-felony, non-misdemeanor, juvenile, inoperative or for decriminalized conduct like cannabis cultivation \u2014 to include \u201cthings that are criminal in other states,\u201d like youth GAC access, \u201cwhich includes being able to use a bathroom or play on a sports team that corresponds to your preferred gender identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the 26 states limiting youth access to GAC, five have made it a felony and 17 are facing\u00a0lawsuits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith increasingly creative attacks across the nation to criminalize something so basic to civil liberties as being allowed to be yourself, we\u2019re trying to be creative in expanding those protections,\u201d Diebold said. \u201cIf we can\u2019t depend on the Supreme Court to overrule these attacks, we have to bring it back to the city and state level with the hope that it spreads. All we\u2019ve ever had is each other, so we have to bring that work home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The vehicle for me to live an authentic life\u2019<\/h2>\n

\u201cI lived a large part of my life as a white male, and I read about other people\u2019s experiences of hate. I went to Howard Law School because I wanted to be involved in the struggle for their civil rights, but I didn\u2019t really feel it,\u201d said Suzanne Ford, executive director of SF Pride.<\/p>\n

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Michelle Meow, moderator, and Suzanne Ford. (Credit: Selen Ozturk)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cNow, most mornings, one of the first news stories I read is about anti-trans legislation. I didn\u2019t understand how debilitating it is to be made to feel like there\u2019s no hope,\u201d she continued. \u201cThey say it doesn\u2019t happen here in the Bay Area, but when I came out my family was kicked out of their church in Novato. We\u2019re not in a bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anti-transgender hate crimes increased by 40% from 2021 to 2022 alone, according to FBI data.<\/p>\n

Even as violence overall has begun to drop since then, LGBTQ+ hate continues to spike.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the FBI reported 2,402 incidents relating to sexual orientation, up from 1,947 the year before; and 547 incidents relating to gender identity, up from 469.<\/p>\n

In 2023 and in 2022 \u2014 which saw the highest number of LGBTQ+ hate crimes in five years \u2014 nearly one in five of all hate crimes were motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias.<\/p>\n

\u201cGender-affirming care was the vehicle for me to live an authentic life. I didn\u2019t know it was possible to ever stand up in a crowd of people as who I really was,\u201d Ford said. \u201cI was so lucky. The best surgeons in the world are in San Francisco. I found mental health care where I didn\u2019t have to defend the dysphoria and hate I was facing \u2026 That opened up a new world to me where I wasn\u2019t ashamed and policed about how I present myself anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn June 30, we walked down Market Street in San Francisco with over half a million people lined up,\u201d she continued. \u201cIn the \u201870s, Walter Cronkite would come on TV and once a year they\u2019d show a picture of the SF Pride Parade, not for you to be like \u2018Wow\u2019 but so you\u2019d be upset or shocked, like \u2018Look at those terrible people.\u2019 And I sat there as a little kid going, \u2018Oh my god, if I could get out there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you walk at the front of that parade, you feel that here, we\u2019re not just tolerated. We\u2019re in the fabric of the city,\u201d Ford added. \u201cAnd big cities in Kentucky or Alabama now are more like San Francisco than they used to be. I think eventually we\u2019re going to win \u2026 in living vibrant lives and calling people to join in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This resource is supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the\u00a0California State Library<\/a>\u00a0in partnership with the\u00a0California Department of Social Services<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs<\/a>\u00a0as part of the\u00a0Stop the Hate<\/a>\u00a0program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to\u00a0CA vs Hate<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BySelen Ozturk Sep 27, 2024 As...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local","category-opinion","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67746,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67745\/revisions\/67746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}