It seems like more and more now I am becoming aware of cries for help from trans youth in crisis. It started out a few years ago when their stories started surfacing in the transgender discrimination reports. Two years ago there were four separate incidents in which transgender teens were locked up in psychiatric hospitals in the Chicago area, and subjected to shock therapy. This year there were incidents in which transgender teens were mistreated in group foster homes. And they always blame the victim. "I had been attending school as a female for a while when I was expelled from school for 2 weeks for fighting. What happened was I was attacked by another girl at school and was only defending myself" And then there are the hate crimes… a rape of a 21-year-old transgender woman, the bashing of a genderqueer college student, the murder of a young intersex person. "The principal made derogatory comments about my appearance and said I was asking for it. He informed my mother that I had become a problem in the classroom because of my appearance." |
Our trans youth are really getting the worst of it. GLSEN reports that 90% of transgender students feel unsafe in school because of their gender identity. It's no wonder they don't feel safe… 74% have been sexually harassed and many have been physically assaulted. In a climate where homophobic remarks are rampant, transgender students are particularly vulnerable… they have no place to hide. "My mother had put me in a psychiatric hospital to 'cure me' of wanting to be a girl. While I was in the hospital I was given what they called aversion therapy I called it torture." So what is the community doing to support our gender queer kids? Not a whole lot. When I am asked where to send transgender kids for help, I just scratch my head and say that the only agency I know of that can help is TransGenesis. Everyone sends their trans youth cases to TransGenesis. That is the only program in town that was set up to help trans youth at risk. "I was subjected to aversion therapy techniques to cure me of wanting to be a girl. I was generally mistreated in the facility and was ridiculed by the people who worked there." How much funding is going into supporting trans youth? Not
a whole lot. Other agencies are having a hard time these days
making ends meet, but TransGenesis is barely scraping by. |
"During my child's hospital confinement she was not only verbally abused and called names but was beaten by 2 attendants. The attack was so severe that my child had to be transferred to a general hospital for her injuries." So where are the trans youth going? Darned if I know. My friend had started a small trans youth program at Horizons. Her group grew from just a few participants to fourteen kids… then the funding dried up. So where did they go? What are they doing? Who knows? "What is she going to do when she is emancipated? Right now, she's hustling. That's why they are going to emancipate her. She's not doing nothing, she's hustling. Right now she's living in a very vulnerable situation." Who cares about transgender youth? I do. But unless a whole lot of people start caring, and unless a whole lot of hearts and wallets start opening up, my caring doesn't mean anything. It is time for the LGBT agencies to start realizing that the "T" in their name is more than just a letter. It means that some share of the funding, as limited as it is in these hard times, must go to support all the people it has seen fit to include in their mission statements… including the trans youth. "I asked her, 'If something happens to you, can you go to somebody to talk about it?' She says, 'No.' So she just leaves it alone. There's nobody there she can talk to, who she can trust to help her. So she leaves it alone." (Quotes taken from It's Time Illinois Reports on Discrimination
and Hate Crimes, 2000 and 2002, available online at www.genderadvocates.org). |
Miranda Writes...