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My Community Profile: Queer and Environmental Activism

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My Community Profile: Queer and Environmental Activism

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Photo from an event I helped organize for transgender day of remembrance In highschool

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Newt I saw while birding!

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Photo Of Leach Botanical Gardens from a habitat enhancement event with the JCWC

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The view of Johnson's creek from my neighborhood

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(I know this one is a bit longer then 10mins, even watching half introduces the idea of Intersectional Environmentalism and its importance if you have the time!!)

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The Intersectional History of Environmentalism

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Film I worked on focused around the trans experience and advice

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How the Stonewall Riots Sparked a Movement | History

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Sharing this because understanding the role labels play in queer identities and culture and how that varies from person to person is an important insight to have into the queer experience.

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Excerpts of Identities from Kate Bornsteins “My gender workbook : how to become a real man, a real woman, the real you, or something else entirely”, 1988.

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Queer environmentalism is an intersectional approach to environmental activism that acknowledges the historical relationship between the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, racial liberties, and environmental protections. It recognizes that environmental issues disproportionately affect marginalized communities, particularly BIPOC, disabled, queer and other systematically disadvantaged individuals, and advocates for a more inclusive and intersectional environmental justice movement. This pride month let's take a dive into the key aspects of queer environmentalism and its impacts on modern communities.

Understanding the intersection between queer theory and environmentalism is critical for the future of the environmental movement.

Ecofeminism demands a poststructuralist understanding of cultural labels. It is a significant shift to our modern culture's dependence on fixed identity markers. Bio-essentialism, the idea that behaviors are biologically predetermined rather than shaped by society, uniquely targets historically marginalized communities across the spectrum. Bio-essentialism is often used as an excuse to strip these individuals of their legal protections and rights. It is similarly used to prioritize cisnormative white humanity over nonhumans in discussions of rights.

In her introduction to queer ecology as a field of study, Professor Nicole Seymour argues that queer ecology links the importance of nonhumans into discussions of humanities. The environment around us impacts our society as a whole. By incorporating wildlife and land rights into our conversations about the climate crisis, we are including indigenous voices as well as protecting the larger ecosystems through which our everyday life depends. Within this discussion of ecofeminism, it is vital for race to be a focal point to the environmental justice movement, as the communities carrying the heaviest burden from these disasters are most predominantly BIPOC, low-income, and/or LGBTQ+ identifying individuals. Queer environmentalism requires a deeper understanding of diverse identities and challenges heteronormative narratives about our environment, offering opportunities for a more inclusive and sustainable relationship with the natural world.

Environmentalism and queerness are likewise linked due to the disproportionate burden for queer communities during climate disasters. In terms of the overall social, economic, health, and cultural burden, most research primarily focuses on the cis-heteronormative white experience. While this identity is credibly at risk for climate impacts, they are not the most vulnerable population. Toxic pollutant industries disproportionately impact communities of color due to racist redlining practices and housing gentrification, leaving intersectional communities, especially queer or disabled BIPOC communities, in hazardous living conditions. Climate change and environmental disasters such as forest fires or hurricanes are specific hazards for people already at risk from unsafe housing and work situations. Those who are excluded most from emergency disaster relief and face the most violence during relocation are transgender people, who already experience high rates of institutional discrimination. In order to protect the lives of those most threatened by climate disasters, we need to acknowledge the complex intersections of identity and provide relief systems that reach their intended people.

Due to institutionalized discrimination in the health care system, environmental impacts threaten the lives and health of LGBTQ+ individuals at many different levels. While the health disparities along racial/ethnic and socioeconomic status lines are commonly discussed in the medical community, conversations about queer identities are often left out. Chronic illnesses such as respiratory diseases, cardiovascular disease, and cancer are most prominently ignored. These are all illnesses primarily associated with high levels of environmental hazard exposure, where rates are significantly higher in the LGBTQ+ population than in the cisgender heterosexual population. On top of already being at a higher risk of contracting chronic illnesses, queer persons (with an emphasis on disabled and BIPOC queers) often face medical discrimination or are less likely to seek medical care due to extensive previous mistreatment. In 2015, one-third of transgender individuals in the US reported either verbal harassment or the refusal of medical support by healthcare professionals.

Today, legalized transphobia specifically allows for clear medical discrimination, exempting doctors from accountability to their patients. Florida recently passed a bill that allows healthcare providers to deny medical treatment to transgender patients, even in life-endangering situations. Environmental issues are human issues in the fact that everyone will be impacted by climate change. However, ignoring the vulnerability of transgender people, particularly those within the intersection of disabled and BIPOC communities, will endanger the very lives of the people most in need of protection. To build a safe, sustainable, and more inclusive world for all, we need to listen to Black and brown queer voices, and endeavor to include the various intersections of our identities within the environmentalism movement.

We all live on Earth, but due to centuries of historical systematic neglect, certain communities carry a heavier burden of climate change, and this needs to be included in activist conversations. By acknowledging and understanding the unique challenges and burdens faced by queer communities and advocating for their rights within the broader environmental movement, we challenge the norm of whom our built environments are made for. With hard-working environmentalists from all walks of life, a more equitable and sustainable future can be achieved, where the voices and experiences of all individuals, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, are heard and valued.

Sources
https://www.researchgate.net - A Proposal to Converge Queer Theory and Ecofeminism https://www.cambridge.org - Queer Ecologies and Queer Environmentalisms https://ajph.aphapublications.org - Queering Environmental Justice: Unequal Environmental Health Burden on the LGBTQ+ Community https://earthjustice.org - Why Queer Liberation Is an Environmental Justice Issue

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Queer Environmentalism and Its Impacts on Modern Communities

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We continue to honor Pride Month with a focus on queer environmentalism - an intersectional approach to environmental activism that acknowledges the historical relationship between the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, racial liberties, and environmental protections.

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Short film/doc made by some of my peers in high school looking at hardships trans people face in school around bathrooms. This gives really meaningful insight to some of the struggles trans people have in the education system.

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This is an article on the importance of teaching queer history in schools. I feel very strongly about this subject because it is vital for queer people, especially queer youth to feel seen and for their cishet peers to understand the history of queer people and the queer rights movement.

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Leslie Feinberg writes, in Transgender Warriors, "I couldn't find myself in history. No one like me seemed to have ever existed."

History education is a multifaceted exploration. It is an exploration of past causes and effects. It is an exploration of other peoples' lives and cultures and interconnections. It is an exploration of triumphs and failures. It is an exploration of self, as Feinberg reminds us.

And when you search within a historical space-when you reach out for recognition-and find no one like you, it is unmooring. It creates an incomplete foundation from which others can label you as aberrational and ahistorical-a person without precedent. And just as people have been cast out of history, a person without precedent can be cast out of the present.

We've seen this play out again and again. Lessons about ancient civilizations create a cross-curricular myth that good government and genius are the provinces of white Europeans, erasing the contributions of communities of color and justifying white supremacist systems. A failure to uplift the long history of Asian American life and contributions leads to a "perpetual outsider" myth that helped motivate past and present-day racism and violence. An erasure of postcolonial Indigenous nations becomes an excuse to relegate Indigenous people to the past and simplify their complex cultures into mascots and stadium chants- with harmful consequences.

Within these histories-and within every culture's history-queer people lived. People who loved people of the same sex. People whose gender identity fell outside the male-female binary prescribed by colonial powers or their sex assigned at birth. Throughout recorded and oral histories around the world, their stories surface.

Yet too often, those stories are invisible in our schools and in our history education. And in the rare instance that LGBTQ figures are taught in schools, they usually belong to recent history, as if queer people suddenly crossed a rainbow bridge into the earthly realm in the 1960s, born with bricks in their hands and standing at Stonewall's door, having never existed or resisted before.

Of course, this misrepresentation has consequences. As we speak, trans and intersex kids face the brunt of proposed legislation across the country that would treat them as anomalies unworthy of public space and sports participation.

And of course, such perceptions aren't true. It's important for educators to understand why history is often taught this way. And it's important for students to understand the truth: that queer people are ever-present, throughout time and place. Because precedent is power.

How We Teach Queer History Today

Unfortunately, too many educators erase queer people entirely. According to the most recent national GLSEN survey, only 1 in 5 queer students "were taught positive representations of LGBTQ people, history, or events in their schools." More than half of those students couldn't even find such information in their libraries.

But in recent years, certain figures in queer history have finally earned some long-deserved recognition. Figures like Bayard Rustin, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera have made their way into more curricula. This is great. Many more queer figures throughout history deserve recognition of their full selves and contributions. Undoing that systemic silencing is key.

But such undoing also follows a pattern we have seen in the recovery of marginalized histories.

The pattern often begins with highlighting heroes. Heroes serve as role models for students who need representation and as anchor points from which educators can tie known context to unknown contributors. Someone like Rustin, for example, can be tied to the well-known work of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement.

However, highlighting heroes also gives birth to mythology. It's how the radical work of Dr. King gets whitewashed; it's how the lifetime activism of Rosa Parks gets diminished to a singular act.

Without follow-up steps, then, the recovery is incomplete.

The next step in recovering marginalized histories, of course, is to uplift nuances and hidden histories. To go beyond famous figures and lift up collective movements, everyday lived experiences and cultural contributions across time. It's the ethos that informs a project like our Teaching Hard History framework, which centers the voices and lived experiences of enslaved African, African American and Indigenous peoples. It's the method that makes recovering local history and uplifting cultures' histories of resilient joy so valuable and relevant to students. It's the difference between a hero who seems untouchable and a precedent that lives within each individual.

Despite the fact that queer history intersects with all of these histories, the gaps and silences in textbooks and classrooms remain huge-and harmful. And it's important for educators to understand how to speak to those gaps, even where resources are scarce.

Teaching the Gaps and Silences

As Jey Ehrenhalt and I wrote in Best Practices for Serving LGBTQ Students, "It is no accident that so few historical records preserve the lives of queer individuals. History does not remember what it does not value."

People with power determine whose stories belong to the dominant narrative. They can effectively erase what has been recorded, and they can hoard opportunities to publish or spread stories.

There are books that can help tell some of these stories. But many periods and cultures remain woefully unrepresented, if they're represented at all.

That doesn't mean we're left with nothing. Ancestors' experiences persevere because they are stronger than the gatekeepers; a gate cannot keep a persistent truth at bay. But it does often mean we're left with fewer resources.

To teach these gaps and silences is to acknowledge that queer people existed throughout all of human history-and to acknowledge the context that informs the erasure or incomplete recounting of their stories.

First, when possible, educators should uplift the exceptions to these erasures. From cave paintings to ancient Egypt to Indigenous cultures, queer people have lived, thrived and been celebrated. This helps disrupt the myth of perpetual progress-as if queer people have only historically been subjugated and recently been liberated-and instead allows for explorations of more inclusive pasts.

As historian Susan K. Freeman said in an episode of our Queer America podcast, "This knowledge is deeply empowering to those of us on the margins. Our marginalization is not a God-given inevitability. It's not evidence of innate inferiority, and it's not the way things have always been for time immemorial. Our marginalization, rather, is a result of human or manmade power arrangements."

And it's important to note who had that power to interpret depictions of queer life; much of recorded history about "queer" Indigenous life, for example, comes through settler colonialists' descriptions. Many oral histories were lost or devalued.

Second, for any given era, educators should teach the context. Explain the laws, culture, power structures and societal values that may account for the erasure of queer people.

An imagining such as Robert Jones Jr.'s The Prophets provides us with fully realized characters in a story we already know to be true: Enslaved Black people experienced same-sex love. We also know there were enslaved people who would have lived outside of cisnormative gender structures, enslaved people who would have had no sexual desires at all and enslaved people who would have been what we call "intersex" today. But the context helps us understand why those stories have been erased and obscured-a context that includes the sexual exploitation of Black bodies for profit and forced assimilation into a rigid Western morality.

Third, educators need to be willing to think beyond the acronym. Umbrella acronyms such as LGBTQIA help us include a broad coalition, and we use the word "queer" to be as all-encompassing as possible. But these words operate in a particular time and from a particular language and thus could never capture the full range of gender and sexual identities. We cannot prescribe identities to past figures who would not have identified themselves that way, and we cannot shoehorn our words into cultures who have found their own beautiful descriptors.

Uplifting hidden histories means respecting the muxes of the Zapotec society, the nádleehí of Navajo nations and the hijras of South Asia. It means focusing less on the imposition of words and more on the precedent of lived experiences.

Why This Matters

For queer students who have been made to believe that queerness is an aberration or a 20th-century invention, evidence to the contrary is validating. It offers all students a more complete history-one that has always included the full fabric of humanity that surrounds them.

And by including a fuller story of queer history-a story that spans place and time, that covers celebration and resilience-we offer queer students a guidepost.

"That is obviously something that can inspire a lot of resilience and fortitude within [students]," Joanna Williams said in our story about teaching Stonewall. "...They're moving with the spirit of the people who came before them. It's hard to channel that energy and that spirit if you think you're the first one or the only one."

And that's the power of precedent.

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Queer People Have Always Existed-Teach Like It

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Leslie Feinberg writes, in Transgender Warriors, "I couldn't find myself in history. No one like me seemed to have ever existed." History education is a multifaceted exploration. It is an exploration of past causes and effects. It is an exploration of other peoples' lives and cultures and interconnections.

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The book "October Mourning" by Leslea Newman I read as a freshman in high school, it was something I'd picked up knowing nothing about Matthew Shepard, I was just looking for a shorter book to read for an English class. After reading this book I felt like this was something I should have learned in a history class, and I wondered how many stories like his had been left out of the curriculum.

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October Mourning is Lesléa Newman's deeply personal response to the tragic day Matthew Shepard was beaten and left for dead, and the brutal aftermath of those events. This work of poetic imagination explores the impact of the vicious crime through fictitious monologues from various points of view, including the fence to which Matthew was tied, the deer that kept watch beside him, and even Matthew himself.

This stunning cycle of sixty-eight poems serves as an illumination for readers too young to remember and as a powerful enduring tribute to Matthew Shepard's life and legacy.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation provides the following English Language Arts (ELA) supports for the oratorio:

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October Mourning - Matthew Shepard Foundation

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October Mourning is Lesléa Newman's deeply personal response to the tragic day Matthew Shepard was beaten and left for dead, and the brutal aftermath of those events. This work of poetic imagination explores the impact of the vicious crime through fictitious monologues from various points of view, including the fence to which Matthew was tied, the deer that kept watch beside him, and even Matthew himself.

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Video highlighting ways climate change impacts human health.

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Understanding How Climate Change Impacts Human Health

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Article on Biden's recent changes to Title IX that will hopefully improved support for Trans youth in schools!

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The Biden administration on Friday unveiled a final set of sweeping changes to Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination at government-funded schools, after more than a year of delays and mounting pressure from advocacy groups.

The final changes, which reinstitute protections for student survivors of sexual assault and harassment that were rolled back during the Trump administration, will take effect Aug. 1.

"These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation's students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Friday in a statement.

The administration's final update to the landmark civil rights law, which also bolsters protections for LGBTQ students, was originally expected last May but was delayed several times, frustrating advocates wooed by President Biden's campaign promise of a "quick end" to Title IX regulations instituted by Trump-era Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

The Education Department has attributed the delay to an unprecedented number of public comments on the proposal, which the department is required by law to consider before issuing a final rule. More than 240,000 comments were submitted during a 30-day period, nearly twice the amount the department received during its last Title IX revamp in 2020.

The administration's new regulations aim to equip schools with clear-cut instructions to promptly and effectively respond to "all sex discrimination, not limited to sexual harassment," said Catherine Lhamon, the Education Department's assistant secretary for civil rights.

The final rule expands the definition of sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity, applying the reasoning of a 2020 Supreme Court decision that found existing civil rights laws protect employees from discrimination based on transgender status.

The new Title IX regulations could under certain circumstances prevent individuals from adhering to some Republican-backed laws that LGBTQ advocates have said create a hostile environment for transgender students, such as measures that bar individuals from using facilities that match their gender identity or prevent schools from requiring staff and students to use a transgender person's name and pronouns, a senior administration official said.

The final changes are sure to draw swift criticism from Republicans, who have slammed the proposal's transgender student protections as an attack on protections for cisgender women and girls.

The administration has yet to finalize a separate rule governing athletics eligibility. The proposal unveiled by the Education Department last April would prohibit schools from adopting policies that categorically exclude transgender student-athletes, though high schools and colleges would still be able to limit how and when trans students are able to compete in accordance with their gender identity.

Twenty-four states since 2021 have passed laws that bar transgender student-athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit group that tracks LGBTQ laws. Court orders are blocking the enforcement of laws passed in Arizona, Idaho, West Virginia and Utah.

The Biden administration's Title IX revamp strikes most of the changes made under former President Trump, including a narrowed definition of sexual harassment and a requirement that schools conduct live hearings with cross-examination for investigations of sexual misconduct.

The new regulations also establish a lower burden of proof for survivors and students alleging sex discrimination, replacing the former administration's "clear and convincing" evidence standard with a "preponderance of the evidence" standard of proof.

The Biden administration's final update does, however, maintain several "major provisions" from the previous regulations, the Education Department said, to ensure consistency while schools update required procedures to more effectively address sex discrimination.

Protections have also been strengthened for pregnant employees or students, such as providing clean and private lactation spaces for students and employees and other reasonable modifications.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Finalized Biden Title IX regulations add protections for transgender students

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The Biden administration on Friday unveiled a final set of sweeping changes to Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination at government-funded schools, after more than a year of delays and mounting pressure from advocacy groups. The final changes, which reinstitute protections for student survivors of sexual assault and harassment that were rolled...

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Project for a past art class with the theme "Nature vs Technology" depicting a powerplant overrun with plants.

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Article covering the experiences of LGBTQ+ Students in school.

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During the pandemic, school remained a hostile place for LGBTQ students. Rates of bullying and harassment stayed consistent from previous years, but supports such as gay-straight alliances, inclusive curriculum, policies, and supportive educators dwindled.

That's according to the National School Climate Survey by the research and advocacy group GLSEN, released earlier this month. The biennial survey was administered online to more than 22,000 LGBTQ students across the country during the 2020-21 school year.

Over the past decade, there was a steady decline in homophobic remarks, harassment, and bullying of LGBTQ students for their gender identities, their sexual orientation, or other characteristics, according to past survey results. This year, that decline stagnated, according to Joseph Kosciw, the director of research for GLSEN.

An unusual consequence of hybrid education in the pandemic was that online learning made attending school safer for LGBTQ students who did not have to face in-person harassment in hallways, bathrooms, and locker rooms. But the survey respondents also said they lost out on peer support, which is an important element to fostering a sense of community, Kosciw said.

Here are some of the numbers and key findings about school safety, verbal and physical harassment, and support in schools based on the 2020-21 report.

School safety, verbal and physical harassment

More than 68 percent of LGBTQ students said they felt unsafe in school because of hostility to at least one of their actual or perceived personal characteristics, for example, their gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation.

Seventy-six percent were verbally harassed because of their identity; 31 percent were physically harassed, for example, by being pushed or shoved. More than 12 percent were physically assaulted, for example, punched, kicked or injured with a weapon.

And more than half of students experienced sexual harassment, such as unwanted touching or sexual remarks made by other students.

Homophobic slurs also remained common in school, and contributed to the distress LGBTQ students felt around their peers. Nearly all LGBTQ students-97 percent-heard "gay" used in a negative way at school. Almost 90 percent heard other types of homophobic slurs. Almost 93 percent heard negative comments about their gender expression, such as people stating that they didn't act "masculine enough" or "feminine enough," and 83 percent heard insults against trans people.

Because of the bullying and harassment, 40 percent of LGBTQ students said they avoided school bathrooms, locker rooms, and physical education or gym classes. Almost 79 percent avoided school functions or extracurricular activities because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable. Finally, 32 percent of LGBTQ students who responded to the survey said they had missed at least one entire day of school in the past month because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable.

Adult staff also contributed to this hostile environment, the survey found. Fifty-eight percent of LGBTQ students said they had heard homophobic remarks from their teachers or other school staff members, and 72 percent of students reported hearing negative remarks about their gender expression from teachers or other school staff. Only 10 percent of students said their teachers intervened when they heard other students verbally harassing LGBTQ students.

Lack of supports

More than a third of LGBTQ students-almost 35 percent-said that their school had an active GSA or similarly supportive student club in the 2020-2021 academic year. Students in in-school-only learning environments were less likely to have a GSA available than those in online-only or hybrid learning environments, the report found.

Those figures represent a significant drop from previous years, when more than half of LGBTQ students had reported having a GSA at school.

Inclusive lessons on LGBTQ topics were also not common. More than 71 percent of survey respondents said their classes did not include any LGBTQ topics.

The number of supportive school personnel was also lower in 2021 compared to the period between 2013 and 2019.

While 96 percent of LGBTQ students could identify at least one supportive staff member at their school, only 23.7 percent reported that their school administration was "somewhat or very supportive" of LGBTQ students.

Anti-bullying policies, another tool of support, lacked specificity to protect students based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Only 12 percent of students reported that their school had a comprehensive policy that specifically prevents bullying based on both sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, and only 8.2 percent of LGBTQ students reported that their school or district had official policies or guidelines to support transgender or nonbinary students.

The report also found that having any of these supports in place was linked to decreased verbal harassment.

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What School Is Like for LGBTQ Students, By the Numbers

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Here are survey statistics on harassment, support, and fears experienced by LGBTQ students during pandemic-era schooling.

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Brief article on what pride is any why Its celebrated.

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Pride: What is it and why do people celebrate it?

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Pride is celebrating 50 years and June is Pride month - but what is it about and why do people celebrate it?

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Everything to know about gender affirming care, highlighting its importance and how it can be lifesaving.

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Skip to Content

Gender-affirming care, sometimes referred to as transition-related care, is life-saving healthcare for transgender people of all ages. It is not a single category of services but instead is a range of services, including mental health care, medical care, and social services. At all ages, clear, well-established, evidence-based standards of care exist for who can access what form of gender affirming care, and when they are eligible to receive it.

Gender -affirming care is medically necessary for the well-being of many transgender and non-binary people who experience symptoms of gender dysphoria, or distress that results from having one's gender identity not match their sex assigned at birth. Gender-affirming care helps transgender and non-binary people live openly and authentically as their true selves. Just like any other form of healthcare, it also helps transgender and non-binary people live safe and healthy lives.

Gender affirming care is always delivered in age-appropriate, evidence-based ways, and decisions to provide care are made in consultation with doctors and parents. Collectively representing more than 1.3 million doctors across the United States, every major medical and mental health organization - including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association - recognizes that it is medically necessary to support people in affirming their gender identity.

Gender transition is the process through which a transgender or non-binary person takes steps to live authentically in their true gender identity. It is a personal process that looks different for every transgender and non-binary person, and individual paths do not always follow the same order. Some people take medication, and some do not; some adults have surgeries, and others do not. For some people, it can include steps as simple as changing clothes, names and hairstyles to fit their gender identity. Regardless of the age at which a person transitions, how they do so is their choice to be made with their family and doctors.

Transgender and non-binary people who begin transitioning during childhood or adolescence work closely with parents and health care providers - including mental health providers - to determine which changes to make at a given time that are age-appropriate and in the best interest of the child. At all stages, parents, young people and medical professionals make decisions together, and no permanent medical interventions happen until a transgender person is old enough to give truly informed consent.

Prior to puberty, transition is entirely social, and may involve changing names, pronouns, clothing, and hairstyles. During and after puberty, some medical treatments may be available, but only after significant consideration and consultation between the youth, their families and their health care providers.

Social transitioning is when someone takes non-medical and fully reversible steps to begin living and presenting publicly as their gender. This can include changes such as:

Using a new name and pronouns

Adopting a new hairstyle

Wearing different clothing

Disclosing gender identity to others in their lives

For those who begin transitioning prior to puberty, transition is entirely social. But for many transgender and non-binary people, social transition is the first step in their gender transition journey, regardless of the age they begin transitioning. This is because it offers the opportunity to easily and quickly take small steps to begin living authentically, before involving medical interventions.

Gender-affirming hormones are a type of prescription medicine transgender and non-binary people can take to cause their body to begin physically developing into the gender they identify as. These medications allow transgender and non-binary people to live more fully as their identified gender, significantly reducing negative psychological outcomes such as gender dysphoria, depression, anxiety and suicidality.

Gender-affirming hormone medications are synthetic versions of testosterone or estrogen, the same hormones that naturally develop at various levels in both cisgender men and cisgender women. These same medications are used safely every day by millions of cisgender men and women worldwide.

Gender affirming hormones are typically not prescribed until a person is at least 18 years old. Though adolescents may receive gender-affirming hormones starting in their late teens, this is only done with physician approval, parental consent and informed consent from the adolescent in question, and is typically reserved for those adolescents who have been on puberty blockers and/or socially transitioned for some time.

Gender affirming hormones are safe in both youth and adults with provider supervision and appropriate management. Depending how long a person has been taking gender-affirming hormones, the effects may be fully or partially reversible as well. The informed consent process involves discussions about side effects and benefits-as with any informed consent process for medication or treatments-including discussions about fertility.

Gender-affirming hormones are life-saving for transgender youth and adults. A recent study from the Trevor Project shows that transgender youth with access to gender-affirming hormones have lower rates of depression and are at a lower risk for suicide. A study by Stanford University School of Medicine found that positive mental health outcomes were higher for transgender people who accessed gender-affirming hormones as teenagers versus those who accessed it as adults. A third study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that, two years after initiating gender-affirming hormones, transgender youth reported higher levels of life satisfaction and positive affect, and lower levels of gender dysphoria, depression and anxiety.

Clear, well-established, evidence-based standards of care exist for who can get gender-affirming care and when - and these standards have existed for decades. In 2022, for example, the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) released their 8th Standards of Care for treating transgender patients. Both the Endocrine Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics have issued guidelines as well.

The process to access gender-affirming care can differ from state to state, and hospital to hospital, due to differences in state laws around who can access gender-affirming care, and when. But, in general, transgender patients (along with their families, if they are minors under the age of 18), will start by visiting a health care provider or clinic that specializes in gender-affirming care. Some may be referred to this clinic after first disclosing their gender dysphoria to a primary care provider or therapist, and others may start with a gender clinic.

For patients seeking out gender-affirming medical care, they often receive counseling for extended periods of time. If medications or surgery are part of their gender journey, they are only prescribed after further assessments to ensure they meet prescribing criteria. This can include but is not limited to documentation and referral letters, parental consent and ongoing mental health support. At all stages, gender-affirming care is only delivered after patients and their families have been counseled, and informed consent has been given.

This is a right-wing theory known as "rapid onset gender dysphoria" or "social contagion" - and it has been thoroughly debunked. The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and over 120 other medical associations issued a position statement calling for eliminating the use of this term as a diagnosis, based on a "lack of rigorous empirical support for its existence " and "its likelihood of contributing to harm and mental health burden." The statement also specifically calls out laws which use this debunked theory to justify anti-trans legislation.

Previous studies have found that de-transitioning is quite rare -with some studies finding levels of de-transition and regret as low as 1% or 2%. Transgender youth who meet criteria for gender dysphoria and who undergo social or medical transition are actually the least likely to de-transition - and those vast majority of transgender youth remain consistent and persistent in their gender identity over time: One recent study, published in the academic journal Pediatrics, followed over 300 transgender youth after first initiating social transition, and found that over 92% remained consistent and persistent in their gender identity 5 years later.

However, evidence-based standards of care exist to ensure that no one, regardless of their age, undergoes any permanent, irreversible changes without informed consent and careful consultation with medical and mental health care providers.

When legislation attempts to regulate who can access gender-affirming care, they are inserting political battles into private and personal conversations between parents and their children, and patients and their doctors. These laws are not about safety - as the safety, efficacy and life-saving nature of gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary youth and adults is clear. Instead, in ignoring a wealth of scientific evidence and overwhelming support from the medical community, these legislators are attempting to enshrine discrimination into law. Rather than protecting kids, these laws are preventing parents and young people from making informed medical decisions, and doctors and health care providers from providing best-practice care to their patients.

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As attacks on the LGBTQ+ community continue to gain steam, it is important to get the facts about gender-affirming care.

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This climate strike happened when I was a freshman in highschool (sept 2019), going was a really eye opening experience and what got me into environmental activism. This action was also what introduced me to a lot of members of my community!

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Thousands of students marched through Portland Friday as part of the international strike against climate change.

Students demonstrated outside Portland City Hall, coming from schools all over the city. From there, students walked across the Willamette River to OMSI for what organizers called a "festival."

"I want to do anything I can as a 16-year-old to help make the change now before it's too late," Madison High School junior Miles Anderson said.

Thousands of children, students, and citizens from around Portland rallied as a part of the international climate strike to demand action on climate change.
Cheyenne Thorpe / OPB

Previous student marches have intentionally excluded adults from the effort, but for Friday's "strike," student organizers reached out to parents and other community members to offer support.

Students are speaking out against fossil fuels, such as the Zenith Energy project in Portland. Some called for stronger regulations on industry and more consideration for marginalized communities.

"The biggest thing I would like to see changed is from big corporations, but especially from Zenith Energy and the oil tanks they are constantly bringing into Portland through the cities," Lincoln High School senior Aliya Peek said.

Students also pushed for climate change to be more of a priority in their classrooms, through a focus of science curriculum, for instance.

Phoebe Kemp is a senior at Lincoln High School in Portland. As part of an environmental justice class in school, she wants all students to have the same opportunity.

"We're learning math, we're learning science, we're learning history, but we're not learning what's truly important which is about our environment," Kemp said. "I think it needs to be a curriculum implemented in every school."

Portland Public Schools estimated some 6,000 people participated in the international climate strike in Portland.
Cheyenne Thorpe / OPB

A group of students presented a list of demands to Mayor Ted Wheeler's staff. Students couldn't get inside City Hall, because it was closed in response to the throngs who showed up to the downtown building as part of the march.

According to Sunrise Movement PDX, Wheeler's office responded to a meeting request with an invitation to meet Thursday night, the night before the Climate Strike.

Youth organizer and Grant High School senior Ella Shriner helped create the list of demands. She spoke at Friday's rally in front of City Hall, and called the last-minute meeting invitation "completely unacceptable."

"We're all out here organizing and building for this movement," she said.

The Portland Police Bureau said there were three arrests made related to the climate events, one adult and two juveniles.

Nathan Porter holds his handmade sign at the Portland climate strike.
Cheyenne Thorpe / OPB

For past protests, officials at Portland Public Schools have given mixed messages about student participation, or explicitly told students that they should be in class, rather than marching in the streets. For Friday's action, PPS was more tolerant, saying that students could get an "excused absence" for participating in the protest, so long as families communicated with schools about what their students were doing.

West Linn High School junior Matilda Milner held a sign with an illustration of the Lorax, from Dr. Seuss.

"Our generation feels ignored. This is our future, this is our health, this is our safety," Milner said. "We're running out of time and we're running out of resources, and we're running out of options. So I think we need to force radical change through whether it's the easiest option or not."

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science & environment | environment | education | local | news

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Students March On Downtown Portland To Urge Action On Climate

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Thousands of Portland students and many adults joined in the international climate strike Friday, demanding action on climate change.