Family Equality joins a broad coalition of 110 organizations in asking lawmakers to reject bills from dozens of states seeking to ban transgender youth from school sports and access to medical care
Washington, D.C. – Family Equality stands together with 110 civil rights and legal groups, organizations for women and girls, medical associations, and proponents of equality for all Americans to oppose harmful anti-transgender bills at the state level.
Signers include expert organizations such as American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Association of University Women, Family Equality, Girls Inc., Girls on the Run International, GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality, National Black Justice Coalition, New Ways Ministry, Pediatric Endocrine Society, Union for Reform Judaism, Women’s Sports Foundation, and more.
“Family Equality is proud to sign onto this letter illustrating the harms of proposed bills in dozens of states that attack transgender youth,” said Stacey Stevenson, CEO of Family Equality. “Trans youth, like all people, deserve the resources necessary to be healthy, happy, and safe—this includes the chance to access evidence-based medical treatments that are right for them and the freedom to participate in activities that teach them the valuable life skills of teamwork, discipline, and sportsmanship. By stripping transgender youth from these opportunities, these bills would have a cruel and devastating impact. ”
The letter reads in part:
It is unconscionable that in many states, lawmakers are proposing and passing a wave of dangerous bills that seek to ban transgender youth from participating on K-12 school sports teams and/or from being able to access best practice medical care. … Transgender kids want the opportunity to play sports for the same reason other kids do: to be a part of a team where they feel like they belong.
Additionally, proposals that seek to ban transgender youth under the age of 18 from receiving best-practice medical care are some of the most extreme attacks on transgender people in recent memory. These bills would criminalize best practice medical care that is backed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and other leading health authorities.
State politicians should focus on what matters — containing the pandemic, increasing vaccinations, bolstering the economy, and helping families—rather than targeting transgender youth for harm.
The wide range of signers reflects the rising bipartisan consensus for nationwide LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections. Public support is at an all-time high and polls consistently show that a growing supermajority of Americans support protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination: Today’s signers join more than 65 major U.S. companies that issued a similar joint statement last month opposing the same dangerous types of state legislation.
The full letter and list of signers can be found here: https://freedomforallamericans.org/joint-statement-opposing-state-legislation-targeting-transgender-youth/.
About Family Equality
Family Equality advances legal and lived equality for LGBTQ+ families, and for those who wish to form them, through building community, changing hearts and minds, and driving policy change. Family Equality believes every LGBTQ+ person should have the right and opportunity to form and sustain a loving family, regardless of who they are or where they live. Learn more at familyequality.org.
# # #
Press Contact
Anna Libertin,
Chief Communications Officer (Interim)/
646-880-3005 ext. 157
communications@familyequality.org