By Alakananda Mookerjee | India Currents
A wave of bills targeting transgender youth are forcing them and their families to flee nearly every red state in search of safe havens.
Speaking at a recent E.M.S. media event, Susan Maasch, director of the Trans Youth Equality Foundation (T.Y.E.F.) a non-profit that advocates for transgender youth, said that transgender kids are getting out of red states, but in higher numbers from Texas and Florida.
Twenty nine bills have become law in 14 states so far this year, sweeping past a record high of 20 bills passed into law in 12 states last year, according to an analysis of American Civil Liberties Union data by the Washington Post. They have all been either enacted by G.O.P.-led legislatures, overriding Democratic governors’ vetoes or signed into law by Republican governors.
Families with transgender children head west
In an interview with India Currents, Maasch said that T.Y.E.F. had recently helped a single mom, on low-income, to leave Florida with her three kids, one of whom is transgender. “She had to sell all her furniture and other possessions, so that everything could fit into a small U-HAUL truck. A friend was going to drive with them to a “safe state” and help them settle down in a new town, where she knows no one,” she said.
“Most families we’re in touch with are heading West, to states like California, Colorado, Oregon as well as Minnesota. Few are moving to the Northeast and I believe it’s because they hear it’s very expensive,” she added.
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