Jaxsyn is a 19-year-old two-spirited Lakota man, who is a poet, artist in beadwork, drawing, embroidery, and loves anything else artistic. He is also fiercely dedicated to protecting his fellow Indigenous trans peers. Jaxsyn is one of many LGBTQ+ young adults who has lived experience in the child welfare system, juvenile legal system, or with homelessness.
Stories like Jaxsyn’s and other trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse (TGND) youth in out-of-home care systems are too often overlooked. And, as actress Dominique Jackson said at a Lambda Legal event highlighting these stories, “Children should be cared for and treasured in any society … I hope that our government and policymakers see their experiences and ensure youth involved in these systems are cared for and protected.”
That’s why Lambda Legal released Safe Havens II: We Must Affirm and Support Transgender, Nonbinary, and Gender Diverse Youth in Out-of-Home Systems, which centers their experiences and recommendations for improving these systems.
The youth contributors had four calls to action to better care for their peers in out-of-home care:
- Respect all youth’s identity and expression.
- Invest in families, not institutions.
- Connect youth to support and to the LGBTQ+ community.
- Ensure youth receive mental health and medical care from qualified providers.
In addition to these recommendations, we, alongside local partners, worked to increase explicit protection from discrimination for TNGD youth in out-of-home systems since 2017’s Safe Havens I. And while many state legislatures were behaving badly, we have helped to achieve much of the progress seen in those protections in subsequent years. In Safe Havens II, we highlight that progress and condemn new harmful polices, which we are fighting in court every day.
This report is a critical reminder of the lives impacted by this harm and a roadmap for our future work to ensure all LGBTQ+ youth are loved, supported, and treated with dignity and respect.
Read the full report here, and meet all our youth contributors in this video: