The role of social work and social welfare in the current crisis facing trans youth in the US

Abstract

Social work in the US has failed to respond to the largest legislative attack on the rights of transgender and non-binary people in the history of the country. Hundreds of laws have been proposed over the past several years, aiming to ban transgender and non-binary people from public life, as well as criminalising gender-affirming healthcare and attempting to remove transgender youth from supportive families for forced detransition. Beginning with the Trump administration, these bills have exponentially increased in number, now being proposed in more than 60 per cent of the US. This article critically reviews the ways in which national social work organisations have failed to address both the systemic erasure of transgender people in their pedagogy and the behaviours of specific actors within the social work profession who are actively helping to draft anti-trans legislation and advocate for conversion therapy, contravening both the evidence base and code of ethics.

Gender Affirmation–Related Information-Seeking Behaviors in a Diverse Sample of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Young Adults: Survey Study

“…This suggests a need for broader education and discussion of gender identity development across society, as the lack of language for a concept can make it difficult to locate information about that concept. While there is no high-quality evidence suggesting that learning about gender diversity leads to increased adoption of gender-diverse identities (ie, the debunked social contagion hypothesis), our clinical experience suggests that many TGD young people struggle to understand how they fit into the world when they are raised in environments that don’t discuss their existence as a possibility [ 12 , 28 , 29 ].…”

“…TGD youths with unsupportive caregivers have become unhoused as well as experienced both physical and emotional abuse [ 45 , 46 ]. In addition, in the current regulatory environment, supportive caregivers may be at risk of having custodial rights revoked, or undergoing investigation by child protective organizations [ 12 ]. Given safety concerns, and in line with suggestions from participants, plans for our proposed interventions now include ensuring information is available in a form that is not clearly visibly branded as trans to a casual observer and creating a quick escape option similar to those seen on websites and apps designed as resources for individuals experiencing abuse [ 47 ].…”

“…Though social and medical gender affirmation are widely acknowledged to be essential for the health and well-being of TGD youths and young adults [ 10 ], as of March 2022, 15 states had restricted or were considering restricting gender-affirming medical care through legislation, which if all passed would deprive 58,000 youths of access to necessary medical care [ 11 ]. Other states pursued legislative attacks against social affirmation of or medical care for TGD youths using regulatory barriers imposed by state medical boards or by designating gender affirmation as child abuse [ 12 ]. Threats to criminalize gender affirming care may also make it difficult for medical providers to share information about both medical and social affirmation with their young patients due to concerns such as loss of medical licensure or imprisonment.…”

The challenge of right-wing populism— A human rights approach

“…Like many social workers, I have felt deeply distressed by the growth of rightwing extremism visible in the vicious campaigns against abortion rights in the US and elsewhere (Lavalette et al, 2022), the attacks against rights for transgender and non-binary people (Kant & Boskey, 2022;Miles, 2018), and the extremist opposition to public health measures everywhere over the last two years of the Covid-19 pandemic (Beddoe, 2022). This book contributes to a greater sense of understanding of how the dynamics of populism work and intensifies my belief that social work must make a very strong stand against these threats to human rights.…”