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The Campaign for Southern Equality has made its “Trans in the South” directory fully available online. The resource is meant to help connect transgender individuals to gender-affirming legal and health services close to home.
The “Trans in the South” directory is organized by states. It includes providers in a range of areas, including behavioral health, hormone replacement, and primary care. Ivy Hill is the community health program director for the Campaign for Southern Equality. Hill says the directory is based on a long history of transgender people supporting each other and sharing resources.
“If you were looking for a doctor who could provide hormone replacement therapy, or even just a therapist who was trans-friendly, the only way to really find them was to find someone else who was trans, who was willing to share their experience of where they went, Hill said.
Throughout much of her childhood, P. felt like something was off. But she didn t know exactly what. I felt at odds with myself, the Decatur resident recounted. Almost like my physical body was trying to push me in one direction but I wanted to go another.
The breakthrough moment came on a family vacation in 2017, when she read a National Geographic cover story about Avery Jackson, a pink-haired 9-year-old who is transgender. I remember reading her story at like 1 in the morning, sitting in the Airbnb thinking, oh my God, that sounds like me, said P., now 16.
There are no simple paths for transgender children, whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth.
Transgender Georgians, families brace as states across South pass restrictive laws
Updated 8:51 AM;
Today 8:51 AM
The Georgia State Capitol, where two sets of anti-transgender bills have been introduced. (Jessica McGowan/Getty Images/TNS)TNS
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By Tamar Hallerman, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (TNS)
Throughout much of her childhood, P. felt like something was off. But she didn’t know exactly what.
“I felt at odds with myself,” the Decatur resident recounted. “Almost like my physical body was trying to push me in one direction but I wanted to go another.”
The breakthrough moment came on a family vacation in 2017, when she read a National Geographic cover story about Avery Jackson, a pink-haired 9-year-old who is transgender.
2021 update of the popular directory of trans-affirming health and legal service providers is released. Need for access to affirming care is made more urgent by wave of southern laws and bills that could limit access to health care for transgender people.
3:42 pm UTC Apr. 26, 2021
By the time she was 10 years old, Allison Scott was used to being bullied about her gender identity.
Growing up in a religious and conservative family, the fear of speaking out prevented her from expressing her true self. Not only would her family be against her, but there was a possibility, even if she had an ounce of approval, that she could be denied by medical professionals who should be taking care of her physical and mental health.
Scott, an activist and director of innovation and inclusion at Campaign for Southern Equality, believes if she were a child again and heard about bills possibly stripping her from embracing her gender identity, she would have been devastated.