What is WPATH & Don't Say Gay Updates
Hello everyone. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the beginnings of Spring. For my American followers, I hope you have all recovered from the time change this past weekend. This week, I want to talk about two topics: WPATH and an update on the Don’t Say Gay Bill in Florida. Both of these have been in the news recently, so hopefully these explainers will provide some important context. Before I being, As I continue to post and plan for the future of The Queer Friendly Nonprofit, I would love to hear from you if there are any questions you have or any way this newsletter can be of help for you and your organization. I also do talks on a variety of topics around queerness, and I am happy to discuss those if you have any questions.
What is WPATH?
WPATH is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. They establish the Standards of Care for transgender people, which can be found here (I also talked about them in this post). Recently, an anti-trans right wing news sites have released what they called the “WPATH Files”, which is a mostly editorialized document about “leaks” from the message boards concerning exchanges with doctors, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals. It also contains many factual inaccuracies and responses which are out of context. Erin in the Morning found 216 factual errors in the “WPATH files” (and counting).
Furthermore, in the WPATH Files, the authors discuss what they consider suspiciously low regret rates. What the authors of this file do not understand is the importance of transitioning in the mental health of transgender people. Erin in the Morning talked about it and I discussed this in my post on the 2022 US Transgender Survey. This has been a consistent finding in research on the health and wellness of transgender and nonbinary individuals (including these 51 studies); allowing transgender individuals to transition in the way that is best for them leads to a higher quality of life and happiness and lower levels of depression and anxiety. This is why it’s important, in any organization that has transgender individuals, to provide a space where you not only affirm gender identities, you help transgender people find professionals who can help guide them and provide the care that they deserve.
How does this impact nonprofits?
The reason I bring this up in my newsletter is because types of “news” stories lead to a spread of misinformation and, therefore, limits to what treatments become available to transgender individuals. These stories can also be used to create anti-trans policies which continue to pop up across the United States. This can be especially dangerous for doctors and other medical and mental health professionals who do not have experience with transgender patients. It is important to have access to good information, such as the WPATH Standards of Care, so that you can help advocate for transgender clients.
Don’t Say Gay Bills Update in Florida
Don’t Say Gay Laws, which have been popping up around the US, have been used to prevent schools from even discussing sexual orientation and gender identity and expression with kids. The first law, and the one which got a lot of attention, is the one in Florida which was extended to all grades. After a recent lawsuit, the Florida Department of Education has settled and issued a memo which says:
This is not a full win; sexual orientation and gender identity and expression are still left out of the curriculum, which is harmful for all children but especially those that are trying to figure out their identities. What this does mean is that students will be able to talk about sexual orientation and gender identity and expression in class and ask questions and things such as safe zone stickers can stay up. This may also help in the fight against book banning, which is another big issue within the state.
How does this impact nonprofit organizations?
For nonprofits working with children, this is a win. It means that children can feel free to ask questions and talk about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. It still means that nonprofits will need to fill in the educational gaps so that students can learn about their identities, the identities of their peers, and how to support those who are figuring out their identities.
Conclusion
I hope you all have a great week. Next week, I will be exploring a new article on the PRRI Views on LGBTQ rights in all 50 states. I look forward to diving into this report.