Trans Youth Emergency Project Helps Families Seek Gender-Affirming Care

In observance of Trans Awareness Week, which runs from Nov. 13-19, the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE) is working to raise awareness for the organization’s Trans Youth Emergency Project, which helps hundreds of families every month identify and travel to providers of gender-affirming care. The project has taken on new urgency in the lead-up to the landmark Supreme Court case United States v. Skrmetti, a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care.

On Dec. 4, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in favor of banning hormone therapy for transgender youth. Until the Supreme Court’s decision, which is expected by the spring or early summer of 2025, families of trans youth living in states such as North Carolina, where legislation has banned gender-affirming care for people under the age of 18, are forced to travel significant distances and navigate a complex landscape to access care.

In North Carolina, House Bill 808, which is currently in effect, prohibits the initiation of any gender-affirming care in North Carolina for people under the age of 18, including puberty-delaying medication, hormone therapy and surgery. It does not restrict care that has already been initiated; young people who were already receiving a “course of treatment” prior to Aug. 1, 2023 can continue receiving that care.

On Nov. 13, CSE released an animated video (below) voiced by author and activist Raquel Willis detailing the work of CSE’s Trans Youth Emergency Project (TYEP), which provides financial and logistical support to the families of transgender youth impacted by laws restricting access to transition-related care for minors in 26 states.  

Founded in Asheville in 2011, the Campaign for Southern Equality works toward full LGBTQ equality across the South. The video is meant to remind trans folks and their families that, regardless of how the courts rule, TYEP can provide one-on-one patient navigation services and support families of transgender youth with emergency grants of $500 to ease out-of-state travel costs for care.

“The United States v. Skrmetti case could define what care is available to trans youth for a generation,” CSE’s Allison Scott said in a press release last week. “Until every young trans person can access the care they need and deserve without leaving their hometown, the Trans Youth Emergency Project will be ready to help them navigate the logistical and financial hurdles. We hope this video helps raise awareness of the challenges trans youth are facing right now as the US Supreme Court weighs this landmark case — and as we head into a year where the country will be governed by hostile, far-right lawmakers.”

Since 2021, 26 states have passed legislation restricting or banning trans youth’s access to gender-affirming healthcare, an increase unseen prior to 2020. Nearly 38% of transgender youth live in states with a ban nationwide, with 93% concentrated in the South.

Families unable to permanently relocate face difficult decisions about how to support their children in need of gender-affirming services in states that prohibit or limit access. 

The Trans Youth Emergency Project is the only project of its scale and scope supporting families of transgender youth impacted by bans on gender-affirming care, according to the press release. Since the project’s inception in March 2023, CSE, in partnership with state organizations, has provided more than $600,000 in direct emergency grants to 1,100 families and individuals.

“Every day I speak with families of transgender youth who are worried about the future. Many are panicking, unsure of where or when they’ll get the medicine that their child needs to continue leading a healthy, happy life,” a patient navigator for CSE’s TYEP Van Bailey said in the press release.“These laws are cruelly thrusting families into impossible choices, and it is deeply unfair. I’m honored that we can provide some measure of relief and support, talking families through their options and reminding them that there’s a whole community behind them, ready to pitch in and help them through this crisis.”

Families of trans youth in any state with gender-affirming care bans can contact the Trans Youth Emergency Project here. The project is also accepting donations here.

“As we prepare for anti-transgender hostility to increase under the incoming Trump administration, our community and allies must prepare to protect and defend trans youth and their families. It is not fair that they are being forced to travel for healthcare,” Willis said in the release. 

“The Campaign for Southern Equality’s Trans Youth Emergency Project is doing vital, life-saving work to help these children and their families continue getting this essential care. We can’t wait around for failing institutions to save us. In fact, they never have. It’s time to come together and be about that action.”