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Feature

Supporting Charlotte’s Gender Non-Conforming and
Transgender Youth and Their Families

PFLAG Charlotte in Partnership with Mecklenburg County Medical Society

By Karen Graci, Manager, Healthcare Outreach Initiative, PFLAG Charlotte

W hen our now 18-year-old child came out as                                    To those of you who know our PFLAG Health Outreach Team,
                    transgender almost three years ago, I didn’t know        we thank you. For those we haven’t met, we are happy to come
                    transgender individuals experience higher rates of       to your practice to conduct our workshop. We will share our
verbal harassment, physical assault, poverty and                             stories, discuss the social and health challenges faced by LGBTQ
                                                                             individuals, and talk about the many ways healthcare providers can
unemployment.1 I didn’t know transgender youth experience higher rates of    be more inclusive and affirming. When LGBTQ individuals are
                                                                             supported in their identities, their rates of depression, anxiety, self-
depression and anxiety.2 I didn’t know 40 percent of transgender adults had  harm and suicide decrease.

attempted suicide. I didn’t know 74 percent of those first suicide attempts    How is my family now? I couldn’t be more proud as our child
                                                                             prepares for her last AP exam next week and for her high school
were at age 17 or younger.1 I didn’t know 40 percent of homeless youth in    graduation in June. As she looks forward to heading to college in the
                                                                             fall, her older sister is completing her junior year in college. Our kids
our country identify as LGBTQ.3 I didn’t know any of this, yet I was still   may be leaving the nest, but our family of four feels whole again.

What began in 2016 as     so scared — for our child’s life,                    If you are interested in scheduling a workshop, email pflagcharlotte@
                          our child’s future … and for our                   gmail.com or call 704-557-6135.

a small project by three  family of four.                                      The following local resources are available to healthcare
moms seeking care for       My child knew she was                              providers and LGBTQ patients and families:
their own children has
                          transgender by age 10, but it took                   n The Charlotte Transgender Healthcare Group (www.cthcg.org)
                          her five more years before she                       n PFLAG Charlotte (www.pflagcharlotte.org)
                                                                               n Time Out Youth (www.timeoutyouth.org)
grown into a partnership  was ready to share her gender                        n Transcend Charlotte (www.transcendcharlotte.org)
with the Child Health     identity with us. I know how
Committee of the          lucky we were that she finally                       Below are several upcoming regional and national conferences:
                          found those words. My husband
                                                                               n July 6: Gender Spectrum Professionals’ Symposium, Moraga, CA
Mecklenburg County        and I, along with our child’s older                    (www.genderspectrum.org)
Medical Society.          sister, had been witnessing each
                          day the heartbreaking pain that                      n August 2-4: Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference
                                                                                 (www.mazzonicenter.org/trans-wellness)
                          can be caused by an adolescent’s
                                                                               n August 9-12: Gender Odyssey Seattle
gender dysphoria — the feeling of distress that can result when your sex         (www.genderodyssey.org)

assigned at birth does not align with your gender identity.                    1 The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, James, S. E.,
                                                                             Herman, J. L., Rankin, S., Keisling, M., Mottet, L., & Anafi, M. (2016),
Over the course of the next year, we listened. We asked lots of              Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality.

questions. And we asked for help. Our support network expanded to              2 Mental Health of Transgender Youth in Care at an Adolescent
                                                                             Urban Community Health Center: A Matched Retrospective Cohort
extended family and friends, inclusive educators, affirming mental           Study, Reisner, Sari L. et al., J Adolesc Health. 2015; 56:274-279.

health professionals and the staff of Time Out Youth. We were                  3Serving Our Youth: Findings from a National Survey of Service
                                                                             Providers Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth
connected with PFLAG Charlotte, a support, education and advocacy            who are Homeless or At Risk of Becoming Homeless, Durso, L. E.,
                                                                             & Gates, G. J. (2012), Los Angeles: The Williams Institute with True
group for the LGBTQ community. Yet even with all this support, we            Colors Fund and The Palette Fund.

failed to find a pediatrician who could help my child. Finally, we were

connected with a family medical provider who would travel the journey

with us. It was the real turning point for our child.

A year ago, I was invited to manage PFLAG’s Healthcare Outreach

Initiative. What began in 2016 as a small project by three moms

seeking care for their own children has grown into a partnership with

the Child Health Committee of the Mecklenburg County Medical

Society. Through this collaboration, our team of three parent volunteers

has expanded to a team of seven parent volunteers, a behavioral health

provider, a family medical provider and a pediatrician who collectively

have presented our “Bridging the Healthcare Gap” workshop to almost

a thousand pediatric, family medicine, OB/GYN and behavioral health

professionals in Mecklenburg County and beyond.

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