National
Rachel Levine in ‘rewarding’ visit speaks with trans youth at D.C. health clinic
Hospital an oasis of support amid attacks from states
Itās not unusual for Rachel Levine as assistant secretary for health to visit medical facilities on behalf of the Department of Health & Human Services. But her visit last week to the LGBTQ youth clinic at the Childrenās National Hospital was special because she was able to meet with transgender youth as an openly transgender presidential appointee.
The visit on Thursday by Levine at the D.C.-based hospital comes not long after the U.S. Senate approved her appointment, making her the first openly transgender presidential appointee to win a Senate-confirmed position. As such, her visit to the LGBTQ youth clinic, where transgender kids come for transition-related care and health services, held particular significance for the patients.
Levine, speaking with the Washington Blade at the end of her visit, said having the opportunity to speak with both transgender youth and medical professionals testing them was ātremendously, tremendously rewardingā
āItās tremendously gratifying to be able to speak to the medical professionals and the clinic personnel,Ā but particularly to the youth and their families from my experience,ā Levine added. āSo I have two aspects of that. One is that I’m a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist. So I’ve been teaching to children and their families my entire career, but the other is coming from my lived experience as an openly transgender woman, and so I find it tremendously rewarding.ā
The warm environment of the hospital for children is readily apparent upon entering the main atrium of the building. Lights dressed up as hot air balloons fill the tall ceiling while a nearby TV shows music videos consisting of squares of kids’ faces singing, followed by easy-listening country music and Asian K-pop. Children and their parents await their appointments seated in comfy plush red chairs before white blocks meant for use as tables.
Key to Levineās visit was taking part in a discussion at the hospital auditorium with three transgender youth and their families who obtain services at the clinic. During the question-and-answer period, Levine shared her experience as a transgender person who underwent transition later in life and went on to tremendous success as a high-ranking presidential appointee.
For the transgender youth, Levineās presence at the hospital ā at a time when state legislatures are busy enacting bills to restrict their access to medical care and school activities ā serves as a reminder that barriers based on gender identity are breaking down and the skyās the limit for their future.
After the question-and-answer session, Levine told the Blade she ālearned a lotā about Childrenās National, which she called āa world-renowned children’s hospital and academic medical center.ā
āIāve known about it before,ā Levine added. āIām a pediatrician, adolescent medicine specialist, but I learned more about what they’re doing. And I learned specifically about their gender clinic, where they take care of transgender and gender non-conforming youth and got to meet some of the staff as well as the kids and their families.ā
The Youth Pride Clinic, which opened in 2015, is one of the few clinics in the nation to provide primary care and mental health services to LGBTQ youth from ages 12 to 22. Among the services offered are hormone replacement therapy, STP/STI treatment and PrEP services as well as individual and family therapy for transgender youth.
Among the transgender youth patients at the clinic who spoke to the Washington Blade was Amir, a 15-year-old Georgia native whose last name as a minor is being withheld for confidentiality purposes.
āI started out in fifth grade coming out as lesbian,ā Amir said. āI didn’t even really know, but when I came out to my grandma in Georgia, where I’m from, I still didn’t feel like myself. So then, later on, me and my friend researched, and next thing you know we came across the term transgender, and I was like, ‘This is who I am. This is me.’ā
Amir said he began taking shots as part of care regimen in January. Being able to receive care from the Youth Pride Clinic, Amir said, means a lot because he has an opportunity not available to other transgender youths, who face challenges and even hostility as they make the journey to transition. The staffers at the Youth Pride Clinic, Amir said, are ālike a second familyā who work hard to provide the services they offer.
Sonia Murphy, Amirās aunt who became his legal guardian, said when she began reaching out for medical help for Amir she found a two- or three-year wait list to get access to treatment, which she said makes her “saddened” such care isnāt widely available.
āThereās a population of kids and parents out there who need the services and just can’t access it because there’s not enough bandwidth, not enough manpower,ā Murphy said.
Amir said heās getting other avenues of support from his two cousins, one who is older at age 18 and one who is younger at age 12. āThey’re like sisters to me, so I call them my sisters,ā Amir said. Amir also identified two other male cousins as well as his uncles and his aunt.
āThey’re all very supportive of me,ā Amir said. āMy auntie Tonya, for example, Pride month came up, first day, she sent me a paragraph, saying, āIām glad you’re yourself and you’re open to who you are and things like that,ā and that I’m not afraid to be who I am around anybody. Itās just things like that. And for my birthday, I had tons of Pride shirts, and I got a rainbow shirt with the fist in the middle for Black Lives Matter, and it was a ton of different things.ā
Lawrence DāAngelo, director of the Youth Pride Clinic and an occupational health adolescent medicine specialist, told the Blade being able to start the facility in 2015 in and of itself was one of the key victories for the initiative, although he said the Childrenās National has been providing transition-related care since 1998.
āWhen we started itā¦we thought that we were going to be running a PrEP clinic, that we were going to be providing preventive services to LGBTQ kids,ā DāAngelo said. āThe first day, the first patient actually came in and asked for PrEP, and the other six patients that were scheduled that day all wanted transgender services. So, suddenly, it became obvious what we were going to be spending 90 percent of our time doing, which is exactly what we think we should be doing, because that’s where the need is the greatest.ā
Despite the advantages of having access to the Youth Pride Clinic, transgender youth have clear challenges and face hostility based simply on their gender identity, especially in a year when state legislatures have in an unprecedented manner enacted legislation against them. The Youth Pride Clinic, in many ways, is an oasis of support.
Arkansas, for example, enacted a measure that would make criminal the kind of services provided at the clinic. Other states have enacted measures prohibiting ābiological boysā from participating in sports, which essentially bars transgender girls from participating in sporting events.
While anti-trans measures aren’t being enacted in D.C. or any nearby states, the advancement of anti-trans legislation in states has had a negative effect on transgender patients at the Youth Pride Clinic.
DāAngelo, based on conversations he’s had with the patients, said theyāre aware of the wave of legislation, which he said has led to fear, anger and being āunable to understand what is happening and why it’s happening.”
Amir said watching states enact legislation against transgender youth āmakes me feel some type of weight,ā pointing specifically to the anti-trans sports measures because he said heād welcome the opportunity to participate in athletics.
āIām athletic,ā Amir said. āI do all types of sports. I play basketball, soccer, I’m going to do boxingā¦With sports and stuff, I just feel like I want to be able to do everything, just as a regular cisgender person will be able to do,ā
Amir, despite the enactment of anti-trans laws, has an optimistic outlook and said the enactment of state measures against transgender youth demonstrates theyāre now āon the radarā of the social conservative movement.
āI feel like if everybody who’s a part of LGBTQ and trans together, we can stand up and we can overcome this because the thing is, there are so many people out there who don’t understand what we do, and the thing is that they’re noticing us, so that’s a start to something big.ā
With many states hostile to transgender youth, others are looking to the federal government for support under the Biden administration. On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to implement the U.S. Supreme Courtās decision against anti-LGBTQ discrimination to the fullest extent possible.
Levine cited an announcement from HHS that resulted from this order on implementing regulations prohibiting anti-LGBTQ discrimination in medical care, reversing a policy under the Trump administration that green lighted discrimination, as one of the ways it has answered that call and helped families like the Youth Pride Clinic.
āSo the Affordable Care Act says that you cannot discriminate based upon sex,” Levine said. “The Department Health & Human Services and the Office of Civil Rights has interpreted sex to include sexual and gender minorities, to include sexual orientation and gender identity, which means LGBTQ individuals under that. So we need to look at all aspects of the Affordable Care Act, and to work to implement that interpretation of the statute. That was only done a month or so ago, so we’re going to be working on that now.ā
Is there anything more the federal government can do to support the clinic? DāAngelo cited a number of key things already secured, including the hospital being able to offer insurance to patients and the affirmation from HHS against anti-LGBTQ discrimination. More research dollars and greater focus from the National Institutes of Health on gender diverse and sexual minority individuals, DāAngelo said, would also be welcome.
āThere are things out there that the federal government can do, but I thinkā¦there are limitations of what they can do,” DāAngelo said. “They can’t, unfortunately, effect what’s going on in individual states, which is, in some cases draconian. That’s an awful thought if we were practicing medicine in Arkansas, we could be in jail.ā
Meanwhile, Levine said the Biden administration, including Secretary of Health & Human Services Xavier Becerra, is working on both internal and external policies to facilities like the Youth Pride Clinic to help them secure their place in the health system and reach transgender youth.
āThe secretary and I will be doing everything we can to advocate for the LGBTQ community,ā Levine said. āSo I think we’re going to be working externally, in terms of advocacy, and then we’re going to be working internally in terms of policy.ā
Federal Government
Biden-Harris administration takes major step toward reclassifying marijuana
New regulations could lessen criminal penalties for cannabis
The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday took a major step toward loosening the federal government’s regulation of marijuana by issuing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which outlines a proposal to reclassify it under the federal Controlled Substances Act.
The move comes pursuant to the Biden-Harris administration’s April 30 announcement of plans to recategorize cannabis as a Schedule III substance, which could substantially lessen the criminal penalties for those convicted of using, possessing, selling, distributing, or cultivating the drug.
A 60-day public comment period will begin after the NPRM is published on the Federal Register, along with a concurrent review of the proposed regulatory reforms by an administrative law judge assigned by the DEA.
Since the CSA was passed in 1971, cannabis has been listed under Schedule I, the category reserved for drugs that are considered to be the most dangerous and lacking any currently accepted medical use in the U.S.
In a press release, a senior administration official noted that “marijuana is currently classified higher than fentanyl and meth ā the drugs driving our Nationās overdose epidemic.”
President Joe Biden posted a video on X in which he said the proposal to house cannabis under the Schedule III regulatory regime constitutes “an important move towards reversing longstanding inequities.”
“Todayās announcement builds on the work weāve already done to pardon a record number of federal offenses for simple possession of marijuana,” the president said. “It adds to the action weāve taken to lift barriers to housing, employment, small business loans, and more for tens of thousands of Americans.”
“Look folks no one should be in jail for merely using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said. “Period.”
The president added, “Far too many lives have been upended because of a failed approach to marijuana and Iām committed to righting those wrongs. You have my word on it.”
Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana.
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 16, 2024
So today, the @TheJusticeDept is taking the next step to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug under federal law.
Here's what that means: pic.twitter.com/TMztSyyFYm
U.S. Federal Courts
4th Circuit rules Montgomery County parents cannot opt children out of LGBTQ-specific lessons
Lawsuit filed in May 2023
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled a group of Montgomery County parents cannot āopt outā their children from classes in which lessons or books on LGBTQ-related topics are taught.
The parents filed their lawsuit in May 2023.
An American Civil Liberties Union press release notes the lawsuit challenges Montgomery County Public Schools’ policy that “mandates the inclusion of literature with LGBTQ+ characters as part of the ELA (English and Language Arts) curriculum, aiming to promote understanding and acceptance among students.”
“Although the district originally allowed parents to opt their children out of some ELA lessons, it rescinded the opt-out policy because the number of requests grew too difficult to manage, student absenteeism soared, and it created a stigmatizing environment for students who are LGBTQ or have LGBTQ family members, undermining the purpose of the inclusivity requirement,” said the ACLU.
U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ruled against the parents. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., upheld the decision.
āWeāre talking about books like āPride Puppy,ā which is light-hearted and affirming,ā said ACLU of Maryland Legal Director Deborah Jeon in a press release. āDuring a time of intensifying calls to ban books and limit access to information about LGBTQ+ people and identities, this ruling in support of inclusion in education matters.ā
National
Jimmy Carter’s grandson says his grandfather nearing the end
Former president has been in hospice for more than a year
BY JILL NOLIN | The grandson of former President Jimmy Carter provided an update on his grandfatherās condition Tuesday at the Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy, which was the first held since the former first ladyās death.
Grandson Jason Carter said he visited his grandfather at his home in Plains a couple weeks ago to watch an Atlanta Braves baseball game.
āI said, āPawpaw, people ask me how youāre doing, and I say, I donāt know.ā And he said, āwell, I donāt know myself,āā Jason Carter said during the event at the Carter Center in Atlanta. āHeās still there.ā
Jimmy Carter, who at 99 years old is the longest lived president, has been in hospice care since early 2023. Rosalynn Carter, his wife of 77 years, died in November.
Jason Carter said he believes his grandfather is nearing the end.
āThereās a part of this faith journey that is so important to him, and thereās a part of that faith journey that you only can live at the very end. And I think he has been there in that space,ā Jason Carter said.
His grandfatherās time in hospice care has been a reminder of the work Rosalynn Carter did to advance caregiving and mental health, he said.
āThe caregiving associated with mental health and mental illness is so crucial and so fundamental to the work that we all do in this room and to her legacy that it is remarkable and important, and weāve all experienced it very first hand over the last year so we give thanks for that as well,ā Jason Carter said.
******************************************************************************************
Jill Nolin has spent nearly 15 years reporting on state and local government in four states, focusing on policy and political stories and tracking public spending. She has spent the last five years chasing stories in the halls of Georgiaās Gold Dome, earning recognition for her work showing the impact of rising opioid addiction on the stateās rural communities. She is a graduate of Troy University.
******************************************************************************************
The preceding article was previously published by the Georgia Recorder and is republished with permission.
The Georgia Recorder is an independent, nonprofit news organization focused on connecting public policies to the stories of the people and communities affected by them. We bring a fresh perspective to coverage of the stateās biggest issues from our perch near the Capitol in downtown Atlanta. We view news as a vital community service and believe that government accountability and transparency are valued by all Georgians.
Weāre part of States Newsroom, the nationās largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
-
Africa4 days ago
South African president signs new hate crimes, hate speech law
-
South America11 hours ago
Peruvian government classifies transgender people as mentally ill
-
Africa2 days ago
Ugandan president meets with US ambassador
-
LGBTQ Non-Profit Organizations3 days ago
Blade contributor wins GLAAD Media Award