As anti-trans laws mount, Strive Pensacola listing places that offer health care, support
Strive Pensacola, a grassroots advocacy organization centered around serving transgender people, feels bombarded with anti-trans legislation threatening the livelihood of those in its community.
Lawmakers in the last year have been focused on the transgender community with the passing or introduction of bills in Florida such as the “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” bill (HB 1557) that prohibits public schools from having classroom discussion or instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through third grade and Senate bill 254 prohibiting doctors from providing gender-affirming care to minors.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, this year 470 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in statehouses across the country, and more than 190 of those bills would specifically restrict the rights of transgender people.
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To combat the concern resources disappearing, Strive Pensacola is unveiling a Northwest Florida Trans Resource List for transgender people in Northwest Florida.
“This list is critical, because not every trans person knows where to go,” said Devin Cole, president of Strive Pensacola. “You'd be surprised at how many transgender people contact us and say I can't find an endocrinologist and the one I did find there's a six month waiting list, or my primary care physician won't stop misgendering me.”
The list provides resources to endocrinologists, therapists, counseling, OB/GYNs and primary care physicians.
Phase I of the project will introduce resources for transgender people in Escambia County. Phases II, III and IV over the spring and summer will extend the list to Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties.
Some of the most difficult resources for transgender people to find are often primary care physicians and endocrinologists who not only prescribe hormone replacement therapy, but endocrinologists who can work with them throughout their medical transition. An endocrinologist is a doctor who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of hormone-related diseases and conditions.
Cole and Strive said they have had difficulties adding area healthcare practitioners to the resource list because many doctors who treat transgender people refuse to be on any public list for fear of being reprimanded or targeted.
Part of this concern stems from Senate Bill 254, which would make doctors sign an attestation when getting their licenses that their facility does not offer or provide sex-reassignment prescriptions or procedures to minors minor. If they fail to uphold the policy, the could have their license revoked or face felony charges.
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In a statement released after the Senate passed the bill Tuesday, Kara Gross, legislative director and senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, wrote, “SB 254 is an egregious attack on Florida children who have a right to safe healthcare just like anyone else. It is an extreme example of government overreach into private medical decisions that will inflict harm on individuals experiencing gender dysphoria and prevent them from accessing the health care they need."
Even as there are growing fears of their safety and lives, Cole, Strive Pensacola and the transgender community will keep pushing forward even as more legislation is introduced.
“We're not going to be defeated, it's just not something that can happen. So it's not a matter of how you can keep going in a time like this, it's a matter of what are we doing?” Cole said. “How are we going to keep going in a time like this, what exactly are we doing, because something must always be done.”
For more information on the list go to strivepensacola.com/resources.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola Strive transgender advocacy group builds resource list
