We are the LGBT Courage Coalition

Gender clinics are in trouble, and they need our help. We’re transgender individuals, transsexuals, homosexuals, and bisexuals who are dedicated to the betterment of our care. We’re deeply concerned about the current state of gender care in the U.S. and Canada. But the good news is, right now, we can offer practical solutions to these practical problems.

We support whistleblower Jamie Reed’s efforts to improve healthcare for gender-distressed youth.

This is not an easy conversation to have, because of the polarized state of our political landscape. We’re wholly committed to improving the lives of LGBT people, but we sometimes have difficulty getting our own allies to listen to us. This is because we must first assuage fears that any discussion of reform of the current healthcare system might create an opening for anti-gay or anti-trans activists to gain a foothold. This “bunker” mentality is understandable, but we have to move past it, for the sake of the health and safety of LGBT youth. We cannot allow youth gender care to be frozen out of the normal process of healthy review, refinement, and improvement, out of a frightened reaction to the anti-LGBT right wing.

Photo by Hussein Abdullah on Unsplash

A little about us:

We are a group of LGB and T community members who support whistleblower Jamie Reed’s efforts to improve healthcare for gender-distressed youth.

Across North America, families are being faced with difficult decisions while trying to help their gender-distressed children. Gender clinics are failing some of these families because of poor clinical practices that are not evidence-based.

Through her whistleblowing efforts, Jamie Reed bravely pointed out what many of us who work in healthcare fields have also observed: that some gender clinics are no longer diagnosing or assessing patients prior to starting them on life-altering medical treatments.

And some children are being seriously harmed in the process.

We encourage you to look at the investigations of esteemed & reliable media organizations like The New York Times: they acknowledge the seriousness of the issues Jamie Reed raises, most recently in Azeen Ghorayshi’s article “How a Small Gender Clinic Landed in a Political Storm”.

We want to be clear that this is not a straight-vs.-gay issue. All of us, including Jamie Reed, are ourselves dedicated and proud members and contributors to the LGBTQ community. Nor is this a Republican-vs-Democrat issue. Jamie Reed is a lifelong liberal with a queer identity. Many of us are proudly on the left of the political spectrum. Importantly, it is also not a trans-vs.-anti-trans issue. Many of us have medically transitioned ourselves, and we have experienced firsthand the rapid shifts in gender medicine.

Rather than support efforts to reform gender affirming care, GLAAD, an organization that claims to speak for LGBT+ people, has chosen to respond with a series of ad hominem attacks on Jamie Reed and on anyone who dares to question aspects of "gender affirming care" as it is practiced today.

Jamie is our colleague and our friend. We encourage those who claim to know what is in her heart to listen more closely to her claims. We did, and we found significant common ground.

As LGB and T community members, clinicians, and service users, we support patient-centered, evidence-based care. We support safeguards for children under 18 years old. We oppose hormones on demand for minors and support true informed consent for adults seeking treatment for gender-related issues.

We are the LGBT Courage Coalition and we support Jamie Reed’s efforts to put an end to unregulated pediatric gender medicine.

GLAAD does not speak for us.

Please send your submissions to LGBTcouragecoalition@gmail.com