Transgender people deserve recognition, support, respect
As the Trump administration reportedly considers a policy that would deny the existence of transgender people, central Ohio can take pride that, here, transgender people are not only recognized but supported. That is due in part to Equitas Health’s Mozaic program and its new center, which serves young people of color, ages 13 to 29, who are transgender, gender nonconforming or gender nonbinary.
The center located in the University District works to decrease rates of HIV, which are disproportionately high, especially among black transgender women. With free testing and education and referrals to help people find healthcare providers, there is a clear public-health benefit.
But beyond that, the center is a place where people facing an enormous challenge — coming to terms with a transgender identity — can find others who understand and support them. Staff members know the pain and despair of being rejected by families and fired by employers. Many transgender youths find themselves homeless, and their stories sometimes end in suicide.
The center can help with food and clothing, lockers for use during the day, a computer center and social and educational events.
Meanwhile, according to a memo leaked to The New York Times, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump is considering having key federal agencies adopt a definition of gender as either male or female as determined by a person’s genitalia at birth.
That would erase Obama-era changes to recognize what scientists, doctors and 1.4 million transgender Americans know: that gender is not the simple either/or proposition that most of us grew up understanding.
The Times story about the policy memo sparked immediate protest; more than 1,600 scientists — biologists, geneticists, psychologists, physicians and others — signed a letter calling the idea “fundamentally inconsistent not only with science but also with ethical practices, human rights and basic dignity.”
Another letter, signed by more than 50 top corporations including Apple, Amazon and Facebook, opposes the idea, declaring, “Transgender people are our beloved family members and friends and our valued team members. What harms transgender people harms our companies.”
Attempting to enforce a simplistic, counter-toscience edict ignoring the complexity of human gender identity isn’t just factually incorrect and backward; it is dangerous and cruel.
Hats off to Whitehall, where two years of focused, energetic police work and grassroots volunteering are making a real dent in the crime that has plagued the suburb for decades.
Police Chief Mike Crispen, hired in 2016 expressly to bring down crime, is succeeding by targeting the theft crimes that feed the city’s drug problem, which fosters more violent crime.
While Crispen has ramped up arrests for drug offenses and theft, violent crime — defined as murder, negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault — has dropped by 36 percent compared with 2016. Burglaries are down by 43 percent, from 240 in 2016 to 137 so far this year.
Combine that with a volunteer force of residents who patrol the city looking for signs of crime and a city focus on encouraging more businesses and jobs, and you have the ingredients of a better quality of life for everyone.