Gender-Affirming Care For LGBTQ Foster Youth Approved In LA County

LOS ANGELES, CA — Gender-affirming resources will be made available to LGBTQ youth in the foster system as part of a new pilot program approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

The program will create "resource closets" for youth. Community organizations will help develop the closets, which will provide items like clothes, shapewear and makeup free of charge for foster youth.

The program will focus initially on the First and Third supervisorial districts, which include much of the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys and Downtown LA.

The program, introduced as a motion by supervisors Hilda Solis and Lindsey Horvath comes amid the first days of Pride Month. The supervisors say ongoing efforts to tamp out gender affirming care nationwide highlight the need for resources to support gender identity and expression among particularly vulnerable populations.

"Gender affirming care can help reduce self-harm and mental health challenges in transgender people, as well as those who are non-binary and gender non-conforming," the motion reads.

The motion seeks to create a dedicated funding a clear referral source for such resources, which heretofore had not been in place.

In total, 24 states have enacted bans on gender affirming care, according to Solis. "Over 36 percent of LGBTQ+ youth nationwide are left without access to much needed treatment, resources and services," she said.

According to a 2014 Williams Institute study, 20 percent of foster youth identify as LGBTQ and more than 90 percent of those are of color. Other studies have shown that as many as 30 percent of California foster youth identify as LGBTQ, according to the supervisors.

In 2020, the Department of Children and Family Services developed a program to provide tailored services for LGBTQ youth in the welfare system. The program included a Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression dashboard, which assesses real-time data on sexual identities and gender expressions of youth with open DCFS cases.

"We know of the challenges the youth who are system-involved face, especially when they are also part of the LGBTQ community and ensuring that they have the support to feel safe in how they identify and express is vital and in some cases, life-saving," Solis said.

The one-year pilot program, which will be funded by the Pritzker Foster Care Initiative and Casey Family Programs, will also provide all DCFS staff with information on ways to access the resources and support those who need them.

The motion also calls on the county CEO and DCFS to work to identify permanent funding sources to implement and expand gender affirming resource closets throughout the county.

The board also approved a separate motion calling for expansion of existing gender affirming resources available in the county that foster public awareness, offer mental health services and medication, and provide other informational resources.

City News Service contributed to this report.