The American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA) stands with transgender individuals and their families and in opposition to Texas Senate Bill 3.
Texas Senate Bill 3 denies transgender individuals access to bathrooms that match their gender identity in public and charter schools and state and city owned buildings. This bill also prohibits cities from developing their own anti-discrimination policies regarding multiple occupancy restrooms or participation in athletics programs.
Senate Bill 3 sends the message to trans people that: Your lives do not matter. Your mental and emotional well-being do not matter. And while Senate Bill 3 sends this message to transgender youth and adults, the recent amendment including state-issued identification cards as confirmation of gender means the current incarnation of the bill most severely targets transgender children, an already vulnerable population.
This message yields the terrifying statistics we see for transgender people, about 40% of whom attempt suicide at some point in their lives. In addition, this message intensifies the hatred and violence so often directed at transgender people. It fuels the fear so many parents of transgender youth live with day in and day out—fear that their children will be bullied, attacked, even murdered by someone who internalized the message that trans lives do not matter.
AFTA stands with the trans community and opposes any attempts to enshrine into law discriminatory policies that bring harm to trans individuals and their families.
The American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA) is a nonprofit organization of leaders in the field of family therapy and allied-field academics, clinicians, researchers, program directors, and policymakers. AFTA calls for personal and collective action to establish equitable social participation, allowing individuals, families, and communities the possibility to exist with dignity, self-determination, and physical and psychological well-being.
AFTA also has an op-ed piece written by Elijah Nealy on behalf of AFTA, for a Texas newspaper.
https://www.tribtalk.org/2017/08/09/not-the-texas-i-know-the-legislatures-bathroom-bill/.
In support of GLAAD posting the op-ed on social media, we can retweet using the following link: https://twitter.com/glaad/status/895287179257286656.
Thanks to Elijah Nealy, Sarah Berland, and Larry Levner for all their work to make this happen.