Utah’s Department of Transportation is 70% done with one of its biggest projects, the West Davis Corridor. This project extends Legacy Highway from Farmington to West Point.
While all eyes are on the completion and open date for this expansion, many don’t know about UDOT’s next proposal in Farmington, which has community members frustrated and city officials drained.
UDOT has proposed a series of plans to widen I-15 from Salt Lake City to Farmington and improve existing interchanges, as well as add more. One of these new proposed interchanges is at Glovers Lane in Farmington.
This proposed interchange is the only one from Salt Lake City to Brigham City that will redirect freeway traffic into a residential
neighborhood.
UDOT has proposed three potential options:
· Option A, which is similar to what is already present on 200 West in Farmington.
· Option B, a single-point urban interchange that looks like an “X” controlled by one light. Residents in the area say this option would destroy many homes.
· Option C, which would improve what is already there, minus a designated Lagoon lane.
UDOT proposed the new interchange as a way to alleviate the Parrish Lane interchange in Centerville. There are plans to improve Parrish Lane, which they planned for the Glovers Lane project to assist in.
Residents are worried that this new interchange would bring dangerous traffic into neighborhoods, and Farmington city officials feel this might be their next battle with UDOT.
Residents left in the dark Mitch Shaw, senior communications manager at UDOT, said that during the public commenting period in spring of 2022, there were over 900 comments supporting the Glovers Lane interchange.
The residents living in the potentially-affected area were neither asked nor notified of the potential plans.
Shaw said all residents living within a quarter mile of the study area were notified through mail. However, Tammy Hardy, a resident of the area, said she and her neighbors never received mail notifications.
Hardy found out about these plans from the internet in the fall of 2022 after meetings had already happened. Once she did, she saw that her house was one of the many that would be demolished if Option B is chosen.
Hardy later found out that many of those who responded to UDOT’s survey lived in West Farmington or West Kaysville; resi-
dents who lived up to 10 miles away from the area who want better access to Farmington High School.
Residents’ Fears
Residents in the area are fighting against the interchange and are worried that Option B will be chosen. If that’s the case, residents say the results would be devastating.
This is the only interchange that sends freeway traffic into a residential area from Salt Lake City to Brigham City.
Shaw said that due to the 900 supportive comments and better access to FHS, Glovers Lane became an option.
Residents have questions Frustrated, Hardy became the community spokesperson after they put together a meeting for residents living in the area and UDOT. UDOT has asked her to be on a committee of stakeholders as well.
In late November, UDOT held a meeting
that went through all the plans with the residents. As it turned out, several of the residents were also engineers.
“I went out and thanked UDOT and they kidded me and said, ‘What did you do? Invite all the engineers?’” Hardy said.
The engineers were frustrated because UDOT couldn’t provide the traffic modeling to justify the interchange or answers to multiple questions.
Shaw said the traffic modeling shows that an interchange there would improve the flow of traffic and the projected influx of vehicles.
UDOT did not respond to requests for the traffic models from The Signpost, and residents and city officials have not seen these numbers either.
According to Hardy, UDOT sent a staffer to the area in December, who was surprised by what the area actually looked like. Hardy said they didn’t know about the local
wildlife, the floodplain, wetlands, historical houses or that the children living in that area walked to school and weren’t bussed.
“When they came, the first thing they said to us was, ‘Whoa, this looks a lot different than an aerial,’” Hardy said.
Neighborhood engineers said that with the limited idea of what the area looked like, UDOT didn’t plan out how the local roads and neighborhoods would handle this new traffic. Cam Preston, a civil engineer living in the area, was one of the participants in raising concerns to UDOT.
At the meeting, Preston asked UDOT for the traffic modeling behind the interchange.
“They promised they’d give it to us,” he said. “That was two months ago, and I don’t know where this data is.”
UDOT said it doesn’t know whether any homes will be torn down by the interchange because real estate studies are
still being done, but residents note that the maps show roadway on their property. Residents also estimate 25-35 homes may be demolished if UDOT were to go with Option B, which was one of Preston’s biggest concerns.
“When they built West Davis Corridor, I heard early on they only demolished 13 homes, so to build a new freeway from Farmington to West Point and only take out 13 homes — I have to commend you, that’s a good job,” Preston said. “But this Option B is taking out a ton of homes.”
One other concern, according to Preston, is that any of the improvements will bring more traffic to Glovers Lane, and that will require improvements to the intersection at 200 East, about a half-mile from the site.
“Currently, the intersection has limited visibility and with increased traffic and no improvements the number of accidents may increase,” Preston said.
Preston knows this because he’s seen the gridlock on 200 East when an accident occurs on I-15. Drivers trying to get around the congestion take Parrish Lane to 200 East to get to their homes in Centerville, Farmington and Kaysville.
If the interchange were to go in at Glover Lane, drivers trying to avoid congestion would use that to exit the freeway to get to 200 East, which could result in a gridlock. Then, Preston worries that Glovers Lane would also gridlock, and drivers would result in a gridlock. Then, Preston worries that Glovers Lane would also gridlock, and drivers would scatter into the neighborhoods looking for a way through.
“Those neighborhood roads were not built to handle that much traffic,” Preston said.
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Preston also thinks that if an interchange is going to end up at Glovers Lane, Option C would be the least destructive. The only issue with Option C is there wouldn’t be a lane dedicated to Lagoon traffic.
Preston proposed to UDOT to build a lane or an overpass that connects into the current dedicated lane to solve this problem.
The homes
If Option B is chosen, it would affect many homes in the area — those that would be demolished, along with the real estate value of homes nearby.
Stephanie Sears, a realtor whose $1.3 million home could end up abutting a
freeway interchange, said that homeowners who would lose their homes generally are given “just compensation to fair market value” in the process, which ends up being lower than the open market value.
Sears said that homes in the area generally value for $400,000 to $1.5 million. Those that aren’t getting demolished will lose 10% to 15% in property value.
“For values to not be affected you should be about a good quarter, at least to half a mile from that highway,” Sears said.
Many of these homeowners have lived there for years and paid off their homes. Finding a similar home they can afford in today’s housing market can l be difficult.
“We’re 63 and 64. Do I want to take a 30year mortgage out so I can move to a new house? No, I want to retire and be mission-
aries at girls’ camp,” Hardy said.
Farmington’s concerns
The city of Farmington is also concerned about this new interchange, and officials are frustrated at the lack of information they are getting.
Farmington just resolved a lawsuit with UDOT on how the West Davis Corridor will run through Farmington, according to City Manager Brigham Mellor.
Mayor Brett Anderson sees the proposed Glovers Lane interchange as the next legal battle Farmington may have with UDOT.
Farmington is where all the major highways come together. Before the West Davis
89, I-15 and Legacy all in Farmington.
“People use the analogy of an insect, we’re that little section of the wasp,” Anderson said. “They’ve got the big body and big tail end, and we’re this little skinny section. We have all these roads that just keep cutting through us, and we’re like, send it to the places that have more area to absorb it. We bore our share now it’s someone else’s turn.”
Anderson said UDOT considers Farmington as just another stakeholder. As a result, city officials are getting just as much information as residents.
“It was almost like they were spoon feeding us a little bit at a time,” Anderson said. Despite requests, Farmington city officials
UDOT has said two of the biggest reasons to build the new interchange is to improve access to Farmington High School and Lagoon.
Anderson said Farmington has already been working on this.
“We are building a whole new road system north of Station Park and north of McDonald’s,” Anderson said. “The new road system put in there will move traffic from
the northwest Kaysville and south Kaysville to Farmington, so we don’t need the freeway to be the solution.”
Anderson also said Lagoon is building a new entrance to their park on the north side to split the traffic.
Mellor said he doesn’t want the interchange there because it would take away from the commercial areas in Farmington. Mellor would rather people use Park Lane or
have the new interchange put in at Shepherd Lane.
Farmington residents are fighting this interchange and working to find accommodative solutions for everyone. Residents don’t want to lose their homes and have freeway traffic through their streets and Farmington city officials want to keep traffic towards Farmington’s commercial areas.
“Their job is to build roads, and our job is
to build communities,” Anderson said. According to Shaw, a decision on the options will be made this fall. It will be narrowed down to the top two options with another round of public comment and have the final decision made by spring of 2024.
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Dogs barking, cats meowing and the chatter of local Utah families hoping to find a new pet to bring into their lives — these are the near-constant sounds of animal shelters and rescues all across Utah looking to adopt the 49,000 animals housed in them.
The goal is to find a home for every animal brought in the door, but no shelter meets that goal — not even the ones that advertise themselves as no-kill.
“No-kill does not mean never kill,” Rhonda Greenhalgh, Founder and Executive Director at Second Chance for Homeless Pets, said. “The stance behind no-kill, you can still euthanize up to 10% whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter, it could be for behavioral, it could be for medical, it could be for space,
as long as it’s less than 10% you can call yourself a no-kill organization.”
Greenhalgh started Second Chance for Homeless Pets Rescue 23 years ago in Heber City out of a house with a few dogs and cats. The rescue would adopt the cats and dogs out and then take in more, eventually moving the rescue to a small building in Salt Lake City that was originally a boarding kennel.
According to Greenhalgh, no-kill has been present in rescues and shelters for quite some time. Most people associate the words “no-kill” with the Best Friends Animal Society, a well-known organization focused on ending the killing of animals in shelters across the country. Their mission and primary goal in Utah is to make every shelter a “no-kill” by the year 2025.
One of the ways BFAS plans to do this is
through their coalition, a movement involving shelters and rescues across the country, according to their website.
Finding network partners for BFAS is the starting point of that coalition. To be a network partner, Best Friends asks that shelters and rescues share their animal data with BFAS. This is so that they can make programming choices and funnel resources in the right spot, according to Nick Lippincott, BFAS Senior Manager of Life Saving Programs.
“[Network partners] get access to a large amount of things like grants and opportunities,” Lippincott said. “They have the opportunity to apply for “save them all” grants, which is to help get an agency to no-kill, or for no-kill excellence grants, which helps a group make bigger steps beyond no-kill. Locally we do adoption events and there’s
media events that [network partners] have the opportunity to tap into as a partner.”
In Utah, when a group joins as a partner, they have the opportunity to opt into the coalition. The coalition is an extension of the partnership.
“Since we are located in Utah, we have access to a little more intimate interaction,” Lippincott said. “We can be much more hands on in Utah. Our goal is to make an extension of that and really get hands-on and active within the coalition.”
While Best Friends Animal Society claims to be hands-on when it comes to their coalition, some shelters have claimed that wasn’t their experience.
During her time with the Humane Society of Utah as their former director of marketing and communications, Weber State University instructor Deann Carver said No
Kill Utah was a beacon of hope for shelters and rescues. They believed the coalition would be a way for BFAS to provide help with marketing and more opportunities to benefit the animals.
While BFAS has helped rescues and shelters in the coalition with large adoption events, increased exposure for adoptable animals on a coalition page, using Utah-specific funding opportunities, setting up programs in smaller shelters and helping the animals overall, there seems to be an alternate side to the coalition.
“The coalition sometimes would go in and help set up programs in smaller shelters and rescues, but when those efforts were difficult to maintain because a smaller shelter did not have the personnel, the it almost became more challenging,” Carver said. “As soon as those people left,
the shelter would complain that we can’t sustain these [programs], we don’t have the personnel, we don’t have the budget, we can’t keep these programs going but now we’re expected to keep these [programs] going because we are now considered a no-kill shelter and we have to,” Carver said.” It was a strain on them because they didn’t really have the ongoing support from the coalition.”
Shelters like Second Chance for Homeless Pets appear to feel the same way about the coalition. Greenhalgh spoke about how people join the network partner coalition to have the ability to apply for small grants, but beyond that, Best Friends Animal Society used to only put on super adoptions. These were big adoption events where they had a mobile spay and neuter truck, but Greenhalgh claims they don’t do that
anymore.
“The premise behind the coalition is that we all work in unison towards the goal of no-kill,” Greenhalgh said. “Best Friends is kind of like the name behind [the coalition,] but as far as, like, the boots on the groundwork, each organization pulls their own weight.”
When asked about their thoughts on shelters and rescues feeling neglected, BFAS answered by explaining how the organization has a mission goal to reach no-kill by 2025 and their resources, “are what they are.”
According to Lippincott, BFAS prioritizes its resources in the same way a shelter might prioritize what calls they respond to based on priority rights. This means some shelters take more priority over others depending on what shelters are most in
need of help.
“My belief is we should be empowering the shelters and helping support them to get there so that they can stand on their own feet,” Lippincott said. “Not making it so shelters constantly depend on Best Friends, but Best Friends are there to hold them up and champion them as they get there.”
To find out which shelters and rescues need help, BFAS has a benchmark where the organization looks at shelter and rescue stats as a whole, according to Lippincott. That benchmark is a 90% live animal outcome.
Story continued from PAGE 7
“Typically, the number of pets who are suffering from irreparable medical or behavioral issues that compromise their quality of life and prevent them from being rehomed is not more than 10% of all dogs and cats entering shelters,” The BFAS website states. “Therefore, we designate shelters that meet the 90% save-rate benchmark as no-kill.”
“We don’t say 90% is the end-all-be-all data. There are shelters that we would consider no-kill that have below 90%,” Lippin-
cott said. “Davis County for example, if you look at their information on the dashboard you would see that they are below 90%. When we look at that critically, we say hey let’s look at the programming, let’s look at the stuff they have in place, the systems they have placed for the community, how they are doing what they are doing. If you look at it that way, they are doing everything that a no-kill agency is doing. With these cases, the 10% could be moved to 15% for example.”
The opposite can be true as well, some groups could have above 90% and still be euthanized for space. According to Best Friends Animal Society, that’s not successful
programming, so those shelters would likely not qualify for a no-kill status.
In the past, BFAS was less flexible. The Humane Society of Utah decided to leave the coalition around the year 2019 due to them providing owner-requested euthanasia to the local community and other problems that could not be discussed, according to Carver.
“Although the national no-kill standard is calculated as a 90% live release rate in accordance with the National Federation of Humane Societies’ Live-Release Data Matrix, Best Friends Animal Society has redefined the calculation to include owner-requested euthanasias,” the Humane
Society’s FAQ website currently says. “According to their new standard, our shelter falls below the 90% benchmark because we provide end-of-life euthanasia services for pet owners in the community seeking to end the suffering of their pets at the end of their life or with irremediable conditions.”
In 2022, the Humane Society had an income owner-requested euthanasia count of 831 and an outcome owner-requested euthanasia count of 791, according to statistics listed on their website.
“Income is the owner has come into the shelter asking for the animal to be put down, and then outcome owner-requested euthanasia would be that the animal was
outcomed as euthanized,” Guinn Shuster, director of marketing and communications at the Humane Society said when asked about the difference of income and outcome owner-requested euthanasia. “When someone brings an animal into the Humane Society of Utah, it does not mean the animal automatically gets euthanized.”
The Humane Society is currently listed as a no-kill shelter on the BFAS public data known as their Pet Lifesaving Dashboard. There are currently seven shelters on BFAS Pet Lifesaving Dashboard that are listed under “not no-kill” status instead of “kill” shelter status, since that BFAS rarely uses the word “kill shelter” anymore, according
to Lippincott.
Tremonton Animal Control, Tooele County Animal Control, North Utah Valley Animal Services, West Jordan Animal Services, South Jordan City Animal Services, Riverton City Animal Control and North Utah Valley Animal Services are all listed as “not no-kill” shelters due to the shelters being government-run and not having enough resources and space, according to Best Friends Animal Society.
Summit County Animal Shelter, Uintah Animal Control and Shelter, Moab City Animal Shelter and Special Service District and Sandy City Animal Services are listed as a “nearly no-kill” shelter. These are also gov-
ernment-run shelters with not enough resources or space, according to Best Friends Animal Society. South Utah Valley Animal Services Special Services District and Beaver County Animal Control are listed as “nearly no-kill” shelters.
One of the solutions shelters and rescues use to help government-run shelters is the transfer system, according to Carver. Shelters that have had animals in their care for long amounts of time can transfer their animals to other shelters or rescues that have more space, funding and better marketing to find the animal a home.
Greenhalgh mentions that rescues can keep animals in their care for as long as
they want, as long as an animal is happy and healthy and not behaviorally or emotionally declining.
Local community members can help animals by adopting from shelters, becoming an animal foster parent, making sure to get their pets spayed and neutered, speaking up to government agencies about shelter needs and showing support to local shelters.
The passing of Title IX in 1972 has changed the way higher education treats women and since, women have passed men in graduation rates.
Title IX protects against sex-based discrimination based in education. Since the landmark legislation, women have been outperforming men in every level of education, including earning higher GPAs in K-12 and graduating at higher rates than men with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
According to the Pew Research Center, in 1972, 12.4% of women and 25% of men graduated with a bachelor’s degree. By 2021, both genders had seen an impressive increase, except women now lead with 39.1% obtaining a bachelor’s degree or higher, while men trail behind with 36.6%.
After graduating high school in 2003, Kevin Wilson skipped college in favor of work experience. Wilson is not surprised by the strides women have made in education.
“I would assume the number of men graduating as opposed to those who proceed directly into the workforce has not changed much,” Wilson said. “The number of women receiving support and encouragement from their friends and family, as well as the community, has greatly increased in the last few decades.” Scholarships.com is a website that offers information on scholarships for students. The website is organized into scholarships offered by gender, ethnicity and state.
The number of scholarships and support for women is not an issue for Wilson, who said some men might feel threatened with the number of scholarships and support women have over men, so they choose not to go to school.
“But also more, such as me, choosing
the real-world experience over paying for someone else’s,” Wilson said.
Wilson views college degrees as a “pay to play” system and values work experience over a degree.
“I think being around the idiot with a degree too often in my line of work has jaded me,” Wilson said.
“College degree attainment gap is just one symptom of a large and growing
gender gap in education,” Richard Reeves, author of “Of Boys to Men,” is a father of three boys. In his book, Reeves states.
In 2021, the Department of Education provided a document to assist educational institutions, who receive federal financial assistance, with meeting their civil rights obligations under Title IX. The document warns schools they “may never rely on overbroad generalizations about the different
talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females.”
Reeves believes there should be reformation in both the workforce and educational institutions to promote equal opportunities between sexes.
“We can hold two thoughts in our head at once. We can be passionate about women’s rights and compassionate toward vulnerable boys and men,” Reeves said.
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
While universities across the country face a decrease in male enrollment, Utah universities face a different problem.
In 2019, Utah ranked No. 44 in graduation rates for four-year public institutions and No. 46 for retention rates in four-year-institutions.
Weber State University has an average 12% gap in graduation rates by gender. There is a 39% for women and 27% for men in six years. Statewide, those numbers are much closer at a 7% gap favoring women according to a Utah audit legislative report.
“The state is very concerned about one group of students, and those are ‘Some college, no degree,’” Eric Amsel, an associate provost at WSU and professor of psychology, said. “They started, but didn’t finish.”
Utah traditionally sees that problem more among women than men, Amsel said.
“I think there was a sense that there are a lot of women in that group who left higher education, to start families and have not gone back and that is some of the concern
statewide,” Amsel said. “We have found something quite different at Weber State, which was a higher graduation rate for women compared to men.”
Named Utah Professor of the Year in 2006, Amsel spends a lot of time finding ways to make Weber State a place where all students can find a pathway to success.
“I do understand that there is an issue with men, but I’m not sure they’re not going to college,” Amsel said. “I think maybe they’re not completing college. Preferring perhaps getting to a point where they can find work. And having the degree doesn’t really change that.”
While male enrollment may not be as big a concern in Utah, the nation is already seeing the repercussions of the lack of male enrollment.
67% of students at Vassar College in New York are female. To bring male enrollment up, they have increased male acceptance rates.
According to Reeves, colleges across the country are trending toward this. On
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
average, admission rates for men are 5% higher than for women.
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The economy also plays a role in the deciding factor of attending college.
“One thing we know is that when unemployment increases, attendance in college increases,” Amsel said.
U.S. Unemployment Rate is currently at 3.5%. This is considerably lower than the long-term average of 5.73%.
For people like Wilson, who rely on work experience to move up in their job, this is good news. For people who don’t have work experience, Amsel hopes WSU can be a pathway for them.
“We want Weber to be a place for all students to come and find the pathway to what’s important to them. If that’s a certificate, that’s fine,” Amsel said. “I think we’re committed to meeting students where they are and trying to figure out a program that meets them where they are, rather than insisting that they meet us where we are,”
Scholarships, such as Catapult, are designed specifically for more advanced students to finish. For Amsel, supporting students is the priority.
“Do I think higher education has its purpose? Absolutely,” Wilson said. “Someone like a doctor should have a lot more schooling. I will consider going to college if it will help that last little bit into the management of the department, as some people still value that piece of paper over real-world experience.”
By WINDSOR MOORE Contributor
Since 2020, state legislatures across the United States have taken aim at transgender youth, passing law after law to limit gender-affirming resources and care necessary to their transition.
In 2020, 16 states debated banning gender-affirming care and in both 2021 and 2022, 11 states actually introduced laws.
Arkansas was the first state to pass a bill limiting transgender medical treatment in 2021, and other states have rushed to follow suit.
As of April 2023, 11 states have passed laws or policies restricting gender affirming care: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah.
Psychologists and advocates for the transgender community worry about the effect of these laws on the mental health of transgender youth. They are stepping up efforts to prevent suicide in this community.
What is gender-affirming healthcare?
Gender-affirming care includes psychological, social, behavioral and physical therapies and care, according to the World Health Organization. One of the physical aspects of gender-affirming care includes surgery. Transgender healthcare diagnoses body dysmorphia along with sex reassignment therapies.
These rights to complete gender modifications have been taken from minors in Utah.
On Jan. 28, the Transgender Medical Treatments and Procedure Amendments were signed into Utah law, banning minors from receiving any form of gender-affirming surgeries. In other words, this bill makes gender-affirming surgeries illegal for transgender youth in the state of Utah.
This bill also bars all minors in the state of Utah from undergoing hormonal treatment unless treatment began prior to the bill.
“Legislators are getting between patients and parents and doctors, and saying that they know best,” Julia Oderda, principal at VCBO Architecture in Utah, said.
The majority of targeted transgender people in the United States are those who are under the legal adult age of 18.
would ban anyone under the age of 21 from receiving gender-affirming care.
South Carolina has a bill that targets 21-year-olds. Sen. Mark J. Peake, who signed the bill, said he is restricting gender-affirming surgeries because “juvenile brains really are not developed as a teen.”
Rosenthal said there are also side effects that come with puberty blockers — potential fertility effects and loss of bone density — but these effects have been proven to be reversed in recent studies, Rosenthal said.
Medical malpractice enforced
How the Utah trans community
is affected
When Utah’s law was passed, it became the state’s first anti-transgender law of the year, affecting the lives of young transgender community members all across the state.
Youth across the state have been distressed by the lack of emotional support and allyship. Many other community members are worried about the well-being of transgender youth, especially Marisa McPeck-Stringham, a Davis County mental health therapist.
McPeck-Stringham worries about the mental state of her queer clients because of the emotions many have shared with her on the matter. She said from talking to her clients and other therapists with whom she works, there are a number of teens who have expressed thoughts of suicide and self harm due to these changing laws.
Transgender youth have expressed emotions of betrayal in the wake of this bill, expressing sentiments such as, “If our governor hates us, why do we want to live here, or anywhere?”
McPeck-Stringham and her colleagues want nothing but the best for their clients, so they formulated plans to help their youth cope with feelings of suicidal ideation. These plans will help teens know who to call and what steps to take when harmful thoughts occur.
Utah is not the only state enforcing such laws
In Oklahoma, anyone under the age of 26 who receives gender-affirming care within the state would be charged with a felony. Similarly, in Virginia, a proposed bill
Gender-affirming surgeries are non-reversible. Hormone therapy, however, can be reversible depending on the treatment and its timing. Sen. Mark J. Peake believes waiting until individuals are 21 will allow them to make a more thought-out decision about their transitions.
Stephen Rosenthal, the medical director of the University of California, San Francisco’s Child and Adolescent Gender Center, explains puberty blocking medication, a type of hormone therapy.
“They prevent adolescents from developing gender characteristics that might be hard to later reverse, like full breast development. But they also give people time to decide whether to pursue interventions like hormone therapy,” Rosenthal said.
Currently, there are 22 states that have passed or are considering passing laws banning or restricting gender-affirming surgeries. These states are putting doctors and physicians at risk of malpractice.
According to the Movement Advancement Project, “Some of these bills would criminalize and imprison doctors who provide this medical care to transgender youth.” In some cases parents or guardians that support their transgender children can be prosecuted for “abuse or neglect of a child.”
Those that are against these restrictive bills are saying that transgender medical treatment restrictions “are an infringement on the rights of families to make their own health decisions.”
A doctor’s note Dr. Ellie Brownstein, pediatrician and president of the Utah chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, shared similar worries concerning transgender youth. She voices concern that gender-diverse kids aren’t receiving the attention they need.
“We’re now saying that we’re not allowed to help them, that we’re not allowed to use the evidence-based therapies that are available to help kids feel comfortable with who they are and in their own skin,” Brownstein said.
According to Brownstein, over 50% of
transgender minors have had suicidal thoughts or have attempted suicide. Brownstein said that without being able to help these kids, their mental health is being put in a dark place.
More than anything, transgender youth seek support and validation from those who are around them.
“The first thing that any patient needs is acceptance of who they are — you know, feeling love, acceptance from family, from friends, and that you, as a person, are an acceptable person is vital to all of us,” Brownstein said. “And that, we can all still do.”
What can be done?
Oderda said advocates are working to prevent suicide, but they can’t do it alone.
“There’s all sorts of good resources out there on suicide prevention in the trans community, specifically in youth,” Oderda said.
But it is also important for the larger community to support transgender people by being supportive and affirming. That, she said, is “the best way that you can reduce the suicide rate for trans kids.”
People who want to help can find more information at Transgender Resources. Trans-
gender people and members of the LGBTQ community can find resources at HRC Quality Utah or The ACLU.
If you are suicidal or experiencing suicidal thoughts, reach out to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, which is available 24/7.
By JESSICA KROK Contributor
