by Elise

Lurie Children’s Hospital’s pediatric gender-identity clinic in Chicago joins a handful of healthcare facilities in the U.S. giving care and support to Transgender and gender-variant children and their families. Inspired by Boston Children’s Hospital’s Gender Management Service Clinic—the first such U.S. clinic—Lurie’s is the only such clinic in the Midwest. Part of the clinic’s program is to offer the children the space and time they need to decide who they are. Dr. Robert Garofalo, head of the clinic, hopes that the support this center offers will be a model for many such facilities in the near future.

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Studies by Columbia University and Northwestern University revealed that Bisexual men are significantly more anxious and depressed than their Gay and Straight counterparts. It was also found that poor mental health is more likely among those who keep closeted because they have neither a language—in this case of fluid sexuality—with which to communicate their experiences and feelings, nor a community with whom to speak and share safe space.

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It is great that the Defense of Marriage Act/DOMA and California’s Proposition 8 were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is also important that members of the United for Marriage Coalition apologized to Transgender and undocumented immigrant supporters of marriage equality for telling them to keep quiet as they all rallied on the steps of the Court as it heard arguments against and for DOMA and Proposition 8. The Human Rights Campaign, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and others recognized that the apologies were insufficient, so they committed to further steps for healing, including seeking ways in which Queer rights supporters can act together for the realization of equality and justice for all.