I write to you today out of respect for the upcoming National Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20th. As a provider of child welfare and behavioral health services for youth and young adults, we are deeply concerned for those who identify as nonbinary and transgender, whose basic human rights and physical safety are at risk every day due to discrimination and violence.

This year is the deadliest on record for transgender people in the United States, according to the Human Rights Coalition. Thus far in 2021, at least 46 transgender or nonbinary people have been fatally shot or killed by other violent means, surpassing last year when 44 transgender people were killed due to violent means.

Here at Wayside, in fiscal year 2020, we served 64 youth or young adults who identified as transgender, and 27 who identified as nonbinary.  We are honored that in fiscal year 2021 that number grew by 26 percent, with Wayside serving 79 transgender youth/young adults, and another 38 nonbinary youth/young adults. These young people need Wayside’s continued support and advocacy and we pledge to do so.

We commit to action by:

1. continuing to be a significant voice and resource for transgender and nonbinary youth and young adults and,
2. advocating for equal protection legislation, such as HR.5 a bill that allows the US Department of Justice to intervene in equal protection actions in federal court on account of sexual orientation or gender identity.

At Wayside we are committed to being a place where you are seen, valued and respected for who you are. For us, this means protecting the rights of transgender and nonbinary people today, and every day.

Image credit: GLAAD

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Staff Recommendations: 

Taiany Goulart, site manager, Wayside Medford

How to Be an Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X Kendi

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Carlton, Wayside DEI consultant 

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

Jodie Nierintz, senior program director, Wayside Milford

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Fredrick Mann, Wayside clinician 

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, and So Much More by Janet Mock. “Mock’s Story of growing up in California and Hawaii as a low-income trans girl of color.”

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay. “Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health.”

Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. “This book looks at the ways we do harm by failing to understand one another, a problem Gladwell investigates through the child-abuse scandal involving Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the deceptions of financier Bernie Madoff and the TV, and more.”

Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald. “This book explores hidden biases that we all carry from a lifetime of experiences with blind spot cover social groups – age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, or nationality.”

Other recommendations: 

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez 

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in The Cafeteria by Beverly Tatum 

On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case For Hope by DeRay Mckesson 

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