It’s January, so state legislative sessions are jumping into full swing. This can mean headlines about anti-trans legislation is all up in our faces every day. It can also mean headlines about legal victories, ally legislators, and activists both trans and cis, who give us hope and joy. Today’s article is about the sources we look to to stay informed and sustainability in difficult times. We’ll also be working on posts highlighting the bills we’re watching in each of the states we practice medicine in.
How Do You Sustain Your Energies?
Focus
QueerDoc is committed to providing gender affirming care, fighting against medical discrimination, and advocating against discriminatory laws – especially in the states where we practice. We pay attention to the overall landscape of care, but we focus our energies on the states where we practice. In those states we aim to provide education, talking points – sometimes scripts for letters and calls – and our leadership and expertise in front of legislators.
This also helps us maintain momentum and energy: it helps us be sustainable so we don’t get burnt out. We intend to keep providing care as long as we can, and we want that long to be very long, indeed. What’s your focus?
Recharge
Anger is an excellent tool for activism. But hope keeps us showing up.
Celebrate every win.
Make and take time to do the things that recharge your body, your mind, and your emotions.
Curate
Who and where do you get your information from? How do you get enough information but not too much?
Here are some of our favorite people and organizations for news:
Tracking Legislation
- @thetransformationsproject
- daily legislative updates on IG sorted by type of law, such as
- bathroom
- school
- removing legal protections/legal identity
- censorship
- healthcare
- other
- State-level and national-level database on their website
- daily legislative updates on IG sorted by type of law, such as
- Other legislation trackers
- Once laws are challenged in the courts
- QueerDoc unicorn Nora loves The Free Law Project: access filings and track cases important to you for alerts whenever new documents are filed. Cases challenged by the ACLU, the NCLR, Southern Legal Counsel, and other organizations will often have write-ups describing the laws and court cases in detail, as well.
Legal Analysis and Strategy
- Erin In The Morning – emphasis on state-level legislation
- LawDork – emphasis on the Supreme Court and legislation attacking LGBTQ+ folks
Organizations we look to for state-level information
- Alaskans Together For Equality
- Identity Alaska (on IG @identityalaska)
- Equality Florida (on IG @equalityfl)
- Equality Utah (on IG @equalityutah)
- Equality California (on IG @eqca)
- Add the Words Idaho
- Equality Montana
- Wyoming Equality (on IG @wyoequality)
- Stonewall Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawai’i (on IG @stonewallcaucusdph)
- Washington
Contacting Your Reps and Senators
- ResistBot – contact your legislators via text interface
- Find your federal legislators
- “Contact Your Member” on the right side of the page at Congress.gov
- Look up your state legislature
- TransFormations Project has a Legislator Scorecard function
- also links to individual bill pages
- The ACLU’s letter and fax tips
Updates at QueerDoc
We’ll do our best to post new articles and update existing articles as we learn the news. Follow our state-specific pages:
- 2024 State of the State Legislature: Alaska
- California coming soon!
- 2024 State of the State Legislature: Florida
- 2024 State of the State Legislature: Hawaii
- 2024: State of the State Legislature: Idaho
- 2024 State of The State Legislature: Montana
- 2024 State of the State Legislature: Utah
- 2024 State of the State Legislature: Washington
- 2024 State of The State Legislature: Wyoming
Related articles:
- Dr. Beal’s Response to Legislative Bans on Youth Gender Affirming Medical Care
- Getting Local Adolescent Gender Affirming Care in Florida
- Getting Local Adolescent Gender Affirming Care in Utah
- 11/2023 What The Heck Is The Legal Landscape Up To?
- December 2023 – Update on 254 In Florida
- Terrific Resources For Terrible Times (May 2023)
- Pump You Up: Benefits of Cardiovascular Exercise for LGBTQ+ People
- Mental Health Benefits of Exercise for Gender Diverse People
- Redefining Exercise for Trans and Queer Bodies
What are your favorite news and action resources? Let us know at info@queerdoc.com!
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