Before I begin this, let me by saying I’ve been trying to write this piece for days. As Pam warned me — but I didn’t want to believe — it’s taking a long time for me to recover from my gastric bypass surgery. So my apologies to all for not getting this piece out as soon as I would have liked to, but I do have a good excuse.

So to begin, in recent months I started working with TransYouth Family Advocates (TYFA) — now TransYouth Family Allies. The reasons are pretty simple: with regards to transgender youth, the organization has been filling a void that no other LGBT organization has been filling. They’ve been helping the parents of children that may or may not be transgender find psychological help; they’ve been talking to school districts about their policies towards transgender youth; and, they’ve been talking to the press about the issues surrounding transgender youth as required.

Basically, TYFA is working to take care of the next generation of transgender youth.

So, let’s back up a few decades. I’ve read the average coming out age of gay males back in the early seventies was between approximately seventeen and twenty-one years of age (pg. 241). The last report I read states that that the average coming out age for LGBT youth is now thirteen.

And, with the coming out age dropping, the parents of transgender youth now have the real world issues of accepting or rejecting their children, as well as school bullying issues to deal with:

[S]tudies have also found that one out of every four teens who comes out faces family rejection. The Safe Schools Coalition Web site notes that research done for the FBI in 1998 found that these LGBT teenagers make up 30 percent to 40 percent of the nation’s homeless youths and that usually the gay youths’ coming-out conflicts with their families’ moral and religious beliefs.

Even LGBT youths who don’t face rejection at home usually face some at school. According to the National Mental Health Institute, the average secondary school student hears an anti-gay slur 26 times a day. And 31 percent of kids who are gay or are perceived as gay were physically harassed or assaulted last year at school.

And let’s not forget transgender youth suicide:

The Amethyst Ribbon Campaign was established as part of the Ian Benson Project. Ian was a 16-year old affirmed male who took his own life in October 2007. Ian’s mother, TYFA’s secretary/treasurer, hopes to help other children and families avoid the pain and struggles that can lead to suicide among trans youth.

As mentioned earlier, TYFA has this past week has changed the “A” in their acronym from Advocates to Allies (Press release: here.). Their new mission and vision, which they’ve updated on their website, is as follows:

Mission: TYFA empowers children and families by partnering with educators, service providers and communities, to develop supportive environments in which gender may be expressed and respected.

Vision: A society free of suicide and violence in which ALL children are respected and celebrated.

Earlier this week mentioned an organization that doesn’t receive my support or charitable donations. Well, TYFA is on my short list of organizations that I do send charitable donations to, specifically because I wholly support their mission and vision. It’s because the organization was founded by parents of the next generation of transgender youth, and these children’s allies, that I care about this organization so much.