To mark this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), Alliance of Illinois Judges hosted a panel discussion on policy changes impacting the transgender community Nov. 22 at Center on Halsted.
Panelists included Inclusive Insight Founder/Owner Laura Grimes; Inclusive Insight psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker Denton Woodfern; Fragomen Chicago Immigration Attorney Xiao Lu; TaskForce Chicago Director of Programs Reyna Ortiz; Transformative Justice Law Project Director of Admin and Court Support Alexis Martinez; and Trans Up Front Illinois Co-Founder and Executive Director Asher McMaher. Alliance of Illinois Judges President and Cook County Circuit Court Judge Jill Rose Quinn was moderator.
Quinn said that over the past year 58 trans and nonbinary people have died—27 who were murdered and 21 who have died by suicide. She added that of the 27 murders, 21 were trans women, 3 were trans men and 3 were nonbinary and 17 were Black, 3 were Latiné and 7 were white.
Quinn found the “most alarming” statistic to be the number of trans people who died by suicide and of the 21 total, 13 were from the ages of 15-24.
Additionally, Quinn discussed how the impact of the loss of funding for the National Suicide Hotline will negatively impact the trans and nonbinary community. She noted that from 2022-2024 that hotline was accessed by 1.3 million LGBTQ+ people in the United States.
Quinn said that since Jan. 20 of this year the Trump administration has issued 12 executive orders that have negatively impacted the LGBTQ+ community, with most of them directed at trans and nonbinary people. She further noted that 1,012 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in many states across the country with 124 of them being passed into law, 382 failed and the rest of them pending with 27 states specifically enacting anti-trans laws.
Grimes called this moment especially “disheartening” for the transgender and nonbinary community.
McMaher said they are one of the only deaf and trans leaders in the country. They added that their statewide organization focuses on trans individuals who are ages 4-25 and has about 900 families who have come to them to access care.
Quinn asked about the current status of trans people seeking asylum in the U.S. and what kind of resources and services are available for them.
Lu said those still exist but are difficult to navigate. He added that his law firm offers pro-bono services and there are organizations like the National Immigration Justice Center, Resurrection Project and others who do that work.
Grimes said, “I see our role as medical providers as gate facilitators not gatekeepers” where instead of telling trans people what medical care they are allowed to receive, the better way is to be the facilitator who helps patients “navigate a system that we have all said is broken and does not work for trans individuals.”
McMaher, who also has a trans child, spoke about the protests their organization led against Lurie Children’s earlier this year. They said last year their organization had over 100 referrals. This year there are less than a dozen left due to many hospitals in Chicago ending access to gender affirming care for young people at their facilities.
Ortiz said having parents who are gender affirming is a “luxury that is not afforded to everyone.” She added that in the 11 years she has been with TaskForce Chicago, she has met about 11 parents out of the many thousands of youth that come to her organization for support. Ortiz said this means those youth are likely unable to access the legal and medical support they need because those things require parental sign-off.
As for changing documents to the trans person’s chosen name and gender marker, Martinez said in Illinois birth certificates, state ID’s and drivers licenses can be changed but there are barriers trans individuals who were born in GOP-controlled states (who currently live in Illinois) face where it is illegal to change birth certificate information.
The biggest issue for Martinez’s organization is trans individuals who cannot access all their documents to make these changes. Martinez noted that last year she helped 473 trans people with name changes in Cook County and this year the number has reached 900 with 35-40 of them being children.
To close out the event, Quinn and the panelists read out the names of some of the transgender people who have been murdered or who have died by suicide over the past year and then held a moment of silence for them.