LGBTQ Resources: LGBTQ Social Justice Issues

Louisiana Trans Advocates strengthens and supports transgender and allied communities across the state through social support, education, empowerment, and advocacy in order to promote self-determination of gender identity and gender expression for everyone.

For those people whose gender identity or innate sense of their own gender doesn’t match with that assigned to them at birth, unraveling and expressing it can be complex and difficult.
This guide was designed to help you and your loved ones through that process in realistic and practical terms. It acknowledges that the experience of coming out or disclosure covers the full spectrum of human emotion – from paralyzing fear to unbounded euphoria. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation hopes this guide helps you meet the challenges and opportunities that living as authentically as possible can offer to each of us.

Transgender 101. On this page, we’ve centralized IMPACT’s work on gender identity and transgender health to promote a world more affirming of transgender identities.

Transgender Law Center works to change law, policy, and attitudes so that all people can live safely, authentically, and free from discrimination regardless of their gender identity or expression. We envision a future where gender self-determination and authentic expression are seen as basic rights and matters of common human dignity.

The mission of the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health is to increase access to comprehensive, effective, and affirming health care services for trans and gender-variant communities.

Trans Student Equality Resources is a youth-led organization dedicated to improving the educational environment for trans* and gender nonconforming students through advocacy and empowerment. We believe that trans* and gender nonconforming youth should be allowed the same opportunities and respect enjoyed by their peers and that an equal education is a matter of civil rights.

The National Center for Transgender Equality is a national social justice organization devoted to ending discrimination and violence against transgender people through education and advocacy on national issues of importance to transgender people.
By empowering transgender people and our allies to educate and influence policymakers and others, NCTE facilitates a strong and clear voice for transgender equality in our nation's capital and around the country.

People who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) are members of every community. They are diverse, come from all walks of life, and include people of all races and ethnicities, all ages, all socioeconomic statuses, and from all parts of the country. The perspectives and needs of LGBT people should be routinely considered in public health efforts to improve the overall health of every person and eliminate health disparities.

Youth homelessness is a problem that doesn’t fit neatly into a box. The exact number of youth experiencing homelessness is difficult to determine: they are undercounted in national data as unaccompanied youth are often unconnected to services or shelters.

LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning) individual face a particular set of challenges, both in becoming homeless as well as when they are trying to avoid homelessness. LGBTQ persons face social stigma, discrimination, and often rejection by their families which adds to the physical and mental strains/challenges which all homelessness persons must struggle with.

BreakOUT! seeks to end the criminalization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth to build a safer and more just New Orleans.
We build on the rich cultural tradition of resistance in the South to build the power of LGBTQ youth ages 13-25 and directly impacted by the criminal justice system through youth organizing, healing justice, and leadership development programs.

Report on LBGT youth in Louisiana's juvenile justice system.

The Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights is a nonprofit law office that stands with kids in the justice system no matter what. We provide holistic legal defense to address children’s needs both inside and outside the courtroom. And we tackle the systemic issues that criminalize mostly poor, Black youth in the first place. Our goal is to keep kids out of a harmful system so that they can thrive where they belong: at home, at school, and in our communities.

Gay, transgender, and gender nonconforming youth are significantly over-represented in the juvenile justice system—approximately 300,000 gay and transgender youth are arrested and/or detained each year, of which more than 60 percent are black or Latino. These high rates of involvement in the juvenile justice system are a result of gay and transgender youth abandonment by their families and communities, and victimization in their schools—sad realities that place this group of young people at a heightened risk of entering the school-to-prison pipeline.

LGBTQ and gender non-conforming youth are overrepresented in juvenile detention and correctional facilities in the juvenile system: the percentage of incarcerated LGBT youth is double that of LGBTQ youth in the general population. 2017 report

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination or violence.

The criminalization of people based on their sexual orientation contravenes international and regional human rights treaties.
Such systematic discrimination reinforces the disadvantages experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and can be used as justification for violence against them, whether on the street, at home, or in prison.