California legislators are once again pushing forward on a number of bills aimed at improving the lives of the state's transgender and nonbinary residents.
And due to the legislative attacks on trans children in several other states, lawmakers in Sacramento are also focused on assisting those youth and their parents who are trying to access gender-affirming health care.In addition to improving transgender medical care in the Golden State, lawmakers have introduced bills that will require California community colleges not to deadname their trans and nonbinary students, faculty or staff; require the governor to annually proclaim November 20 as Transgender Day of Remembrance; and create an advisory body for a statewide pool of funds for trans services that would be renamed the Transgender, Gender-Variant, and Intersex (TGI) Wellness and Equity Fund.Other bills would protect LGBTQ people who want to become foster parents, establish a pilot project to assist LGBTQ youth receiving child welfare services, and require affordable housing builders to contract with LGBTQ-owned businesses.Tuesday, April 19, gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) released the language for the bill he plans to officially introduce this month that will make California a refuge for trans kids and their families persecuted by their own governments in states such as Texas and Idaho.The Idaho House of Representatives passed legislation last week to make it a felony for parents to allow their children to receive gender-affirming care, while similar policy is under consideration by lawmakers in Louisiana and Arizona.