 LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the child welfare system and lesbian, gay, and bisexual children are more than twice as likely to experience a foster care placement as their heterosexual peers. About 30% of foster youth are LGBTQ according to the Children's Bureau and roughly 5% are transgender. LGBTQ young people in the child welfare system are also much more likely to report poor treatment related to their sexual orientation or gender identity. You just heard from Brooke McDonald who is a staff writer for The Hill who penned a comprehensive report about a new rule proposed by the Biden administration last year that aims to protect LGBTQ plus youth in foster homes by requiring agencies to place them in safe and affirming households all in an effort to protect them from quote hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child's LGBTQI plus status. Now this is important for the fact that quote LGBTQI plus youth are overrepresented in foster care but face worse outcomes including poor mental health, higher rates of homelessness, and discrimination just because of who they are in some foster care settings. Now part of the reason why LGBTQ plus youth are overrepresented in the foster care system in the first place is obviously due to rejection from their families after they come out. The Trevor Project reports that 28% of LGBTQ plus youth are unhoused or housing insecure and that number is even higher for trans youth and LGBTQ plus youth of color. Now I don't think that that number is necessarily attributable exclusively to rejection but it's obviously a really huge contributor to those statistics and what oftentimes happens is a young queer person will come out get rejected by their family and then only end up in another bad situation in the foster system where they experience even more rejection from religious foster parents who then try to force them into conversion therapy if they're gay or bisexual or refuse to affirm their identities if they're trans or non-binary which is abusive. Now it's a rehashing of trauma and abuse, it leads to further victimization and this new rule is a simple thing that the Biden administration did to put a stop to this and further protect LGBTQ plus youth. So now they are going to be placed in homes where they are accepted for who they are and that's really important for the well-being of these children. Now some states have already adopted guidelines when it comes to this. In her article for the Hill, Brooke McDonne explains, 28 states in Washington DC have explicit laws or policies in place to protect LGBTQ youths in foster care from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and another six have laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation only according to the Movement Advancement Project, a non-profit organization that tracks LGBTQ laws. Now furthermore she adds, in 13 states state licensed child welfare agencies may legally refuse to place and provide services to children and families including LGBTQ people and same-sex couples if doing so conflicts with their religious beliefs. In other words there are states that explicitly permit discrimination against LGBTQ plus couples by excluding them from the adoption process altogether and to make matters worse many of the same states have no laws requiring agencies to actually place LGBTQ plus youth in affirming households which means they have no protections for abuse for these kids which puts some of them in this vicious cycle where they're in and out of foster homes and perpetuity because the agencies aren't even trying to find suitable foster parents for their unique set of needs which is a problem. Now one could argue that these kids are already vulnerable and so long as they've got a roof over their head well everything is copacetic right and sure I understand why people are persuaded by that argument but there are other factors to consider when it comes to child welfare right to place LGBTQ plus youth in non-affirming households only perpetuates the cycle of abuse and further victimizes them and a lot of these children already came from abusive homes so to put them in another environment that is conducive to abuse kind of defeats the purpose of the entire foster system doesn't it moreover if there's a shortage of foster parents and that's the reason why they're just placing queer kids in non-affirming homes well you could literally ameliorate this problem in these states by banning discrimination against LGBTQ plus foster parents but they don't want to do that either and it's because the republicans in these states don't actually care about child welfare in fact they're opposed to improving conditions for LGBTQ plus youth and I say this because they've chosen to fight the Biden administration over this new proposal mcdonnell continues a bill introduced last month by representative jim banks who was currently running for an open senate seat would prevent foster and adoptive families from being required to affirm a transgender child's gender identity the measure called the sensible adoption for every home act has four republican cosponsors banks in a statement to fox news said the bill was drafted in response to the hhs proposal which he said discriminates against prospective caretakers that are opposed to irreversible sex change procedures on kids other republicans have argued that the proposed rule would discriminate against faith-based providers a bill filed in the house and senate in november by representative Mike Kelly and senator tim scott a former GOP presidential candidate would prevent government agencies from penalizing child welfare service providers that are unwilling to take action contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs including affirming a child's gender identity or sexual orientation the duo introduced identical legislation in 2019 and 2021 yeah so you can already spot the issues here jim banks's legislation implies that the biden administration's new rule would basically force foster parents of trans kids to perform irreversible sex change procedures on them when that's already not allowed until their adults so he is lying about what this rule entails but in actuality his bill would let agencies knowingly place kids in abusive environments with foster parents who dead name and misgender the kids that they're supposed to be caring for he is effectively taking a pro-abuse position under the pretense of protecting kids and it's genuinely sickening and orwellian in the way that he framed this bill now as for the senate bill they are trotting out the same religious liberty argument where christians get to claim that they're being discriminated against if they're not allowed to abuse the lgbtq plus kids that are in their custody but if religious parents stated that they didn't want to ever take their kids to the doctor and they're gonna opt for faith healing and prayer instead does the state also not have a right in that instance to take action to intervene i mean of course they do because religious liberty is not absolute and religious people don't have the right to abuse the children under the guise of their religious freedom but mcdonnell also points to opposition to this rule from marco rubio who penned this op-ed titled biden's child welfare rules will make foster kids homeless for the holidays now he manages to make an even dumber argument than the ones that we've already heard he writes these regulations for which public comment recently ended require all child welfare providers to conform to left-wing sexual ideology this isn't about compassion for kids struggling with their identity this is about demanding woke orthodoxy an upfront commitment to using a child's identified pronouns chosen name and allow the child to dress in a manner that the child believes reflects their self-identified gender identity and expression from everyone in contact with the system so according to marco rubio the biden administration is forcing foster parents to go woke in order to adopt except that is an inherently idiotic argument for a number of reasons states already have requirements that they impose on anyone who wants to become a foster parent you have to meet financial requirements for example in order to adopt in oregon you have to undergo a home study process where they vet you to determine if you're even eligible to adopt in the first place and i'm sure other states have the same process now the reason why this process is so rigorous is because they want to make sure you're a suitable foster parent before they make you the guardian of an actual human being it's kind of an important job is it not so the process has to be rigorous they have to vet you because you are caring for another life and how you raise them how you care for them is going to impact them for the rest of their lives and the reason why the biden administration is proposing this new woke requirement is because mistreating lgbtq foster youth by misgendering or dead naming them could literally endanger their lives the trevor projects 2023 mental health survey finds among other things that 41 of lgbtq plus youth seriously considered attempting suicide including half of trans and non-binary youth and 14 of lgbtq plus youth actually attempted suicide in the past year including one in five trans and non-binary youth however young trans and non-binary youth who live with people that respect their pronouns report lower rates of suicide attempts for the more trans and non-binary youth who attend schools that affirm their gender also report lower rates of suicide attempts so the obvious takeaways that lgbtq plus youth in affirming environments do much better and the simple act of respecting them lowers their suicide rates drastically so requiring foster parents to adhere to standards of care for lgbtq plus youth that demonstrably and statistically improves mental health outcomes for them isn't a matter of being woke it's appropriate and necessary care for children with unique needs in the same way that the state has a duty to not place children with foster parents who will physically abuse them they also have an obligation to not place children with foster parents whose mistreatment will increase the odds that they will attempt suicide you can call that being woke or religious discrimination but i call it being a decent human being and for purposes of this discussion being a good fucking parent but these twisted republicans have proven that they don't actually care about lgbtq plus youth to them this is all about partisan politics joe biden did it so we're gonna oppose it i mean they've passed policies and states around the country that they know will have negative health outcomes for trans youth and they just they don't care they think that's going to help them electorally or they just genuinely believe the sick shit that they're espousing but either way they are sick sadistic freaks who prey on the most vulnerable populations in our society and they need to be opposed so this story just hasn't gotten much attention but that's now changing things to brooks reporting so i would highly encourage you to read her full article and share it everywhere i'm gonna link to it down below so people actually know what republicans are doing because what they're doing here is effectively taking a pro child abuse stance and if that's not despicable to you then what is pride trans rights are human rights it is necessary to push trans on the kids pride