Lastly, we want to highlight the diverse needs of gender-creative and trans children, youth and their families.
Psychosocial care, peer support and access to health care are key determinants of health for trans and gender-diverse children and youth. We know from research that many young people do not feel it's possible to tell their health care providers about their gender if they are trans or non-binary. Even worse, sometimes they face latent discrimination in care settings, thus disengaging them from future care.
Service providers who work in trans health across Canada have been discussing the increase in requests for care from trans and gender-questioning young people and their families. Many providers have seen a tripling and even a quadrupling of requests, and that's just in the last year or two.
All youth need attachment to supportive health care and services. A smaller, but significant number of youth require access to gender-affirming medical interventions, and many experience barriers when attempting to access this care.
Research demonstrates the critical role that parent and family support plays in the lives of these young people. While many families are supportive of their children, some struggle to understand and accept their child's gender. In some cases, family rejection leads to homelessness and other negative health outcomes.
Support services of all types are needed for children, youth and families as they navigate their gender journeys. The western world is generally built for cisgender people, and anti-trans bias and related harms have been well documented in literature.
Due to this enacted stigma, when unsupported, trans youth face higher rates of mental health concerns, such as suicidality, anxiety and depression. When connected to timely and effective supports, many of these concerns are seen to be alleviated.
Counselling and peer support are low-cost, high-impact interventions, essential for improving the health and well-being of kids, youth and families.
Greater engagement of youth and parents is needed in guiding cross-ministerial approaches to ensure that policy, education, services and funding are in place to support gender-diverse and trans children and youth across all environments, including home, family, health care services, social services, other government services, school, community services and peer support programs.
Many programs serving gender-creative and trans children, youth and families have been eked out of existing services that were never originally planned to serve this population. Because of this, many are now overextended and inadequately resourced. As a result, children, youth and families are challenged to access timely care, and often they travel great distances to access the more specialized supports.
Time-sensitive, closer-to-home access for gender-creative and trans kids and youth is critical and potentially life-saving. Addressing this need nationally should be of the highest priority.
In summary, we thank you for the opportunity to present today. We've been fortunate to be able to do this work on a provincial scale, and we'd be very happy to share our learnings from this. We welcome any questions about our presentation or the brief we've provided.
Thank you.