The Center for Applied Transgender Studies is proud to host the first event in its 2022 Distinguished Lecture Series. Events in the series will feature the Center’s Fellows discussing their own original research with a broad audience of scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and interested laypersons. These events will be virtual, free to attend, and open to the public.

This inaugural lecture will be given by Senior Fellow Austin H Johnson, and will be entitled “Applying Trans Studies, Building Structural Competency: Using Community Based Research to Support Trans Youth in the U.S. Southeast.”

Some estimates place more than 500,000 trans people in the South, making the region home to over one-third of the US trans population. A region with more anti-trans policies and fewer protections for trans people than other areas of the country, the South has become a kind of test kitchen for conservative attempts to enact anti-trans legislation through state and local governments. These policies are aimed at restricting trans people’s access to healthcare, education, recreation, accommodations, and public facilities like restrooms, bathing facilities, and emergency housing.  

This trend peaked last year, as lawmakers around the country, yet concentrated in the South, proposed more anti-trans legislation than in any other year on record. States across the region have also renewed their efforts at legislating so-called “religious exemptions,” attempting to implement pathways for faith-based discrimination against trans people in state-funded service agencies and organizations. In some cases, legislators went so far as to introduce anticipatory restrictions that block and in some cases punish local officials who enact their own protections for trans people in their communities.

In most cases during the 2021 legislative sessions, local organizers across the region blocked these proposals. Yet, we are already witnessing the renewal of this legislative harassment in 2022. Whether they become bills or not, these proposals contribute to a hostile social climate for trans people. Trans youth are especially vulnerable to this legislative harassment, and their experiences of identity related stress are more likely to contribute to increased anxiety, depression, and suicidality. In this presentation, Johnson makes the case for using community-based research to build structural competency among grassroots, non-profit, and public service organizations who are developing interventions to support trans youth in the South.

The talk will take place from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM Central Standard Time.

To register for the lecture, visit: https://bit.ly/CATSDL1