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LGBTQ Organizations Call for Swift Response to Address Devastating Prison Conditions Detailed in Justice Department Report 

On Tuesday, November 17, the U.S Department of Justice released a blistering report concluding that policies and practices of the Massachusetts Department of Correction (“DOC”) violate minimum constitutional standards for ensuring the mental health of those it incarcerates. The results of an over 2-year investigation show DOC personnel and policies placed individuals under mental health watch in solitary confinement (restrictive housing) wrongfully, repeatedly, and for prolonged periods of time. The report details the deadly consequences of DOC’s actions.

As organizations working on behalf of LGBTQ liberation in Massachusetts and nationally, we are keenly aware of the degrading and demeaning experiences suffered by members of our community held by DOC. The Commonwealth’s failure to provide for the most basic needs of those it locks up undermines social progress for the LGBTQ community and beyond.

The reality is that our community suffers disproportionately high rates of poverty, mental illness, substance use, and incarceration. This is particularly true for Black and Brown transgender women. When incarcerated, we are subjected to unsafe housing conditions, sexual violence and solitary confinement. This report should give us all pause to consider the role prisons play in society and whether they are capable of effectuating public safety for anyone.

The Justice Department’s report highlights the constitutionally deficient treatment of people in the care of the Massachusetts DOC, including a number of deaths by suicide, a transgender man and a gay man among them.

On June 21, 2019, a transgender man housed at MCI-Framingham died by suicide while confined to mental health watch, which is more restrictive and isolating than solitary confinement. The Justice Department found that DOC staff were aware that the individual had expressed suicidal ideation and that isolation would exacerbate this. Despite this, DOC kept him on mental health watch, even as he noticeably decompensated.

On October 29, 2019, a gay man housed at MCI-Shirley died by suicide. Records show he was “tormented” by guards and other incarcerated people for being gay. After receiving a negative parole decision taking away any hope of his release, his mental health deteriorated and he was placed on a mental health watch. Just one day after adjusting his mental health medication, DOC staff released him from mental health watch and placed him in solitary confinement. The day before his death, his sister told the prison that her brother wrote informing her of his intention to kill himself. The following morning he was found dead in his cell with a ligature around his neck.

We demand that Governor Baker, the DOC, and the Legislature take swift action to address the findings in this report by:

  • Implementing sweeping policy change to eliminate the practice of isolating people who are in a mental health crisis by placing them in solitary confinement or other demoralizing and degrading conditions. People experiencing a mental health crisis should be placed in a therapeutic environment that fosters stabilization, healing, and growth, not punishment and shame.

  • Accountability must include discipline, up to and including termination of all persons who played a role in fostering the conditions that resulted in the constitutional deprivations found by the Justice Department. This should include all levels of DOC personnel or staff, including those who directly or indirectly encouraged self-harming behavior or ignored the serious medical needs of people experiencing a mental health crisis.

  • Transparency and independent oversight must increase so that the community can properly monitor what happens to our family, friends, and neighbors while they are incarcerated. To advance this goal, DOC should eliminate unfair and burdensome charges for telephone usage currently in place that block communication between those who are incarcerated and their loved ones and advocates.

  • District Attorneys and courts should avoid incarcerating people who live with serious mental illness. Prisons are incubators and accelerators of mental illness and offer little to no chance of rehabilitation. We would all be better served if those suffering from serious mental illness are in a community-based therapeutic environment that can address their underlying issues.

  • At a bare minimum, DOC must be required to collect and report data on LGBTQ individuals held in solitary confinement and mental health watch.

The organizations signing onto this statement are: 

Black and Pink Massachusetts
GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)
AIDS Action Committee
Bay State Stonewall Democrats
Boston Alliance of LGBTQ Youth (BAGLY)
Boston Gay Men’s Chorus
Fenway Health
The History Project
JRI
Keshet
Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth
Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
MassEquality
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Center for Transgender Equality
The Network/La Red
OUT MetroWest
OUT Now
SpeakOut Boston
Transgender Law Center

Learn about Massachusetts bill S.1283, “An Act to ensure the constitutional rights and human dignity of prisoners on mental health watch.”

LGBTQ Youth & DCF: Data Collection & Accountability

Learn from experts about the experiences of LGBTQ youth in the Massachusetts child welfare system and the importance of data collection in their success.

Featured panelists:

  • Shaplaie Brooks, BUILD
  • Patience Crozier, GLAD
  • Kate Lowenstein, CfJJ’s Multisystem Youth Project
  • Elijah Oyenuga, Activist
  • Jordan Meehan, Massachusetts LGBTQ Youth Commission

Co-hosted by Citizens for Juvenile Justice and GLAD.

Fill out my online form.

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Hospice Nurse Alexander Pangborn’s Case Challenges New “1557” Rule

Alexander Pangborn is a hospice nurse in Western Massachusetts. He loves his job, and the patients and families he cares for every day. So Alexander was crushed to discover that his employer would not provide him with healthcare benefits equal to those provided to his coworkers. While preparing in consultation with his doctor to schedule medically-necessary gender-affirming surgery, Alexander learned that his employer had a blanket exclusion for any care related to gender transition. “Along with the stress of not being able to get medical treatment I need, the denial made me feel devalued as an employee and as a person,” Alexander says. “I put my all into my job, and I pay into the same system as all my coworkers to receive medical care, but my employer said that my healthcare isn’t necessary.”
Alexander Pangborn and his wife Katherine
Alexander Pangborn (left) and his wife Katherine
GLAD filed a lawsuit, Pangborn v. Ascend, on Alexander’s behalf in federal court in Western Massachusetts. The suit alleges that by treating him differently — not offering him the same benefits other employees get — because he is a transgender man, Alexander’s employer is discriminating against him on the basis of sex and transgender status, in violation of the nondiscrimination provisions in the Affordable Care Act, as well as Massachusetts and federal employment law. Section 1557 of the ACA bars discrimination in healthcare access and insurance on the basis of sex, as well as race, color, national origin, age, and disability. On June 12, the federal Department of Health and Human Services formalized the Trump administration’s claim that Section 1557 does not protect transgender people, despite multiple court rulings and HHS’s own prior interpretation that the provision against sex-based discrimination applies to transgender status. “The Trump administration’s new 1557 rule contradicts the ACA,” said Jennifer Levi, GLAD Transgender Rights Project Director. “It’s another callous and dangerous attack on transgender people like Alexander, who should be able to access medically-necessary care on the same terms as anyone else. And it’s contrary to established case law, including the recent ruling from the Supreme Court, in the context of employment law, which makes it perfectly clear that sex discrimination by definition includes transgender status discrimination.” As Alexander’s suit continues in court, it will test the legitimacy of Trump’s reversal of healthcare protections for transgender people under the ACA. “Alexander Pangborn is a hospice nurse who provides compassionate care every day to his patients and their families, yet he was denied access to the health care he himself needs,” says Chris Erchull, GLAD Staff Attorney representing Pangborn. “We are fighting alongside Alexander to put an end to the discriminatory practice of excluding transition-related care from health benefits plans.”

Click here to learn more and read the entire Summer 2020 issue of GLAD Briefs.

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Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, safety precautions to slow the spread of the virus have disrupted life as we know it, including the schedule and workings of government agencies and services. Arising in the midst of the pandemic, the wave of Black Lives Matter protests against racist violence have further highlighted the ongoing inequities in our society and the need to address systemic racism across all our institutions. Against this backdrop, work to support and empower youth – particularly Black, Brown, and LGBTQ youth – impacted by our child welfare systems has taken on increased urgency. 

COVID-19 pandemic advocacy 

This April, we were a founding member of the new Massachusetts Child Welfare COVID-19 Coalition that is fighting to ensure that Massachusetts is accountable to Department of Children and Families-involved youth and their families during the pandemic. From demanding a moratorium on case closures for transition-age youth, to calling for transparent crisis reporting data, this new coalition aims to ensure: 

  • support for transition-age youth 
  • ongoing contact between children, parents, and siblings separated by DCF 
  • continued reunification of children and parents despite the pandemic 
  • transparent and thorough crisis data reporting 
  • support, particularly technological resources, for youth in congregate care 

The child welfare system disproportionately separates parents and children of color, and it is imperative that the pandemic not exacerbate the harms of this system. 

The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children and families already involved with DCF needs our urgent attention, in particular children that are approaching the maximum age of DCF jurisdiction. Older teens are less likely to be placed with a permanent family before they age out of the system. Without their connection to services, they are at high risk of homelessness, and in the current public health crisis sending youth off to fend for themselves is extremely dangerous. 

Not only are transition-age youth at heightened risk, but during this crisis, all children in care are facing elevated exposure to the novel coronavirus. Many foster kids are moved from placement to placement, with no option for social distancing. On the other hand, children in separate placements have been unable to have visits with their parents and siblings, even virtually. This contact with their family plays an important role in lessening the effects of the trauma they have already gone through from being separated, and undermines the process of eventually being reunited with their family — a core child welfare goal. The decision-making process during this crisis is often ad hoc and arbitrary, rather than in accordance with a consistently applied, thoughtful policy. 

Through the COVID-19 Coalition, we have partnered with a broad community of advocates to take action during this unprecedented crisis to address the emergency needs of children and families involved with DCF. We call on DCF to act urgently to support and serve transition-age youth, to protect the health and well-being of children in foster care and group homes, to ensure children, siblings, and parents have meaningful contact despite the pandemic, and to provide comprehensive and transparent crisis reporting so there is accountability and action for children and parents already involved with DCF. 

LGBTQ youth in the child welfare system 

Even before the pandemic began, Senior Staff Attorney Polly Crozier had been working to address systemic inequalities in the Department of Children and Families in Massachusetts. 

Nationally, LGBTQ youth, and particularly Black and Brown LGBTQ youth, are overrepresented in child welfare systems, but in Massachusetts, there are only beginning efforts at data collection on sexual orientation and gender identity of youth in care, and that data is not collected in an inter-sectional manner with data on race or disability, nor is it publicly reported. 

What already is clear is that, in Massachusetts, there are substantial racial disparities in our child welfare system that must be addressed. For example, the DCF 2019 Annual report showed: 

  • Black families are twice as likely to have an open DCF case than white families 
  • Latinx families are 3 times as likely to have an open DCF case than white families 
  • Black children are in out of home placements at 2.6 times the rate of white children 
  • Latinx children are in out of home placements at 2.5 times the rate of white children 

Once removed from their homes, children in Massachusetts suffer high rates of placement instability, housing in congregate care, and lack of permanency when they reach age 18. The trauma of separation from their families of origin is compounded by a child welfare system that does not deliver on its promise of stability and well-being and, in fact, pushes them to deeper system involvement. As a result, an overwhelming number of children in juvenile justice custody in Massachusetts are currently DCF-involved. 

We are actively working on systems change in the Massachusetts child welfare system and has, with partners and collaborators such as the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth and Citizens for Juvenile Justice, identified key priority areas of advocacy, some of which are described below. This advocacy is in addition to case interventions: We field inquiries from child protection lawyers, youth, foster parents, and other providers, and works to provide technical assistance and support to individual youth who are DCF-involved. 

Data collection 

The higher proportion of LGBTQ youth in care is due to many factors, including family rejection. Given the high population of LGBTQ youth in Massachusetts and the overrepresentation of LGBTQ youth in care nationally, it is imperative that we systematically understand the numbers and needs of LGBTQ youth in care and custody in Massachusetts. 

Due to a lack of data collection and transparent reporting, however, we do not know the numbers of LGBTQ youth in DCF care or custody. What we do know, by DCF’s own admission, is that LGBTQ youth represent a vulnerable population of youth in the child welfare system. Data collection is critical to understanding the needs of youth and ensuring their connection to culturally competent resources to meet those needs. 

We are advocating for DCF data collection, including through legislation currently pending in the Massachusetts legislature. We will continue our work to ensure LGBTQ youth are counted and served. 

Training for workers and providers 

A critical component of ensuring the safety and well-being of LGBTQ youth is training for all staff. Training, in its current form, is a mere 45 minute introduction to LGBTQ issues which is inadequate. We continue to advocate for ongoing, substantial cultural competency training for workers including: 

  • understanding basic LGBTQ terminology 
  • basic vocabulary for transgender and gender expansive youth 
  • how to appropriately collect demographic data 
  • how to affirm LGBTQ youth, including access to gender affirming healthcare which disproportionately impacts transgender youth of color 
  • how to support families of origin, foster, and pre-adoptive families on affirming LGBTQ youth 
  • cultural competency working with LGBTQ parents 

Training for foster and pre-adoptive parents 

Currently, foster and pre-adoptive parents go through a training program called Massachusetts Approaches to Partnership in Parenting (MAPP). The MAPP training is outdated and perpetuates harmful stereotypes regarding LGBTQ Youth. We’re advocating for an update to this key training to ensure that providers have accurate and culturally competent information about LGBTQ youth. 

Long-term impact 

We are working with all available tools of impact to improve the child welfare system — legislation, policy, intervention/litigation, and education — in a sustained way. The COVID-19 pandemic has broadened our engagement with child welfare reform in Massachusetts and, with new challenges, has brought new collaborations and opportunities to work for change. The systemic child welfare system change we strive for can, and must, address the needs of youth and families of color. Real change is only possible when the most vulnerable of us are protected, and the system is rebuilt for all of us to thrive. 

Click here to learn more and read the entire Summer 2020 issue of GLAD Briefs.

Juvenile Justice Reform in Massachusetts

GLAD is a proud member of the Massachusetts Coalition for Juvenile Justice Reform, a group advocating for reforms and policies to support young people in the Commonwealth. Priority legislation includes:

An Act Improving Juvenile Justice Data Collection

Senate Bill 1558 / House Bill 1795  |  Lead sponsors: Senator Creem and Rep. Miranda

This bill would help ensure state resources are used efficiently to protect public safety and improve outcomes for youth by collecting critical data at all stages of the juvenile justice system. Using data – at both the system and individual level – can have a large impact. Data allows system leaders to see disparities where they occur and to identify and to evaluate policies or practices that may inadvertently drive children deeper into the system.

Learn more

Raise the Age

House Bill 1826 / Senate Bill 920  |  Lead sponsors: Senator Boncore, Rep. O’Day, and Rep. Khan

This bill will end the automatic prosecution of teens as adults by gradually raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction to include 18-20 year olds. This change is good for young people, improves public safety, benefits the economy, and helps address racial inequities in the system.

Learn more

An Act Relative to Expungement of Juvenile and Young Adult Records

House Bill 1531 / Senate Bill 980  |  Lead sponsors: Senator Creem, Rep. Decker, and Rep. Khan

Amending the Massachusetts youth expungement law is a logical next step towards racial justice as youth of color are over-charged and sentenced compared to their white peers. It creates a lifelong barrier to social and economic success, impedes mental health, and maintains multigenerational poverty for families.

Learn more

Ending Profiling of Students (passed)

Amendment 108 to Senate Bill 2800 (“Reform, Shift + Build Act“)  |  Submitted by Senator Jehlen

This amendment works toward ending the criminalization of students, especially Black and Latinx children, and strengthen students’ privacy protections by limiting the use of schools for surveillance and information sharing between local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.

Learn more

End Placement of Police in Schools and Public Accountability (passed)

Amendment 80 (Senator Jehlen), Amendment 25 (Senator Boncore), and Amendment 41 (Senator Friedman) to Senate Bill 2800 (“Reform, Shift + Build Act“)

Repeal the state mandate that every school district be assigned at least one school resource officer (SRO); require school committee approval by public vote for assigning SROs; require that officers be stationed in a police station and on-call for schools, rather than being stationed on school property; and mandate that school districts and police departments comply with the reporting requirements of school-based arrests to qualify to have an SRO.

Learn more

 

Read the Coalition’s June 15, 2020 letter to House and Senate leadership and members of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus: Recommendations to Promote Racial Equity in Youth Justice.

Department of Children and Families Accountability Bill Requires Additional Work to Meet Its Goal 

Citizens for Juvenile JusticeGLAD Legal Advocates & Defenders: for the LGBTQ Community

 

 

 

 

July 10, 2020

Contact:
Amanda Johnston, GLAD | 617-417-7769 | ajohnston@glad.org

Statement of Citizens for Juvenile Justice and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders on H. 4841

Yesterday, the Massachusetts House of Representatives voted to pass H. 4841 (formerly H. 4163). We appreciate the work of Vice Chair Garlick, Chair Khan and others on this legislation. While we are encouraged to see the legislature take interest in creating greater oversight and transparency in the Department of Children and Families, this bill, dubbed “An Act relative to accountability for vulnerable children and families,” requires more work to actually meet that goal.

For too long our state systems have been allowed to monitor themselves. The time for that has stopped, and it must include the child welfare system. To truly be accountable to the vulnerable youth and families in its care, the Department of Children and Families is in need of transformative change. It is incumbent on those in power to work to center the needs of children and to address the systemic racism and discrimination that is embedded in the child welfare system.

What is needed is intersectional data on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability at every decision point and well-being measure in the system, so that we can understand and address the needs of our most vulnerable youth and families. Comprehensive data collection should avoid any piecemeal approach that fails to capture racial and ethnic disparities, relegates LGBTQ youth to second-class status, and erases people with disabilities.

The bill as passed yesterday lacks essential community input and accountability measures. As our society takes a critical look at systemic racism and bias, data is crucial in revealing the realities of the disproportionate impact of a child welfare system that, from its inception, has judged Black and Brown parenting with far harsher interventions at every step of the decision-making process.

There should be representation of impacted communities on the DCF data task force – particularly Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ communities who are disproportionately impacted by this system – but there currently is none. There should be a statutory bill of rights for children in foster care, but instead there is only a bill of rights for foster parents.

These are just some examples of the work that still lies ahead, much of which this bill puts back onto the DCF data task force. It is for this reason that the bill must be amended to ensure that the work of the task force is open and transparent and that it does not proceed without membership that is truly representative of the communities impacted.

We urge the House and Senate to demand that DCF work with impacted communities to promote justice and transparency in this system.

##

Citizens for Juvenile Justice is the only independent, non-profit, statewide organization working exclusively to improve the juvenile justice system in Massachusetts. We advocate, convene, conduct research, and educate the public on important juvenile and youth justice issues. www.cfjj.org/ 

Through strategic litigation, public policy advocacy, and education, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders works in New England and nationally to create a just society free of discrimination based on gender identity and expression, HIV status, and sexual orientation. www.gladlaw.org 

Massachusetts Confirmatory Adoption Act

Update: On April 21, 2022, S1124/H1712 was reported favorably out of the Judiciary Committee and was referred to the Committee on House Steering, Policy, and Scheduling. 

An Act to Promote Efficiency in Co-Parent Adoption (S 1124/H 1712) was filed in January 2021. You can learn more about the bill on the MA Confirmatory Adoption Act Fact Sheet. Lead sponsors on this bill are Rep. Kay Khan and Sen. Becca Rausch.

Thank you to supporting organizations including the Boston Bar Association, Resolve New England, Mass Equality, and the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association.

An Act to Promote Efficiency in Co-Parent Adoptions will ensure a more streamlined process for co-parent adoptions by LGBTQ couples who petition to adopt their own children.

These bills reduce barriers to LGBTQ families securing their children’s parentage through adoption and, in doing so, help families avoid unnecessary delays and expensive and burdensome requirements. This legislation provides greater clarity, efficiency, and consistency in the adoption process, allowing universal recognition for these families and the respect and security they need.

Last session, in July 2020, this bill was favorably reported out of the Judiciary Committee.  We look forward to another successful session ahead.

Advancing Change in Massachusetts’ Policing and Corrections Systems

UPDATE – July 8, 2020: The Massachusetts Senate is set to vote tomorrow. Please contact your Senator today and urge them to support Senate Bill 2800 along with amendments 3 and 4, which will have a particular impact on LGBTQ adults and youth, particularly low-income LGBTQ people and LGBTQ people of color, who are disproportionately subjected to policing and incarceration.

SB 2800, An Act to Reform Police Standards and Shift Resources to Build a More Equitable, Fair and Just Commonwealth that Values Black Lives and Communities of Color (Reform, Shift + Build Act) takes important steps toward addressing systemic racism and brutalities in policing – including limiting qualified immunity for police and redirecting funding from policing and corrections towards community investment.

Amendment 3: Juvenile justice data
Submitted by Senator Creem

This amendment requires collection of comprehensive data on the intersection of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity of children and youth impacted by the juvenile legal system.

LGBTQ youth of color are disproportionately represented in our juvenile legal systems nationally, but there is no Massachusetts-specific data collection requirements to ensure we understand the needs of LGBTQ youth locally to support our goals of reducing pipelines to incarceration. Thorough, intersectional and transparent data are critical to understanding and addressing the needs of the Commonwealth’s youth and ensuring services and supports to youth in our communities.

Amendment 4: LGBTQI prisoners held in restrictive housing
Submitted by Senator Cyr

Incarcerated LGBTQ people are disproportionately subjected to solitary confinement (also referred to as restrictive housing), a profoundly harmful practice that the United Nations has categorized as torture. This amendment adds voluntary disclosure of a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity to preexisting restrictive housing data collection requirements in state and county correctional facilities and requires the collection of data on victims of sexual violence held in restrictive housing.

The data collected through these measures will provide a foundation for future evidence-based reforms to end the discriminatory treatment of LGBTQ people, particularly low-income LGBTQ people and LGBTQ people of color, in restrictive housing and the criminal justice system.

In the midst of ongoing protests and demonstrations calling out the need to address the brutalities and systemic racism in our policing and criminal legal systems, SB 2800, the Reform, Shift + Build Act, is an opportunity to advance real and necessary change in these systems.

Click here for a fact sheet on the legislation.

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On this day 155 years ago, the Emancipation Proclamation was read to Black slaves in Texas, two and a half years after slavery was formally abolished. That moment – when freedom could finally be celebrated by people who had been theoretically deemed free years before on a piece of paper far, far away – is an example of the dissonance that often exists between our laws and our reality. 

It is critical that our laws are just. You help GLAD every day to fight for laws that are just. But it is equally critical that our lived reality catches up with the laws we fight so hard to create.

Today, on Juneteenth, we as a country recognize that we have a long way to go and much work to do before all Black Americans truly have the freedom promised in 1865. And we also recognize Juneteenth as a day all Americans should be celebrating as a prerequisite to true independence in our nation. 

As GLAD’s Community Engagement Manager, I have an opportunity to raise up the voices of other LGBTQ BIPOC leaders and partners in this work.

In this spirit, I am honored to share with you a message from my friend Shaunya Thomas, the founder of the Lesbians of Color Symposium, one of GLAD’s community partners. I invite you to read her story, learn more about LOCS, and support their important work of increasing visibility and support structures for women and nonbinary people of color. 

-Qwin Mbabazi, Community Engagement Manager (she/her/hers)

L.O.C.S. Collective logoI co-founded the Lesbians of Color Symposium (LOCS) Collective, Inc. in 2012 to address the gross disparities that exist for LBTQ+ women of color’s access to community. I first convened groups and curated events as a response to the need for specific programming for LBTQ+ women and non-binary people of color in the Greater Boston area. After listening intently during those early times, I used the feedback to envision and execute an annual Symposium. The Lesbians of Color Collective continues to be New England’s premiere event for queer women and non-binary folks of color. Our goal is to bring seemingly disparate people and groups together to work for shared visions of community and uplift. Although Boston is often regarded as an insular place, we have steadily chipped away at that image by building coalitions with other organizations. I have come to understand that the liberation for all women of color requires an intersectional perspective and that liberation is dependent on everyone. Inclusive programming is foundational to the LOCS Collective’s long-term flourishing.

I also believe all people—especially LGBTQ+ Black, Latinx, and POCs—should live, work, advance, and thrive in environments that recognize our full humanity, understand and value the range of our lived experiences. These specific areas of focus include:

  1. Dismantling white supremacy: Our current moment stresses the urgency to name the myriad ways white supremacy makes lives unsafe and deadly for LGBTQ+ BIPOCs. It is imperative that LOCS lead conversations, urge action, and support collective organization that helps lead to systemic change. This change will directly impact the outcomes for LGBTQ+ BIPOCs in the workplace, in our medical care, and in our daily lives.
  2. Addressing mental health: Mental health disparities between LGBTQ+ BIPOCs and others have been long documented. It is critical for our community and our advocates to develop strategies, heed the call to action, and dismantle barriers that were constructed through a white supremacist lens to assure that access to mental health services are a right and not a privilege.
  3. Building intentional alliances with co-conspirators: Through expansive networks and innovative collaborations and advocacy, our aim is to effect systemic change to eradicate institutionalized racism, white supremacy and bias to create equitable environments socially, economically and professionally. Some productive collaborations are Equality Florida’s LGBTQ Organizations Unite to Combat Racial Violence and NAACP Boston and ACLU of Massachusetts’ list of Community Demands for Police Reform.

The work of the LOCS Collective is on-going and urgent as we respond, support, and work in community with others. On June 30th, we will present the third State of QTPOC Affairs – a forum that addresses inequities and invisibility. This year, focus is on anti-blackness within the LGBTQ community. For more information about the forum and other programming, sponsorship, and ways to get involved, please visit locscollective.org. Also, please connect with us, share our work, and amplify our efforts via LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Shaunya Thomas, Co-Founder and President of LOCS Collective, Inc.

 

Shaunya Thomas (she/her)
Co-Founder – President
LOCS Collective, Inc.

 

 

Juneteenth resources

Juvenile Justice Reform in MA as Racial Justice Work

June 15, 2020: GLAD signed onto a letter from the Massachusetts Coalition for Juvenile Justice Reform: Recommendations to Promote Racial Equity in Youth Justice. This letter was submitted to House and Senate leadership and members of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus. Our recommendations in part consisted in part of including sexual orientation and gender identity to address the specific overrepresentation of LGBTQ youth of color in the Juvenile Justice systems.

Read the coalition letter here.

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