Donate Today for Give Out Day!
This has been a traumatic time for trans youth because of increasing political attacks including anti-trans legislation in dozens of states. Last November, AWN announced an ambitious plan to release a new resource guide to help parents support autistic trans youth. Since then Madeline Mydske, my autistic trans daughter, and myself, AWN’s Community Outreach Coordinator, have been working hard to create the guide along with other trans autistic youth and parents. However, largely because of the negative political environment, we’ve needed to delay the guide to ensure the youth we’re working with on the guide are able to take care of their emotional and mental well-being.
In these times, more than ever, trans autistic youth need support, and we know the guide we’re creating will be a crucial resource — so we want to do it right. We’re paying each of our trans youth collaborators, and we’ve created a Give Out Day fundraiser so you can help support them and all our work for autistic trans youth. Give Out Day, today, June 28, is a movement-wide day of giving promoting giving to LGBTQIAP+ causes.
By donating today, your donation would have extra impact — each donation (regardless of amount) also increases our ranking on the Give Out Day mid-size nonprofit leaderboard. If we make it into the top 3, we will get additional donations as prizes!
As an update, here’s some of the progress Madeline and I have made on the Autistic Trans Youth Guide:
- We have interviewed several autistic trans and nonbinary youth and one autistic nonbinary parent.
- We’ve discussed their thoughts on how to best support and navigate school, family, coming out, finding community, surviving, and thriving.
- We’ve talked about fears regarding the trans community increasingly becoming a political target, and the impact of that on the safety, mental-health and well- being of autistic trans youth. It’s a truly terrifying time for many reasons.
- We’ve also been able to discuss the resilience of trans people and the intense beauty of trans joy.
Madeline and I have learned a lot so far, but we plan to continue interviewing more people for what we hope will be an important resource to help trans autistic youth and the families, friends, and communities that love them.
I’m so grateful to be in community with you.
Sincerely,
Lei Wiley-Mydske
Community Outreach Coordinator
Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network
P.S. We have a new “Support Autistic Trans Youth” t-shirt in our newly updated Pride Collection on Redbubble! You can buy it here or click on the “Shop AWN” button below to check out all our new merch.
