Health Liberation Now!
| File:Health-Liberation-Now-Logo.webp | |
| Formation | January 2021 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Lee Leveille & Ky Schevers |
| Website | https://healthliberationnow.com |
Health Liberation Now! (HLN) is a trans led advocacy organization which reports on political attacks on transgender rights and advocates equitable access to transition-related healthcare for transgender people and detransitioners/retransitioners.[1][2][3][4]
Founding[edit]
Health Liberation Now! was founded by Lee Leveille and Ky Schevers January 2021, who had previously been involved in transphobic detransition communities. Schevers stated "We were both involved in these really messed-up detransition communities, which I actually played a role in starting. Now I look back and [realize that community was] actually like a cult or a high-demand group."[1]
In 2019 Leveille was involved in the founding of the Gender Care Consumer Advocacy Network (GCCAN) to advocate for detransitioners who needed medical care but struggled to get it due to prejudice. In 2020, he quit in protest of "its growing overtures to the gender critical feminist movement, which sees trans rights as a danger to cis women." Leveille felt detransitioner's stories were being coopted to reduce access to transition related healthcare.[5]
Leveille stated "I am increasingly seeing the signs of targeted acts of eradication. We are already beginning to see signs of pogroms." Leveille is concerned about a transgender cultural genocide, wherein transgender youth could be "channelled en masse into conversion therapy" and adults "systematically forced back into the closet."[5]
HLN advocates an informed consent model and "barrier-free" transition. Leveille has compared gatekeeping models of healthcare to conversion therapy. They also advocate for "trauma-informed and peer-supportive approaches to trans healthcare".[1]
Activities[edit]
Health Liberation reported that the first known protest of gender-affirming pediatricians was in December 2020. Throughout 2021, protests became more regular and anti-trans groups had begun using an online interactive map tracking the location of clinics providing gender-affirming healthcare.[3][4] In an interview with NBC news published August 16 regarding harassment of Boston Children's Hospital Leveille stated the hospital had also experienced harassment in May 2021 during a previous wave of harassment against medical facilities offering gender-affirming care. Leveille and Schevers told NBC they feared violence against doctors, patients, and facilities offering gender-affirming care could come next.[2] Leveille stated that "the original organized network that jump started the clinic protests has been slowing down a bit and is more decentralized ... Now we're seeing new faces rallying the cause - including the likes of Matt Walsh and Libs of TikTok."[2]
HLN wrote a report entitled "A New Era" about resources published by anti-trans 'professional groups' which leads transgender youth to be "coerced into seeing clinicians who end up doing them significant harm" by their parents.[1][6]
The organization has documented what they term "TAnon", anti-trans activism within QAnon. Leveille has reported "crossover" between the far right and gender-critical feminists, with Neo-fascists and QAnon boosting gender critical writing and Christian groups spreading the discredited theory of rapid-onset gender dysphoria, which had originated from parent reports on gender critical websites. The Independent stated Leveille argues that over the past 5 years "these causes have increasingly coalesced, with gender critical material serving as ammunition for conservatives, QAnon, and the far right, as well as vice versa."[5][7][8]
The organization has created an online mapping project to identify the relationships between the leaders of the anti-trans groups and anti-trans conversion therapy groups.[1][9]
New York Times article[edit]
On June 15, 2022, Emily Bazelon wrote an article in the New York Times which was criticized for platforming Genspect, a group known for campaigning against transgender rights, and the fact the article was used as supposed proof of lack of medical consensus on transgender care by the state of Texas in a court case to criminalize gender-affirming care for minors. Ky Schevers and Lee Leveille had been interviewed by Bazelon and warned her against inclusion of Genspect, but their interviews were not included in the published piece. Schevers told the Texas Observer "it was disappointing and infuriating to see her disregard our warnings and now to learn that her article is being used as evidence to stop trans youth from accessing healthcare." In a response on Health Liberation Now's website, they accused the Times of "fueling a dangerous political debate over the existence of trans people and their ability to access supportive healthcare."[10][11]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Falk, Misha (August 4, 2022). "Health Liberation Now! is challenging the way anti-trans groups weaponize detransition narratives". Xtra Magazine. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Zadrozny, Brandy; McCausland, Phil (August 16, 2022). "Boston Children's Hospital warns employees over far-right online harassment campaign". NBC News. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Carlisle, Madeleine (February 16, 2022). "Pediatricians Who Serve Trans Youth Face Increasing Harassment. Lifesaving Care Could Be on the Line". Time Magazine. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sherman, Carter (March 28, 2022). "Doctors Who Care for Trans Kids Are Being Targeted, Protested, and Harassed". Vice News. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Dodds, Io (2022-06-26). "How paranoia over trans rights became catnip for QAnon and the far right". The Independent. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ Leveille, Lee (2022-06-01). "A New Era: Key Actors Behind Anti-Trans Conversion Therapy". Health Liberation Now!. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ Leveille, Lee (2021-04-12). "The Mechanisms of TAnon: What is "TAnon"?". Health Liberation Now!. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
- ↑ Leveille, Lee (2021-07-05). "The Mechanisms of TAnon: Where it Came From". Health Liberation Now!. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
- ↑ "Anti-Trans Conversion Therapy Map of Influence". Health Liberation Now!. 2022-02-06. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ O'Connell, Kit (22 July 2022). "There Is No Legitimate 'Debate' Over Gender-Affirming Healthcare". The Texas Observer. Archived from the original on 22 July 2022. Retrieved 23 July 2022. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Schevers, Ky; Leveille, Lee (2022-06-23). "Health Liberation Now!'s Response to NYT Article "The Battle Over Gender Therapy"". Health Liberation Now. Archived from the original on 15 September 2022. Retrieved 2022-09-22. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help)
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