SONG: Southerners On New Ground, a project of Transgender Law Center, has issued a new report on the state of TGNC (Transgender, Non-Binary, & Gender Non-Conforming) people in the American South. 

From their website:

“Southern transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people experience high rates of discrimination and violence and have long been lacking in the resources, scholarship, and research to combat these issues. In order to truly and effectively decrease the disparities impacting TGNC Southerners, resources and efforts must be grounded in the experiences of and led by TGNC communities in the South.  While there is more and more awareness of issues impacting TGNC communities, there is less data on which issues TGNC communities view as priorities and needs, particularly TGNC communities in the South.

 

The Grapevine: A Southern Trans Report details the findings of one of the only community-based surveys of TGNC Southerners to date focused on collecting information on the issues TGNC Southerners identify as priorities. The survey was developed out of The Jewel Box Revue – a listening tour that collected stories from and built connections among TGNC Southerners. This report contains information from 135 TGNC people from 13 Southern states: West Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, and Kentucky. Most respondents completed the survey online, while some were completed in person at target events in the South such as Southern Fried Queer Pride in Durham.

 

This report can be used as a roadmap for local organizing, policy, and funding priorities for future work that will increase the rich and often under-recognized leadership of directly impacted communities in the South.”

For download The Grapevine report, visit the web page. 

To learn more about SONG and the Transgender Law Center, visit their website.