While gaining some understanding of how one identifies is the first step toward being authentic to oneself, what comes next for many LGBTQ+ youth is confusion, anxiety, depression, isolation, fear and discrimination. Help is available if one is willing to reach out.
LGBTQIA+
The 2023 SWMJC Mental Wellness Project produced packages of stories focusing on: the mental health of caregivers, published in March; issues around youth mental health, published in June; and mental health workforce issues, published in August.
Our final series this year is The Science and Art of Well-being: Innovations and best practices in mental health care. This package features four solutions journalism stories, all of which Watershed Voicewill publish this week.
Michigan has the highest percentage in any state in the U.S. of transgender adults without a form of ID that has the correct gender listed at 77.7% of transgender adults. Nationally, it is estimated that more than half of transgender adults, or 476,000 people, lack an accurate ID.
“This is a suicide prevention bill, period,” Equality Michigan Executive Director Erin Knott said in a prepared statement. “With 15% of Michigan’s LGBTQ+ youth reporting being threatened with or subjected to conversion therapy, this historic effort to end conversion therapy is literally life-saving for LGBTQ+ young people in our state.”
Amy Davidhizar of Cass County responds to what she calls a “smear campaign directed at this Saturday’s Three Rivers Pride Festival” led by St. Joseph County Road Commissioner Jack Coleman and others.
The following letter was submitted to Watershed Voice for publication by Rev. Brenda Deily of The First Presbyterian Church Three Rivers/Centreville.
Watershed Voice Executive Editor & Publisher Alek Haak-Frost addresses the harmful and factually inaccurate messaging making its rounds on social media regarding Three Rivers Pride.
Andrew George of Three Rivers Pride stops by Keep Your Voice Down to chat about the upcoming and first ever Pride Festival in the City of Three Rivers on Saturday, June 24. Andrew, Alek, and Doug talk about how a Pride flag ban protest and the community support it garnered spurred on the creation of Three Rivers Pride Festival, how it all came together in under six months, and details on what to expect at the event.
With Thursday’s planned signing by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of an expansion of the 1973 Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA), LGBTQ+ advocates are savoring a hard-fought victory and looking ahead to where the fight for equal rights goes now.
The U.S. Senate approved legislation Tuesday that would enshrine protections for same-sex and interracial marriages, codifying many of the rights that would disappear if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn those landmark decisions the way it overturned the nationwide right to an abortion this summer.
Three Rivers Pride is now accepting donations to establish an annual Three Rivers Pride Celebration through its fiscal sponsor Main Street Media Group (Watershed Voice).
The same legislator who wants to ban drag shows from Michigan schools, even though none have taken place, is now seeking to lock up parents who provide gender-affirming care to their transgender children.
A small West Michigan library was essentially defunded in this week’s primary election in a dispute over the LGBTQ+ material in its collection, although advocates say it represents more than just a dispute over books, but an assault on personal liberties.
The Respect for Marriage Act, sponsored by New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, would require state government to recognize marriages from other states regardless of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of the two people in the marriage.
Advocates told Congress on Thursday that a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning a landmark abortion rights case is likely only the beginning, and could be followed by similar action by the high court on same-sex marriage, contraception and more.
The comeback of in-person Pride is coinciding with the re-emergence of a dark phenomenon: A recent increase in anti-LGBTQ+ violence and threats that experts say hasn’t been seen for years.
The tone at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing was as defiant as it was celebratory, with more than 200 members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community gathering Sunday for a Pride rally on the seventh anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage
In the last nine months, hundreds of books across dozens of states are being banned at an alarming rate. A majority of the bans feature books written by authors who are people of color, LGBTQIA+, Black and Indigenous, and feature characters from marginalized groups.