This Pride Month, Let’s Invest in the LGBTQIA Community
It’s pride month, and certainly, your social media newsfeeds are filled with rainbow trademarks and messages of LGBTQIA inclusivity. Pride is a time to rejoice the individuals of the LGBTQIA community and the strides we have made towards equality. It’s also a moment to mourn those we have lost to the AIDS epidemic, the Pulse massacre, anti-transgender violence, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a time for coming together, celebrating, and pushing for better policies and justice for our communities. Economic justice is one area where progress is sorely needed. LGBTQIA people, particularly the transgender community and LGBTQIA members of colour, face a lot greater poverty rates than their straight, cisgender counterparts.
The transgender and broader LGBTQIA communities face poverty at such excessive prices due, in part, to the systemic discrimination they face in employment, housing, education, and other areas of public life. Poverty can additionally stem from the rejection that LGBTQIA individuals face from their cherished ones, leading to greater rates of homelessness, substance abuse, mental health issues, and extended worry at some stage in their lifetimes. Too often, LGBTQIA humans are forced into low-paying jobs and are not supplied adequate benefits.
We need to make investments in the LGBTQIA community. They want now not simply workplace anti-discrimination protections, but additionally a livable minimum wage. They need inclusive paid depart policies that apprehend all types of caregiving and family arrangements, together with chosen family.
The San Francisco mayor is proposing to put in force a new pilot application to grant assured earnings to transgender residents who have low incomes. If the program goes into effect, up to 150 transgender San Francisco residents would obtain month-to-month payments of up to $1,000 beginning this fall, with no strings attached. The program would goal Black and Latina transgender ladies participants, who face disproportionately excessive prices of poverty and violence.
Guaranteed earnings programs promote financial balance and improve fitness outcomes. For example, effects from the Stockton Economic Empowerment Development (SEED) basic earnings pilot discovered that recipients who received monthly income had much less month-to-month income volatility, lower anxiety, and expanded intellectual and physical health. More cities and localities put in force guaranteed earnings programs targeting the transgender community. And these applications be led with the aid of and middle transgender women of colour.
Over the past couple of decades, the LGBTQIA community has obtained many victories, like reaching marriage equality and key Supreme Court selections in place of job anti-discrimination protections. But there is nonetheless work to do, mainly around financial protection and economic justice. Poverty is a coverage preference that we make. We can select to invest in communities that have been marginalized and who face barriers to financial stability. This pride month, we have to not simply show rainbows, however also invest in LGBTQIA people.