Parents of Transgender Children Speak Out Against Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills [Video]

HRC held a virtual roundtable with parents of transgender youth to discuss the dangers of anti-LGBTQ+ bills moving through the Arizona legislature.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

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good morning everyone thank you so much for being here um in this late morning
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slash um early afternoon in dc um i am so happy to be with you all this morning
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um my name is bridget sharp and i she her pronouns and i am the arizona state
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director for the human rights campaign um thank you for joining us for our virtual roundtable with parents of
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transgender youth on the dangers of anti-lgbtq bills moving through the legislature this year
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um i before we um sort of introduced our speakers and parents and start the discussion i want to talk a little bit
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about why we’re here today transgender youth have been under attack in state legislatures for several years
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and a record number of anti-trans bills are on track to be filed in 2022. these
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discriminatory bills largely focus on denying transgender youth the ability to receive gender affirming care and
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participate in school athletics programs here in our home state of arizona our legislators have filed more than a dozen
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anti-lgbtq plus bills this is more than any legislature across the country they
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are currently considering three bills that attack lgbtq plus youth and transgender youth in general last week
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the senate passed senate bill 1138 which bans best practice medical care for transgender youth sb 1138 is a cruel and
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potentially life-threatening bill that would harm trans youth who rely on gender affirming services medical
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decisions should be made between parents children and their medical teams not politicians this bill was just assigned
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to the house judiciary committee additionally last week the house also
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passed house bill 2161 which requires healthcare entities and school staff to forcibly out lgbtq plus children to
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their parents hb 2161 will also cause severe emotional distress to lgbtq plus
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youth who are more likely to face victimization violent violence and suicide this bill was assigned to the
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senate education committee just yesterday and then earlier this week senate bill 1165 an anti-transports ban was assigned
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to the house judiciary committee and is also awaiting a hearing date this harmful discriminatory bill would ban
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transgender youth from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity these kids are just kids and
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they should be allowed to play the parents joining us today have had to sit through hearings and listen as our
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elected officials attacked their children they’ve shown no shame as they’ve tried to dehumanize and
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invalidate their identities in the crosshairs of anti-lgbtq elected
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officials divisive political strategy are vulnerable children who are simply trying to navigate their adolescence i
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want to be clear politicians are culpable for the harm they cause to lgbtq plus people’s well-being simply by
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being subjected to continual legislative attacks on their dignity and humanity
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there are real consequences to the discrimination perpetrated upon lgbtq plus people and particularly transgender
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youth 55 percent of lgbtq plus arizonans have reported that they’ve suffered from
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depression in just the past two weeks alone last night in his state of the union speech president binding condemned the
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onslaught of state laws targeting transgender americans pledging his support for trans youth being targeted
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by lawmakers in state houses across the country and just today more than 2500 parents
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from all 50 states and washington d.c issued an open letter organized by hrc
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condemning the avalanche of anti-transgender legislation moving in legislatures across the country
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arizona lawmakers must do the right thing they must put an end to these harmful bills that are hurting trans
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youth and their families the parents of transgender youth joining us today will share more about these
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bills and the personal impact they are having on their lives and the lives and well-being of their children we will
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leave time at the end for press to ask questions after our discussion i’m now going to turn it over to lizette
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and jose trujillo from tucson arizona to introduce themselves and share a little bit about their family
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good morning everyone and thank you for being here with us today my name is lisa trujillo i am the mother of a 14 year
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old transgender son who socially transitioned when he was eight years old and so we have been on
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this journey for a very long time we are also proud members of the human
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rights campaign parents for transgender parents for transgender equality
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national council it’s a mouthful as well as facilitators and coordinators for
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sagas families transformed here in tucson arizona we are a latinx family
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bilingual and proud of our roots here in arizona um this has been an a terrible
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time for us um it’s been a terrible three years because this isn’t the first year that we’ve
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actually experienced anti-trans legislation and um feeling the effects and the hostility
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that this legislation continues to wage against immigrant families and um trans youth makes it even harder
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when we want to call this state home and so um
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i just wanted to share those bits with you all here in our introduction um and
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hope that through this conversation we can share with you the human side of our
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families and our children and that that can be conveyed to our communities
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[Music]
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is
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thank you and i’d love to pass it over to kristen downing also from tucson arizona
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thank you thank you all for being here today my name is kristen downing i live in tucson
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i have a husband we’ve been married almost 20 years which makes me feel old we have two kids a 15 year old and 11
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year old we have a dog who is my third child and a house full of
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random reptiles that my teenager has collected we are all home most of the time my husband works from home
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i’m taking online college classes my 15 year olds taking online high school classes my home school my sixth grader
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so we have a very full happy crazy chaotic wonderful life i’m very thankful every day
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um unfortunately the past few months i’ve had to take a lot of time away from
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my family and our crazy life um to speak out against all of these anti-trans bills that would harm my
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family my 15 year old is trans non-binary and uses he him pronouns a little bit about
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him he is i know i’m biased as mom but he’s a truly gifted artist he creates
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worlds and characters and i just love hearing all about them as i said he is obsessed with reptiles
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and wants to be an exotic animal vets he’s just a wonderful kid who has so
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much to offer um the reason i’ve gotten so involved on the medical bill in particular this year
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is because about a year ago i wasn’t sure that my teenager would be
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around um to share his light with the world um
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truly it’s because of our supportive community we have so many friends and family that surround
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us are loving and kind they see my child as more than his pronouns and gender
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identity but also especially um our doctors and therapists who again see my child as a
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person um and just briefly i’m just i would love to say that regarding the medical bills
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you know every child’s path is different every you know that’s true for everybody every medical journey is different but
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with us and from what i know of families here in town and part of the families transformed with liza and we hear
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stories every decision that we make for and with our kids is done
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with so much consideration and care and and discussions with the doctor and
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then discussions at home with the family and none of it is taken lightly
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we are constantly thinking about my child’s best interests well-being mental health
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putting the government in the middle of that is is i don’t even have words it’s it’s an awful idea and it’s my right
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as my child’s parents to make the medical decisions for and with my child
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and so i just wanted to say that that’s the reason that i’m so involved with the medical
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part of this because i’ve seen it firsthand with my child and i just i want my child to grow up i want my child
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to become a vet and breed the geckos and go to expose even
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though i hate snakes and reptiles i you know i want that i want all of that and he has the right to that he has a
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right to have the same health care as his peers he has the right to live his life
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and have the same rights his gender identity should not preclude him from getting
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good health care thank you thank you kristen and now i’ll pass it to derek fielder a parent from tucson as
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well hi i’m derek i’ve spent most of my adult life in the
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united states army or army national guard in the service of the principles of the declaration of
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independence in the constitution i’m currently a captain in the arizona
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army national guard i fought in war and deployed four times because i believe so devoutly in this
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principle and so it’s pretty
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disheartening to you know to see these bills come up
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to our legislation and and actually have a chance of passing i’m here today because my son is
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transgender he came out to us as transgender a year
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ago when i was on deployment overseas and
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it’s been a it’s been a difficult process for us um
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you know my wife and and my intuitive reaction when he
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came out to us was to express our unequivocal love and support
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but uh that wasn’t easy we me my wife talked uh
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you know on video chats and and on the phone for months you know
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trying to figure out what’s the best way forward what’s the best thing to do for our for our child
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you know for a long time we hope that it was just going to be a phase that would pass if we just
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didn’t talk about it with him until i got home from deployment uh
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we spent countless sleepless nights worrying about whether we’re doing the right things
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and we had a lot of shame you know my wife and i both believed ourselves to be
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a progressive open-minded people you know we rely on reason and science to
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to come to decisions about things and to form our views but there we were wishing desperately
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that our child was not transgender so
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yeah i took that opportunity that sense of shame to start doing some research and
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start really figuring out trying to understand what this meant for my son for us
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and just in general what does it mean to be transgender so i did a lot of research
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i’m a nerd i’m a big dork so i started looking up academic articles
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sociology psychology medical reading as much as i could
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and i learned a lot that changed my mind about a lot of misconceptions that i held previously
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um you know the biggest thing is that i learned that
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gender affirming care saves life and i also confirmed what i knew
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intuitively that what matters is my child’s spirit and character as a human being
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and yeah my ten-year-old has the courage to live authentically
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in this day and age with all these tax he has courage and he trusts that i’m going to love him
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no matter what for who he is and that humbles me he makes me a better father and a better
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human being um i don’t think any parent wants this for their children knowing the hardships
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and dangers that are involved but what we do want is for our kids to have the freedom to
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live authentically to have hope for their lives for their futures and to have the opportunity to realize those
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hopes and and that’s why i’m here thank you thank you so much derek and uh delia
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hi my name is delia hogan i am a native arizonan i was born here in phoenix i
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haven’t lived here my whole life but most of it my daughter was born here and my parents live here we have definite roots here in
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arizona um we knew from the time our child was
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about five that she was gender non-conforming um she told us first she wanted to be a girl
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we never pushed any kind of agenda on her we just let her be and after years
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of wearing my tank tops as dresses when she was six and she pretended to be
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pregnant and years of talking about how boy doesn’t feel right to her when she told us at
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age 8 that she was transgender we weren’t surprised and we supported her wholeheartedly it was never an issue for
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us at 9 years old on thanksgiving day unbeknownst to her father and me
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she bravely took every one of her aunts uncles and grandparents
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and cousins out to the backyard of my sister’s house and one by one told them
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i am not the boy that you thought that i was i am sophia i’m going to use she her
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pronouns and i’m asking you to support me in this whether you agree with it or not
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because you’re my aunt uncle grandparent cousin whatever and i love you and that’s what we do for each other
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and at that moment uh sophia was born and she has been sophia ever since
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and uh she’s now 11 almost 12. that is seven years
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of figuring herself out in a home that never forced any kind of gender stereotypes on her
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this isn’t a phase it’s not a trend this is not a three minute tick tock for
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her this is her life this is her reality and this is her identity and it is hard
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living in a body that she doesn’t identify with is a kind of hell that my child deals with every day and i see how
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it hurts her i see the yearning in her eyes to look like the other girls i hear her cry in
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the shower when she’s forced to see her body and i’ve listened to her and held her as
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she tells me how she would rather die than to live in the body that she has
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and if that’s her only choice she would rather opt out and in those moments
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i know that i would do anything in my power to make it better for her
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anything that would give her a future that she can look forward to so this last year when she started
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puberty i witnessed the relief and tears of joy on her face and we told her that she could get the puberty blockers that
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she had been just that were her hope for her future i believe that they will quite literally
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save her life no parent chooses to have a transgender child
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it’s widely misunderstood it’s publicly debated it’s treated with hatred and derision and transgender people face
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huge social obstacles just to survive our world doesn’t understand kids like my daughter and instead of trying to
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they wish to control that which they don’t understand and which scares sb 1138 and other bills like them all
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over the country are a blatant attempt to erase transgender people from public life for no other reason
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than they do not conform to the norm children like my daughter pose no threat to anybody
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and they just want to live and be offered the best chance they can to grow up and be productive members of society
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and this best chance consists of pausing puberty letting them be themselves
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and letting them have the space to explore their identities safely and non-permanently
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until they decide if they want to transition none of this is impulsive
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every child receives therapy there is a standard of care it is handled with diligence
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respect it is handled delicately is a process that takes time requires
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research every every parent of a transgender
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child has agonized over these decisions and i am here today
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because my daughter is only 11 and now knows what it feels like to be discriminated against by her own government
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the institution that is supposed to protect her she doesn’t understand why she can’t just be who she is without having to
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defend it she wants to play video games and hang out with her friends and just be a kid
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instead she is afraid and stressed out and angry that her medical care is going to be
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taken away from her and she is going to be forced to live in a body she didn’t choose can’t accept
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and doesn’t identify with she is acutely aware that she and only
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she will have to suffer the consequences if these freedoms are stolen from her not the politicians who are taking them
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away then in order to keep the care she needs
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she will have to leave the place that she was born her friends her grandparents her aunts and uncles her cousins her community
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to move to a more inclusive and tolerant place and start over
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not because she’s committed a crime or done anything wrong but just simply because of who she is
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she has said that she has had to watch her mother cry many times tears of frustration she feels attacked she has anxiety she
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suffers from separation anxiety in short she suffers all the adult things that
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she is too young for and should have to be forced upon her by an institution that is determined to erase her
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she’s a little girl she loves history she loves her friends she’s a vegan she loves animals
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she just wants to be and i want to be able to support her
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and i want our lawmakers to support her just being the beautiful child
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that she is thank you so much julia um so a couple questions i’d love to pose to our
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parents um and and feel free to speak up um how are these anti-trans bills that
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are moving through the legislature directly impacting your child’s mental health and well-being
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well i know for my son he’s nervous he’s stressed he just started playing basketball
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and now he’s wondering is he going to be allowed to keep playing if they find out that he’s
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transgender so we haven’t told any of the coaches or anything um
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that worries him yeah he’s already worried at school
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our school has been great ever since we notified them that my son was transitioning
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they were very supportive they’re being excellent about using the correct
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pronouns and everything and even then he’s still nervous about using
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the bathroom at school he doesn’t want to use the the gender-neutral bathroom because
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it just makes him feel you know segregated but he’s afraid to use
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the bathroom with the gender he identifies as and these bills
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don’t do anything to alleviate that they just make it worse
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he just wants to be who he is and
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this challenges that it makes him worry about whether he’s going to get to continue being who he is he’s been so
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happy since we moved here a few months ago being able to live how he’s felt for a long time
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and and always now in the back of his mind he’s wondering is this going to go away
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and really quickly just uh considering time um if anyone on any reporters on
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the call would like to ask your questions via chat um i can go ahead and
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ask those of the parents as well um just be sure you identify which publication you are from
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um lizette or kristen did you want to hop in on that uh previous question
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i can sure um it’s been awful for my child um you know it’s hard enough being a
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teenager in the middle of a pandemic and all that entails um the conversation that keeps coming to
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mind that happened last year during the last legislative session which was also awful um
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something had happened you know it’s 20 20 when something happened every day i can’t remember what
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murder hornets i don’t know what it was but my husband said to my teenager don’t you watch the news and he said why would
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i watch that all that’s going on are people debating my existence which
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he was 14 at the time and it’s awful that these kids know that so it’s it’s heavy on me as
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mom it’s hard to constantly be begging for my child to have the same rights um but harder than that is to know how
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heavy it is for him to know that there are people out there who
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feel like he shouldn’t exist so
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i’m still on you sorry about that um and then um delia did you want to hop in
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on how how that’s affecting you and your family
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yeah i mean absolutely i mean we are in the process uh we just sold our house
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here in scottsdale and we want to move to uh chandler so that we can be closer to our family and friends and um
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going like that’s supposed to be a happy you know
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time like like we’re moving we’re going to be buying a new house we’re going to be doing all of these things and
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you know this has been a rain cloud over our heads for you know just months and
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the threat of having to leave because that’s really where that’s really the crux of this issue is that if these
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kinds of legislation pass we are going to have to leave arizona
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and this is a real problem for us i have parents here who are aging i have a
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community here this is where i was born and to have to the the threat of having
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to leave is it’s intolerable to think about that we we literally just can’t stay
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because of who who my child is it’s
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it doesn’t make any sense and it is
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it’s harming my daughter’s mental health it has been and it continues to
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she doesn’t understand and she’s so angry
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and so it’s just you know constant damage control
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trying to fight against these things takes me away from her takes me away from my husband
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takes me away from house hunting trying to you know find a place for my family to live
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and it’s it’s stressful there are many nights where i you know i
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just break down in tears and you know and and i can’t hide that from sophia i don’t i don’t hide it from her because
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she needs to see that i’m fighting for her so it’s it’s very difficult it’s
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extremely difficult and it’s wrong is the real the real bottom line is that it’s
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it’s not right and then one final question for lizette and jose what do you want arizona
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lawmakers to know about your family and how um these bills affect you all on the
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on a daily basis i think the most important thing that i want to impress upon journalists is that
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um the way that we frame the conversation matters there’s nothing wrong with
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our transgender loved ones or our children um i hope and pray for a future
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where trans loved ones are accepted and
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and not rejected in their homes what is really wrong is the ways in
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which society and policy makers have discriminated and um
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discriminated against and how we as a whole society have discriminated against
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transgender people and i think that that was
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you know that’s that’s the most important thing but i think our son has said this on more than one occasion i go
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to school and i’m safe and i’m happy and i’m supported by my friends i have a wonderful community and when i go to the
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capitol i hear adults speak about me in ways that is discriminatory
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and scary and not true to my experience not true to my lived everyday experience
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and so i think that these are um fabricated problems to garner
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uh votes and um and to create fear in communities about a population of people
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that are already vulnerable and i also want to say my son wanted me to
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say that he is proof that loving your child and supporting them and creating
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communities um that are supportive and and putting them in school settings uh
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that allow them to focus on just being a kid and focus on the on gay and achieving an education um
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he’s proof that all of that works that having a care a medical care team that uh offers resources um that
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playing sports everything that his cis peers get to do every day just ensures that he too gets
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to thrive like the people around him and so while um we recognize that there are a
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lot of youth trans youth especially who do not have that experience that my child is having if we created a better
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world all trans kids could and so i think that moving forward we have to
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really talk about this in a way of like how do we create love empathy and understanding for an
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already vulnerable population that faces violence and homelessness
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uh and discrimination day in and day out how do we make a better tomorrow and so it’s my job as a mother to do everything
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that i can to make sure that tomorrow can be all that it needs to be for everyone’s kids on this panel not just
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my own and for future children and future generations so that the world can finally change
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um do you want to say anything yeah sorry yeah i like it
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uh i i would like for for for people to understand that uh
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we’re we’re no our family is no different than any other family we’re trying to raise our
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children you know whatever whatever whatever the hell that means like we’re
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trying to raise our children everything that’s that fits that we’re trying to get them to thrive we want them to be
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educated we want all of we want all the best for our children the same way anyone
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uh hearing this once for their children whoever has children um this bills all these things are are are
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roadblocks on top of on top of the gargantuan
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effort that is put on on raising children on top of that and and it’s not it’s not
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just roadblocks for many of the of the children in the community it
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it literally could mean life or death for many and so
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this is an experiential uh thing if if they’re not in it they can’t see it and what i’m asking is
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believe us believe us believe that we’re doing the right thing because we love our children believe
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that we’re we we’re we’re not we’re not googling things on i don’t know we’re not we’re not going on on
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youtube and trying to figure things out no we’re we’re doing research we’re talking to professionals there are professionals helping us along the way
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and and trust that parents know what’s best we don’t need government involved in what’s
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best for our children thank you if i could i’d like to make a comment on
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that as well sure um i would kind of to second some of their comments um
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i just want lawmakers and everybody to know that we’re just ordinary people like
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i grew up on a farm in rural nebraska my wife grew up in a blue working class family she’s a nurse
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um i worked for over 10 years in construction before getting a new career just recently
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um we’re not radicals or deviants or you know any sort of uh
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straw man image that these lawmakers are projecting unto us um
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you know my son too he’s a typical kid
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you know we started noticing things when he was about four when he started going to
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preschool you know he’s a super vivacious fun smart funny kid
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and he kept complaining about not having friends at school and i didn’t really get it you know it just
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really confused me so i didn’t really put much stock in what he was telling me but over the years it just got worse and
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worse to the point where he’d be crying at bedtime saying why can’t i be normal so that other kids would want to play with me
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and i didn’t get it even then i just felt terrible until he came out to us
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and and then i got it and i started understanding why he felt so
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separate and apart and that’s why we moved as you know we
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we couldn’t keep living in iowa and our kids being miserable and not fitting in not having a community and we found that
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here you know we we’ve gone to uh families transformed in in saurita
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and we found a doctor that specializes in trans youth we have we found a therapist
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and it’s just transformed our son he’s flourished like never before
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and you know he’s just
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you know he’s like any other kid out there that’s not transgender you know he loves basketball drawing writing
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every week he wants to do something different when he grows up you know and it’s just so much fun to watch that
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enthusiasm for his life and i just i want to see that continue and to do that we need to have access to those
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support structures whether it’s medical care or supportive sports and education
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we need to have that to give them a fair shot at you know realizing the opportunities and
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the hopes that he has thank you so much for that derek um just
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being aware of time i wanted to wrap up give a huge huge thanks to derek
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delia lizet jose and kristen for being on and taking time this morning to share
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your stories and be vulnerable um on such important issues and i know that
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the team at hrc will be following up um with press um with you know documents as
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well as just follow-up information um so please expect that but we really appreciate your willingness to to hear
34:39
us out uh this morning and uh give really good attention um to these issues
34:45
that are affecting so many here in arizona thank you so much everyone

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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