Thread by @MikaEsq

🚨#60SecondCTA!
Please RT & fill out the form in the thread below⤵

This #Pride month, 45 admin wants to roll back protections for some of the most vulnerable in the #LGBTQ community: foster youth, & foster/adoptive parents. You can help—it'll only take a minute. Continued⤵

Studies show that roughly 19% of foster youth identify as #LGBTQ. They experience worse safety, well-being & outcomes than non-LGBTQ youth. For states to improve these outcomes & identify best practices, data collection national data collection level is vitally important.

It is an unfortunate fact about our society, that parents sometimes reject their children for being #LGBTQ. LGBTQ children are disproportionately in foster care (1/5 foster youth) and homeless (2/5 homeless youth).
huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-do-p…

To protect rights of #LGBTQ youth & deliver needed services, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) asks if children left home because of “family conflict related to child's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression”—45’s HHS wants to take this Q away.

Additionally, there is a critical shortage of adoptive and foster parents in the US. Same-sex couples foster at six times the rate of their opposite-sex counterparts, and can provide loving, supportive homes for America’s 400,000+ foster youth. aclu.org/fact-sheet/ove…

The Department of Health & Human Services currently asks (voluntary) sexual orientation questions for foster youth, as well as foster and adoptive parents/guardians, to help collect data on where #LGBTQ rights might be violated—45’s HHS wants to end this as well.

Good news—you can help stop it! 45's HHS must accept public comment on their proposal to remove Qs protecting the rights of #LGBTQ foster children & parents. I've been on Twitter long enough to know there's a lot we have to say on protecting rights—need it on the official record.

The more comments that we file, the easier it will be to prove to HHS & in any potential court case that the public broadly opposes this proposed change that removes protections for #LGBTQ foster children and parents.

...But we need a lot more comments, and fast.

At the time of drafting this thread, there are only 45 public comments filed. In a previous #60SecondCTA public comment thread I posted, together #TheResistance filed 554 comments. Let’s see if we can break that record to protect the rights of #LGBTQ foster children & parents.

Follow this link: regulations.gov/docket?D=ACF-2…
Click “comment now”
Tell 45's HHS how you feel about them taking away questions that protect the rights of #LGBTQ foster children & parents. Or you can copy and paste a model comment from the next tweet—be sure to add your perspective.

I urge HHS to keep asking if children were removed from their home due to family conflict related to child's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. I also urge HHS to retain voluntary sexual orientation questions for foster youth & foster or adoptive parents.

The deadline to oppose HHS’s removing questions protecting the rights of #LGBTQ foster children & parents is Wed 6/13, at 11:59pm EST. Let’s share this message far & wide, and show them the mistake of having this public comment open during #Pride month.

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