The Department of Agriculture is set to pay $50,000 to encourage children and young adults who identify as transgender, lesbian, gay, or bisexual to go on wilderness conservation trips in the Pacific Northwest.
The grant, which started in 2022 and runs through 2026, was awarded to the Northwest Youth Corps, a conservation organization based in Eugene, Oregon, that works to “diversify the outdoors.”
The grant funds “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer inclusion and sound to summit crews,” in an apparent reference to two different programs.
The Northwest Youth Corps explains how it intends to “diversify the outdoors,” adding that “a key element of our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is fielding single-identity affinity crews and internships to support communities historically under-served in the outdoor space.”
The group hosts LGBT-specific conservation groups for those as young as 16 years old. “Unlike some facets of identity, such as perceived race or ability, people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or “questioning” are often an invisible demographic,” the organization says.
“Our move to create a single-identity LGBTQ+ crew began when we recognized the need to be much more purposeful in supporting this community.”
“There is no such thing as a truly safe space, there are only safer spaces,” one of the attendees said in a video promoting the program. “The fact that there is a corp for queer people to explore their identities … is not only important, it is essential.”
The program was also celebrated in a National Geographic article. “Having the support of an organization that provides safe spaces and opportunities for queer youth is essential for queer youth, especially during a time when transgender youth care is banned in numerous states and legislation transgender youth from participating in sports,” the piece states.
Various federal agencies have spent taxpayer money promoting transgender identification among minors, including with one $700k grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to create “an inclusive teen pregnancy program for transgender boys.”
“Youth who are assigned female at birth … are at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable,” the award description states.
