Equality Connecticut’s 2024 Legislative Priorities

With the opening of the legislative session, Equality Connecticut (EQCT) has announced its legislative and policy priorities for 2024. EQCT will work on a range of issues both as a leader and in coalition with partners leading positive change in our state.

OUR 2024 PRIORITIES

Safe & Welcoming Schools

• We believe every school in our state should welcome and affirm LGBTQ students and that educators should have the tools and support they need to champion that support. We are working with a coalition of parents, educators, and advocates to develop tools to assess the safety of schools for LGBTQ youth. This includes urgently needed surveys and other data collection. We believe the state should step up its assistance to school districts doing their best for LGBTQ youth and resource the training and technical support needed for districts that are falling short.
  
• We are working to ensure that guidelines issued by the Department of Education for Transgender Youth at the beginning of 2024 adequately support the youth they’re designed to protect. We are working with a coalition of policy makers, families, and advocates to address some of our concerns. We will also launch a resource bank on our website for students and families to better understand their rights, and where to seek help when needed.

Health Equity

• We believe that LGBTQ and single people should have equitable access to reproductive health care and family planning. We have once again joined the Fertility Access Connecticut (FACT) Coalition, which is working to expand access to fertility treatment for LGBTQ and single people.
• Compassionate, human-centered mental health services are vital to LGBTQ people. We know that LGBTQ people are at greater risk of suicide and experience greater instances of mental health disparity and involuntary commitment. EQCT has joined the Peer Respite Working Group, led by the Keep the Promise Coalition. Peer respite centers, adopted by sixteen other states, offer a voluntary alternative for people in mental health crises or experiencing suicidal thoughts. This program calls for respite sites around the state and will have one specifically dedicated to serving transgender and non-binary people.

Housing

• Just Cause Coalition: Feeling safe and secure in your home and neighborhood is vital to the health and safety of our community. EQCT has joined the Just Cause Eviction coalition which is working through SB 143: An Act Concerning Evictions for Cause to expand the state’s ban on no fault evictions. No fault eviction is one of the last vestiges of potential legal discrimination against our community in the state. Requiring a landlord to have a just and plausible cause for eviction will ensure no one loses their home because they are LGBTQ+. Equality Connecticut calls on members of the Housing Committee and the entire Connecticut General Assembly to support this important bill. Furthermore, we call on LGBTQ+ people in every corner of our state to stand up and support this bill for our community and the greater good.

Campaign for a Welcoming Connecticut

• Families with transgender and nonbinary youth are moving to Connecticut in increasing numbers, seeking safety from states with laws that persecute them. Some of these families also come temporarily to Connecticut to receive services now outlawed in their states. Supporting these families means ensuring that Connecticut walks the walk supporting our community. These families are often uprooting themselves on short notice to save their children and do so with little resources. Sadly, they arrive to discover overburdened community-based organizations and hostile school climate, even in districts with policies to make LGBTQ+ students safe. Access to gender-affirming care is limited and difficult to navigate. It is increasingly apparent that we are falling short of being the safe harbor to which we aspire.
  
  Our state must do more to make our communities safe for our Connecticut family and welcoming to its newest members. This means LGBTQ+ organizations and clinical providers must be resourced to meet the changing needs of LGBTQ+ people and welcome our growing numbers.
  
  We will work with lawmakers to build a campaign that identifies our community’s changing needs and calls for urgently needed resources. We must work to make sure Connecticut’s status as a Safe Harbor state is not an illusion.

We hope you will join us in amplifying these legislative priorities and join us across Connecticut to support our LGBTQIA+ community. Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn to keep up with our work in 2024.