Foster and adoptive parents should do everything they can to make all youth, including LGBTQ+ youth, feel loved and accepted, yet politicians are attempting to pass yet another discriminatory, harmful law encouraging the rejection of LGBTQ+ youth.
SB 1738/ HB 2169, which lawmakers will take up on Tuesday, February 20, would allow prospective adoptive or foster parents to disregard any government policy that requires acceptance of the sexual orientation or gender identity of a child, denying children their right to safe, supportive, and affirming placements.
Tell lawmakers that all children, including LGBTQ+ youth, deserve love and acceptance from their prospective adoptive or foster parents.
This bill is a direct response to recently proposed federal regulations that would require child welfare agencies like the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services to place kids in foster homes, residential treatment centers or group homes that are “free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child’s LGBTQ+ status.”
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is leading a multi-state coalition opposing the proposal federal regulations, disregarding the well-being and safety of LGBTQ+ youth in foster care and upholding a system that fails to adequately address their unique needs and vulnerabilities.
When child welfare agencies place youth with a family that does not affirm their sexual orientation and gender identity or actively discriminates against them, it compounds trauma that youth have already experienced.
It also flies in the face of federal civil rights statutes requiring the state to provide a child being removed from their home with reasonably safe living conditions, as well as existing Tennessee laws requiring the child welfare system to provide for the best interests of the child.
