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"I can't describe how desperate I felt."
Ace Peace looks directly at the camera and his pain is evident. The 16-year-old youth suffered with an unwanted puberty while waiting to access Alberta's only comprehensive health care clinic for transgender youth.
The Metta Clinic at Alberta Children’s Hospital is only open one day a month and the wait list has grown from nine months to almost three years.
"That's an eternity for a kid and there's a lot of kids like me," Ace says in a video released Feb. 6 to highlight the need for more care for trans and diverse gender youth.
"I don't know what my life would be like without the Metta Clinic. I don't even know if I would be alive."
The Metta Clinic was established as a pilot program in 2014 to provide transgender and gender diverse youth with access to mental health and peer support services, puberty suppressors and other hormone replacement therapy drugs.
Without that, youth are at risk for severe mental health challenges, suicide and self-harm, addiction, abuse and harassment, said Amelia Marie Newbert, president of Skipping Stone Foundation which launched the campaign to bring awareness to the issue.
"We're talking about a group of people who are already quite vulnerable. What we're hearing from youth is desperation. They have the strength and conviction to come out ... and they're being met with barriers and challenges," said Newbert. "I can't stress enough the devastating effect that has."
Throughout February, the foundation is releasing a new video each week at www.skippingstone.ca/metta and www.facebook.com/skippingstoneca with compelling, first-hand stories of vulnerable youth and their families.
"When I came out as transgender everyone supported me. I was supported by family, friends and school. But it was still hell for me," says Ace, who is featured in the first video. "I was watching my body change in ways I didn't want to see it change. I felt like it was betraying me."
The foundation hopes the public will watch the videos, understand the immediate need for more resources and call their MLA.
"I've witnessed first-hand the amazing things that happen when children are supported," said Lindsay Peace, Ace's mother and vice-president of the foundation.
"That's what I want to see for all these kids. I know the power a community has when it comes together to support itself. It brings out the best in people and we intend to be a catalyst for that change."
By Michael Jarvie
6 February 2017
