Los Angeles County regulators on Tuesday passed two motions designed to improve the lives and health of their LGBTQ+ voters, citing horrific attacks by policymakers on gay and transgender youth across the country.

The first, written by supervisors Hilda Solis and Lindsey Horvath, aims to improve gender-affirming healthcare in the county. The second, written by Solis and supervisor Janice Hahn, establishes an advisory committee focused solely on advancing LGBTQ+ policies.

In the past year, conservative lawmakers have flooded state houses with bills targeting gay, lesbian, non-binary, and transgender youth. These include proposals to ban books, ban class discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity, and ban trans athletes from participating. Solis said she wanted the two motions to differentiate the county from these legislators that target the LGBTQ+ community.

Those accounts, in my opinion, are absolutely unconscionable, Solis said. Let’s stand firm and make sure we don’t go in the opposite direction and allow hateful policies to expand.

County leaders have six months to form the 15-member committee responsible for advising the

board and

provinces more than 30 departments on policies, budgets and programs that will

support

the LGBTQ+ community. Each supervisor will nominate two people and the other three elected county officials, the sheriff, district attorney and county assessor, will choose one person. Two members are chosen through an application process.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell called for the committee to be transgender, gender nonconforming, intersex and nonconforming

–

binary appointees.

The province already has more than 30 committees, some of which deal with LGBTQ+ issues. The County Commission on Human Relations, for example,

develops

programs to tackle homophobia, among other things. The Commission’s most recent report on hate crimes found that there were 41 anti-transgender crimes in 2021, the vast majority of which were violent. The majority of hate crimes against

S

Gays were also violent.

Unlike other provincial committees, this one will be made up exclusively of people who identify as LGBTQ+, according to the motion.

It is essential to have an entity made up of individuals who know and have experienced the unique struggles common to the LGBTQ+ community, the motion said. This commission enables the county to see this community through its own lens and understand the many overlapping challenges they often experience.

County regulators also noted on Tuesday the number of bills introduced across the country that would criminalize physicians and families seeking gender-affirming health care. Regulators said they wanted to strengthen precisely these services that have been curtailed in other states

by motion

Coordination between provincial departments that can play a strengthening role in the provision of gender-affirming healthcare.

Horvath said those services include providing HIV prevention drugs PrEP and PEP, as well as puberty blockers for transgender youth.

“We need to recommit as an entire province and know that this is a responsibility we all have,” she said. “This is not a responsibility placed on the shoulders of the LGBTQ+ community to fight for themselves.”