An interesting and heated debate is occurring in Scotland, where the Clinical Effectiveness Unit of the Faculty of Reproductive Medicine is encouraging general practitioners and health clinics to consider talking to teen girls, including girls as young as 13 years of age, about long-term birth control methods like implants and injections.

The Daily Express reports:

The guidance, from the Clinical Effectiveness Unit of the Faculty of Reproductive Medicine, states doctors should “highlight the benefits” of long-lasting injections, coils and implants to teenagers, rather than simply prescribe the contraceptive pill.

Girls as young as 13 can be given the long-lasting contraceptives without their parents’ knowledge, provided the GP has no concerns about child abuse or exploitation. Dr Louise Melvin, a Glasgow-based medic and author of the guidance, said: “We wanted to highlight the fact that long-acting contraceptives are cost-effective and more likely to reduce unintended pregnancy, to promote choice and appropriate use of contraception.

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“The contraceptive pill is good for some people, but for individuals who are not good at taking a pill, long-acting methods are better.”

Although the country is seeing a slight decrease in overall teen pregnancy numbers, they are also noticing an alarming increase in teen pregnancy in girls age 14 and younger.

The move toward increasing contraceptive access has generated heated debate regard what age is too young to be eligible receive contraception.  From condoms in schools to HPV vaccines, the argument always involves one side claiming that such moves corrupt young teens and encourage illegal sexual activity, while the other advocates that in some communities, young adolescents are already engaging in sexual behavior and it is necessary to assist young women in preventing pregnancy and protecting their health.

Is 13 years-old too young for contraception?  It’s hard to say.  I think we can all agree that 13 years old is too young to deal with an unwanted pregnancy.  Some argue injections and implants would be easier for a sexually active young teen than a daily method like the pill, although it would not provide the additional protections against sexually transmitted diseases afforded by condoms. 

The mother in me is terrified of the idea of my amazing little toddler having sex in her early teens.  But I’m much more terrified of the idea being a grandmother in 10 years.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are once again using the appropriations process to target Title X federal family planning services for low-income people.

House Appropriations Committee Chair Hal Rogers (R-KY) touted how the fiscal year 2017 Labor, Health, and Human Services (LHHS) funding bill would gut what he called a “controversial” federal program. To the contrary, many low-income people in the United States regard Title X as their only means to obtain critical health care, including family planning services, contraception, well-woman visits, cancer screenings, sexually transmitted infections screenings, and other preventive services.

Title X grants serve a highly vulnerable population—more than 90 percent women, nearly three-fifths people of color, and mostly uninsured or young, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) 2014 family planning annual report. The grants go to a network of more than 4,100 health and community service agencies. Centers that are funded by Title X are “particularly good” at providing women with the most effective contraceptive methods, like intrauterine devices and implants, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Nevertheless, the draft bill would eliminate $286 million from Title X and another $108 million for federal Teen Pregnancy Prevention grants, according to a spokesperson for Appropriations Committee Democrats.

Democrats will “raise strong objections” at Thursday’s subcommittee markup of the bill and again at next week’s planned full committee markup, the spokesperson told Rewire in an email.

If precedent holds, their voices will be heard. Republicans unsuccessfully targeted Title X funding in last year’s LHHS funding bill. The latest bid marks the fifth attempt to do so in seven years, according to a statement from the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA). Yet, none of the proposed eliminations have ever been enacted into law, said the spokesperson for Appropriations Committee Democrats.

“Republicans need Democratic votes in Congress and the signature of a Democratic president in order to enact [a]ppropriations law, and Democrats will not vote for bills that contain divisive, poison pill riders and eliminations like this, which target women’s reproductive rights,” he said.

A spokesperson for Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), chair of the Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the bill and a vocal reproductive health care foe who recently targeted AmeriCorps’ questionable abortion controversy, did not return Rewire’s request for comment; nor did a spokesperson for Rogers.

Title X funds can’t be used for abortion care. But because about a quarter of the funds go to Planned Parenthood affiliates, anti-choice Republicans have used Title X as a political football for years, starting in 2011 when the GOP threatened a government shutdown over the issue.

NFPRHA cautioned that the proposal could not come at a worse time for the 4.1 million people who depended on Title X funding in 2014, according to the most recent available data from HHS. U.S. Zika cases are on the rise, even as Congress remains deadlocked on a funding plan to address the sexually transmitted virus linked to microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects.

“It is particularly foolish to target Title X at a time when the nation is at the precipice of a public health emergency resulting from the Zika virus,” NFPRHA President and CEO Clare Coleman said in the group’s response. “For the House to propose defunding the very provider network that is being called upon to address and control the risk to women who may be seeking to prevent pregnancy is absurd.”

This piece was published in collaboration with Generation Progress.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) seems to think it’s a governor’s duty to classify which men and women are the “real” ones and which aren’t. Because of this, he has put the lives of all of North Carolina’s trans residents at risk by signing HB 2 into law.

Last week state legislators proposed changes to HB 2, but those changes do nothing to mitigate an unabashed blastoma of transphobia that is now lawfully spreading at a vicious pace.

In response to HB 2, droves of businesses and musicians have boycotted the state in hopes of stopping this unmitigated discrimination toward trans people from moving any further.

People have banded together to show their support for the trans community, and businesses across the state and country have declared themselves safe havens for trans-identifying individuals by submitting to the Safe Bathrooms map.

The map’s creators—River William Luck, a trans community activist, and his partner (and as of recently, fiancée), web design specialist Emily Rae Waggoner—both live in Boston, but the fight to protect trans rights affects them on a deeply personal level: They’re both from North Carolina.

When HB 2 was signed into law, Luck says, “I was on guard, because I’ve been told I’m in the wrong bathroom my entire life as a masculine-presenting female for more than 30 years.”

Now his home state has become one big ”Do Not Enter” sign for him and his friends still there. Luck’s reaction, however, was not one of helplessness. His instinct, which he learned to follow after years of experiencing and bearing witness to bigotry, was to bind the community and help strengthen it through tangible acts of love and support.

One Reddit commenter likened the map to the Negro Motorist Green Book of the 1930s to 1960s, which was published to help Black travelers in the United States find safe passage in times when racial persecution was legal. Like the Negro Motorist Green Book, the bathrooms’ map is not so much a novelty but a vital resource to protect the safety of its users at a time when history is repeating itself in a way that is marginalizing an already vulnerable population.

Before the Safe Bathrooms map, Luck started mailing hundreds of buttons from the #IllGoWithYou campaign to friends and family back home. The #IllGoWithYou campaign was developed as a means for allies to offer solidarity and protection to transgender and non-binary individuals. By wearing a button, participants pledge to stand up and speak up during instances of harassment and physical endangerment.

“This is my way of paying it forward,” Luck says. “What I’ve done is buy a shit ton of buttons and if someone wants one, I send them one. If they can’t afford it, I send them one. If they want to know more about it, I write them a note and ask people to pick up more.”

His reasoning is simple: “I would have given anything to have seen one of these when I was in North Carolina.”

Luck’s meaningful gestures extends to the clothes he wears, as he frequently can be found sporting a t-shirt that says “No Hate in Our State” or a tank top with the words “Proud Transman” printed in bold. River models several lines of what he refers to as “activism wear,” as a product ambassador a variety of labels including a Greensboro, North Carolina-based company called Deconstructing Gender, and another called Proud Animals.

It’s actually the former that planted the seed for the Safe Bathrooms map, as Luck and Waggoner were inspired by the photos of gender-neutral bathrooms posted on the company’s Instagram account. While the two were talking to Deconstructing Gender’s founder and CEO Avery Dickerson, who was transitioning at the time, Waggoner said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a map of safe bathrooms where trans people could go without hassle?”

And so with Waggoner’s web design expertise and Luck’s social media skills, the Safe Bathrooms map came to life as a child of both necessity and wishful thinking. As they built it, the people came in droves: businesses, affected community members, and media alike.

With over 200 businesses included to date, the two have put together a functioning survival guide for trans residents and travelers who also possess bladders.

Waggoner shared one email with Rewire that she received from a man who owns an architecture firm in Maine, who requested to have his business be included on the map:

I, therefore this business, stand for equality, acceptance, and kindness to all. As a gay man, and one living with HIV for 30 years now, I know too well that indifference to discrimination, condoned cruelty, and legalized oppression are terminal illnesses. These behaviors killed the dreams, and injured the very souls of our young, and further darkened the roads the rest of us continue to travel. It must stop.

To be included on the Safe Bathrooms map, businesses need simply fill out this form and verify their trans-friendliness with a photo of a gender-neutral bathroom placard or other clear form of expression. Upon approval, businesses are represented on the map as a roll of toilet paper. For those lacking, the Safe Bathrooms website goes one step further and shows businesses where they can obtain gender-neutral bathroom signs for their private spaces.

Waggoner and Luck know personally how useful such a map can be. Waggoner says she’s had to stake out bathrooms to make sure the coast is clear, like a Secret Service member. One time, she says, “We were in a restaurant waiting to use the bathroom. We could feel the tension in the air and feel the stares. And it became very uncomfortable because people at the bar were openly just watching which bathroom River was going to go into. And we feared for his safety and our safety.”

Luck continues, “We ended up having to leave and go to a friend’s house so I could use the bathroom and detoured the whole evening plans so I could pee safe.”

Clearly the problem won’t end once HB 2 and other anti-trans laws like it are repealed. The attitudes that brought these policies into being still exist and must be dealt with. But, as Luck attests, there is a definite support system of love and acceptance in North Carolina. He found it in Greensboro as a music teacher at New Garden Friends School, a Quaker school. “They were so open and embraced diversity that I could be an out lesbian,” says Luck.

Greensboro has very distinct pockets of support, which is where a lot of the safe bathrooms appear on the map. But even in places less supportive deeper south, Waggoner notes there are still good friends to be found: “It’s been cool to see some of the small-business owners in some of the more rural towns popping up. Like in Salisbury, North Carolina. It’s really brave of them to do that—to be the first in their town to speak up and say something, and be the first on the map.”

The outpouring of support may be having an effect: University of North Carolina President Margaret Spellings recently gave a statement saying that she would not enforce HB 2 or change any of the school’s current provisions. Spellings did originally plan to enforce HB 2. It wasn’t until U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch declared the state in violation of civil rights and threatened to cut up to $4.8 billion in federal funding to the school that Spellings changed her position (and McCrory sued the federal government).

Before Spellings changed her decision, students from various on-campus alliance groups held loud protests outside of buildings in which she was attending meetings, in efforts to sway her judgment. Students at schools across the state affected by the law are making their opposition known.

On a K-12 level, there are organizational efforts through nonprofit Gay-Straight Alliance groups such as Time Out Youth, which offers resources and aid to LGBTQ minors living in inclusive North Carolina and South Carolina school districts. Its website lists student rights, including the rights to gender expression, confidentiality, and respective pronoun usage, as well the right to attend school functions and report on instances of bullying (which state public schools are required by law to deal with).

Luck has spent most of his life traveling against the grain of society’s intolerance–from a misunderstood kid living with his grandparents, to a determined and proud trans man working hard to end the ritual persecution of his fellow person.

Growing up in North Carolina in a conservative Baptist household, Luck remembers being called a “tomboy” and being told “not to act like a boy” as young as 3 years old. Luck attended and was eventually kicked out of a Christian high school for identifying as a “lesbian” (this was before he identified as trans). Luck says he’s been working steadily since he was 13, when his first job was at a Chick-fil-A.

In college, Luck had a psychology professor who taught that homosexuality was a disorder.

“I remember sitting in the class waiting for someone to say something, because I didn’t want to say anything,” Luck says.

After going to the head of the psych department, and then the head of the school, Luck managed to get the homophobic lesson pulled from the syllabus.

“That was a time in my life where I realized if I didn’t say something, no one would. And so I had to. That’s when my activism really started,” Luck says.

Coming to Boston for grad school, Luck found his new home to be much less critical of his outward gender appearance, and found true love in his partner. Luck says Waggoner accepted and supported his transition every step of the way—from coming out (a second time) as transgender, to life-affirming surgeries and ongoing treatments, to his sweeping romantic proposal involving a trip to New York City, a rare Harry Potter book, and a cleverly inserted engagement ring.

Luck and Waggoner hope to expand upon all the ground they’ve covered in North Carolina and take their Safe Bathrooms map to national and international levels.

Luck says he wants to ultimately see the whole state of North Carolina become “a giant roll of toilet paper.”

“We’d [also] love for it to grow to be an international thing, especially given all the anti-LGBT sentiments in other countries. Because we’re everywhere. And everybody needs to have that access,” he says.

The two do have an app in the works to accompany their Safe Bathrooms map, which they hope to give a Yelp-like interface to allow community members to find safe bathrooms on the go, and review and share their own individual bathroom experiences.

All of this work points to a very simple goal: to make it so trans people don’t have to endure daily humiliation exercises to find a toilet that comes with no strings attached.

“The bottom line is … I’m a human being who happens to be trans. But before I would label myself trans, I would say I’m an activist, an actor, a student, an artist, a musician, a good partner, a good relative … All these other qualities that define me that have so much more weight,” says Luck.

To show support for the trans community and be included on the Safe Bathrooms map, visit SafeBathrooms.club.