A Safe Space: Coachella Valley Youth Confronting Their Gender Identity Now Have a Place of Their Own in Palm Springs

“Renae Punzalan is the director of youth services at the Marsha P. Johnson Youth Drop-in Center in Palm Springs, which opened its doors in January 2024. It’s a service of the Transgender Health and Wellness Center (TGHWC) focused on young people struggling to feel secure in their gender identity.

“Our youth-services growth was catapulted two or three years ago, when we got a call from a counselor at a high school somewhere up in the high desert,” Punzalan said. A young trans girl had tried to take her own life…”

[Read the full article at cvindependent.com]

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