Panel 2: Intersections of Sex, Race, & Gender Juvenile Justice

As Executive Director of FreeState Legal Project, Aaron Merki provides legal services – along with staff and volunteer attorneys – to low-income lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) clients throughout Maryland. A substantial number of these clients are younger than 18 years-old, and face extreme barriers to social and economic stability. LGBT youth often travel through a unique schools-to-juvenile justice pipeline, which is the result of the failure of schools, families, the foster care system, and juvenile justice system to adequately address the needs of LGBT young people. Schools are often not in compliance with anti-bullying laws and policies, including Title IX, and bullied LGBT youth drop out at significant rates. If they end up in the foster system, foster families are rarely screened or trained to handle LGBT youth, and LGBT youth routinely run away from their foster homes. Once they are without a stable family structure and home environment, they are likely to engage in petty crime and/or commercial sex in order to support themselves, and eventually they end up in the juvenile justice system, assaulted by peers and others. In addition to its provision of direct legal services, FreeState Legal has organized several special projects, including an LGBT Youth Roundtable in which it has partnered with several other government agencies and nonprofits to address the most pressing issues facing LGBT youth in Baltimore, and throughout Maryland