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Queens Children's Center is a death trap for trans adolescents.
The treatment our son has received since getting there has been consistently appalling. He has been assaulted twice in the past 48 hours on the basis of his identity, deadnamed and misgendered repeatedly by staff, doctors, and patients there since he arrived
During an EKG in a room full of other children the staff member administering it deadnamed him, used the wrong pronouns, ignored him when he corrected her, ignored what was on his chart, and made him and only him to keep his shirt lifted and his chest exposed the entire time
This is an evil, malignant place. His doctors had a call with his father this morning to try to assure us they aren't discriminating against him or allowing him to be bullied and demeaned because he's trans and then repeatedly misgendered him during that very phone call
They're not doing anything to protect him for assault and one of therapists declared him a danger to himself because after weeks of being bullied by another group of kids there he snapped and started yelling at them, at which point he was punched in the face by one of the bullies
and 24 hours later that same group of bullies jumped him. Today his aunt calls because she wants to talk to him and make sure that he's okay and one of the kids grabs the phone and says to her that her nephew is a he-she
All the while the staff on duty there are being condescending and treating this like it's not a big deal, it's just kids being kids and there's nothing to be done about it
The family advocate can only send an email to the ombudsman at the hospital and cc her supervisor, which is basically what she did yesterday and they simply ignored her and never reached out to us
I'm trying so hard not to cry and start panicking but our child is not safe there and I cannot believe this fucking hell on earth exists and that children are made to stay there at all and nothing is done to protect them
between covid and the snow storm I guess all of the resources to help our child are completely unavailable to us so we're stuck not being able to do anything to help him but frantically make phone calls and demand intervention, but frankly I think the staff is retaliating
I think they're deliberately looking the other way while our son is getting beaten up and bullied, they're deliberately isolating him, they made him go to bed last night at 7:45 for no fucking reason, they blamed him for being assaulted
We can only get through to him on the phone between 6-8 pm and even then we're increasingly met with a bunch of bullshit from the staff about "oh, he can't talk he's too busy" and won't tell him we called, they don't let him talk to us for very long and they supervise our talks
They won't let us see him, they fail to deliver clothing and books and food that we bring him without any warning or explanation, and his treatment team ignores our phone calls and pleas for help
I am fucking terrified
What do we do, what can we possibly do because they're saying we cannot go get him for at least another 48 hours and in the meantime he is being tortured by these people and we cannot even get them to put him on the phone with us
We dropped off clothing, books, and his favorite cookies I bake last Tuesday and they will not give him any of it and they won't tell us why. We call them and complain and his treatment team promises us they'll get it to him immediately and then another day goes by and they don't
it's just weird because we're not doing anything wrong, when his father asked why they couldn't at least give him the fucking cookies (he's been complaining about being hungry all of the time there) they went on a weird list of unrelated foods we can't bring him, like beef stew.
I'd written a little letter to him on the front of the bag I packed for him and they made his father take the cookies out of the bag, put them in a different bag, and threw the bag with my letter on it out
and they are still withholding all of his effects from him after having promised repeatedly to give them to him, they won't do it and when his father called the nurse's station a few minutes ago they're still misgendering him, and I maintain that's on purpose.
Found out on the phone that he was attacked TWICE yesterday, not once like they said
and that when they told us he was in bed last night at 7:45pm when we trying to get through so we could talk to him and make sure he was okay that they were lying to us
If you are a parent and your child is in a crisis do not under any circumstances allow them to be placed Queens Children's Center, especially if they're trans. This is agony and I'm not the one in there, imagine how much worse it is for the children who are.
We were told by the therapist that our son had prior to coming to the children's center that it was extremely important we make sure we have a space for him to do art. Queens Children's Center wouldn't let him do that but one or two times total and they never said why
Our son is very insecure about his hair because he feels like if it's not cut short he gets misgendered so his father made absolutely sure that he gave this hospital a permission slip allowing his hair to be cut and shaved however he wanted it to be
He was really anxious to get his haircut and had been looking forward to the barber visit and these assholes fucking refused to cut his hair and kept telling him that his father did not consent to him shaving his hair or cutting it too short, which is utter bullshit.
They said they'd call his father and check but they didn't do that, we found out because our son told us they wouldn't let him get his hair cut and shaved and thought it was because his father hadn't given them permission, which is, again, utter bullshit.
They had the slip and it still took numerous angry phone calls from his father before they'd agree that he'd been given permission but he had to wait another 2 weeks before they'd cut his hair
All of this shit taken together I do not believe for a second that this is all accidental, especially because they are allowing our child to be harassed and assaulted by groups of other children calling him transphobic slurs and telling him all the ways they think he doesn't pass
It's easy for these people to completely wreck an already fragile trans child because other people don't understand that to him that wasn't just a haircut, that pronoun wasn't just a slip up, those weren't just normal school kid taunts
