Update 31, Gitxsan Grandmothers Struggle with #ChildWelfare #MMIW
--- On June 1st, my beloved grandchild Diversity, just 15 years old, took his life. It’s a tragedy that has left our family shattered. Diversity had a history of suicide attempts, with one of the most significant occurring on November 8, 2020, when he came to stay with me in the Lower Mainland. The Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) had an open file for him, though I can’t recall the reasons behind it. He had already been hospitalized in December 2018 after multiple attempts to end his life. During that time, Diversity bravely shared with me the horror he faced: sexual, physical, and mental abuse at the hands of his stepfather, Mike, since he was only six years old. After being assessed and treated in a psych ward, the so-called specialists in Prince George barely scratched the surface of his PTSD. They seemed more interested in the novelty of having a transgender patient than truly supporting him. Their diagnosis? “Transgender.” That was a failure to understand the dep...