New Report Raises Alarm About the State of Organizations Serving Girls and Gender Expansive Youth – What We Can Do Now

There is a coordinated attack happening. The organizations that support the wellbeing of girls and gender-expansive young people across California are actively in jeopardy – it's time to show up for them. 

Today, we’re sharing our latest 2026 Political Impact Report, From Anticipation to Reality: One Year In, detailing what organizations across our ecosystem have known for months. The crisis is here and the moment to show up for girls and gender-expansive young people is now. 

All young people deserve to be safe and supported. Our communities are sharpest when our young people have trusted organizations standing with them. Our girls and gender-expansive youth deserve organizations well-resourced enough to meet this moment. 

However, a funding crisis is destabilizing the ecosystem of care and support that so many girls and gender-expansive young people in LA County and the Bay Area depend on. 

The findings of our 2026 Political Impact Report point to a rapidly escalating sector-wide emergency: 

• 93% of surveyed organizations reported negative impacts from the current political environment 

• 84% reported documented funding loss 

• 14% are considering closure 

Organizations also documented more than $113 million in funding losses, with losses documented across every funding stream.

This current crisis is dismantling the infrastructure that supports our young people, especially those living at the intersection of racial injustice, anti-immigrant policies, attacks on LGBTQIA+ communities, and economic precarity.  

The damage of these funding losses goes beyond just budgets. Staff morale is low, lack of retention is higher than ever, with higher levels of mistrust from the community as organizations are no longer able to show up consistently for our young people. 

Behind these numbers are real young people and communities, and the infrastructure supporting them is being destabilized in real time. When these organizations lose capacity, young people lose trusted relationships, safe spaces, advocacy pathways, and critical support systems they cannot easily replace.

Here is what we can do now:

• For funders and donors:

  • Move funds to general operating support now.

  • Center girls and gender-expansive youth of color in funding priorities and fund intersectional work explicitly. 

  • Support organizations at risk of closure with emergency funding. 

  • Protect advocacy organizations from disproportionate cuts.

  • Fund resilience, coaching, and leadership support alongside direct services.

• For partners and peer organizations:

  • Coordinate across organizations to share resources, data, legal insight, and message discipline, and build coalitions intentionally.

  • Name the crisis clearly and document what communities and staff are experiencing.

  • Invest in internal culture. 

• For policymakers and public leaders:

  • Recognize that attacks on equity, immigration, health, and youth-serving infrastructure are producing compounding harm.

  • Invest in the community organizations already holding the line for young people.

• For community members and advocates:

  • Amplify the report’s findings.

  • Support organizations serving girls and gender-expansive youth with visibility, donations, and public solidarity.

Read the report to help spread the word about how we can meet this moment together.