Bucking tradition at the gay rodeo

A overview of 2014's Fixes columns - connecting the dots between 60 or so ways that people are trying to change the world.

Children across the U.S. experience gender confusion, causing emotional stress in themselves and their family. Gender identity counselors and gender youth clinics are being created in multiple states to help families find peace in their situation.

Conventional school policies fail to address the needs of transgender students. A school district in Tampa changed its human rights ordinance to include gender identity and expression.

Crimes against LGBT citizens have gone underreported in many U.S. cities. Washington DC’s Gay and Lesbian Liason Unit has employed and trained LGBT officers to represent community members that they protect and serve. After the establishment of the GLLU, the number of reported crimes has increased, demonstrating the comfort and trust that the community has with law enforcement.

Soon, AIDS in Africa will be doing more than killing millions every year. It will destroy what there is of Africa's economy and cause further instability and, perhaps, war. But a nondescript hospital in Brazil could serve as a model for treating AIDS in Africa and worldwide.

When adults are asked what values they think youth sports actually reinforce most, they say competitiveness and the importance of winning. The Positive Coaching Alliance provides teaching tools that help coaches redefine the idea of “winning” from something that is reflected on a scoreboard to something that is reflected in a child’s character.

The ability of social media and online civic participation to impact law and politics is still developing, but one social media tool - Friendfactor - was used successfully in New York to help bring about the passage of Gay Marriage Equality. It may be an indicator for how powerful platforms like this one will continue to play a role in societal growth and change.

Girls in India are sometimes forced into the prospects of child marriage, prostitution, or slave labor; alternatively, families often teach girls to be wives and mothers. To empower girls to make their own choices, Yuwa, an NGO based in India, introduces girls to sports for social development. Yuwa also promotes educational workshops for girls, where girls can discuss women’s rights and their thoughts about their own bodies.

The Homeless World Cup is the premier soccer tournament for homeless players. Programs around the world use soccer as a means of building a sense of community, sublimating negative energies, and encouraging personal growth.

A group called Positive Coaching Alliance is training thousands of coaches and parents to change to culture of youth sports for the better, using a "relentlessly positive" approach, and trading out the win-at-all-costs ethos of professional sports for evidence-based, age-appropriate guidance to players.