Nearly two years ago, in March 2022, I spoke with several parents of transgender children in Texas, where they and their children were under attack from a hostile, right-wing Christian governor and attorney general.
Weeks earlier, Texas had begun opening ‘child abuse’ investigations into loving parents who supported their trans children’s right to receive age-appropriate gender-affirming care. Bans on such care for minors had also begun to proliferate, both in that state and others, after years of right-wing agitation and escalating attacks on the rights of trans people, including through bathroom bills and school sports bans.
One of the parents I spoke with, Katie Laird, said: “At some point in the very near future, the focus will shift from trans kids to trans adults and from there it will move out into the broader queer community.” Another parent told me that his decision to speak out publicly derived from his conviction that “we need to draw a line in the sand right here, as a nation”.
