41 votes

Inside one family's decision to move from Texas to California to protect their transgender teenager

Posted by spit-evil-olive-tips
Tags: transgender, usa.tx, usa.ca, parenting, family, children, teenagers, rights.trans, interviews, author.hanna rosin, author.ethan brooks, source.the atlantic, long read, paywall
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2023/08/trans-texas/675188/

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Title
When the State Has a Problem With Your Identity
Authors
Hanna Rosin, Ethan Brooks
Published
Aug 31 2023
Word count
4261 words

11 comments

  1. Gaywallet
    Link
    I'm glad that she was able to get out with her family, but I worry about all the people who simply do not have the means to leave. This domestic war on trans people is just one big human rights...

    I'm glad that she was able to get out with her family, but I worry about all the people who simply do not have the means to leave. This domestic war on trans people is just one big human rights violation and it's tragic and disgusting. It would be nice if we could learn to love each other as fellow humans.

    31 votes
  2. spit-evil-olive-tips
    Link
    archive link

    archive link

    In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk to one trans girl who found herself caught in the middle of these debates in Texas. She says she’s not an activist. She doesn’t protest for her right to medical care or mention her identity on her Instagram bio. She’s not “super-pro Democrat,” she says. She describes herself as not a “cheerleader or anything,” just a “normal, semi-popular girl.” She’s grown up with supportive parents, in an accepting community. But just as she was facing puberty, trans medical care became something politicians argue over. She could handle middle-school bullies. It was knowing the Texas government was against her that made her worry that she would be taken away from her parents, and question whether she could stay in the state.

    Her mother and father faced an agonizing decision about what to do. They loved living in Austin. But their family was not safe. And they started to see signs in their daily life—in school, in the dentist’s office, at the hospital—that their family was in danger. They ultimately decided to leave, becoming a new kind of domestic political refugee.

    20 votes
  3. [7]
    Promonk
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    Every day it seems like I see some news item that illustrates that we're rapidly devolving into two countries within one nation. How bad does it need to get before we recognize that we're a house...

    Every day it seems like I see some news item that illustrates that we're rapidly devolving into two countries within one nation. How bad does it need to get before we recognize that we're a house divided, and what do we do then?

    10 votes
    1. [6]
      Gekko
      Link Parent
      Apparently, our solution is to continue to treat those brainwashed to live in a hateful fantasy land as a polite difference of opinion. A matter of political disagreement. Most of this country is...

      Apparently, our solution is to continue to treat those brainwashed to live in a hateful fantasy land as a polite difference of opinion. A matter of political disagreement. Most of this country is just crossing their fingers that things will just magically get better, refusing to take any direct action to protect our citizens from hatred and violence.

      20 votes
      1. [4]
        Promonk
        Link Parent
        What direct action would you suggest? It's all very easy and good to say "people need to take direct action," but that's pretty damn vague. I can't think of any actions the state could take that...

        What direct action would you suggest? It's all very easy and good to say "people need to take direct action," but that's pretty damn vague.

        I can't think of any actions the state could take that wouldn't just further enflame their conspiracy theory-addled minds, and anything private citizens might do is likely to be dismissed as symptoms of "the woke mindvirus."

        I think people are crossing their fingers and hoping it goes away because there aren't any obvious solutions.

        9 votes
        1. [3]
          Gekko
          Link Parent
          treating this like a variable for one. Letting people legislate and have political voices based on nothing but their own religious views or paranoia. Treating freedom of speech as equal validity...

          I can't think of any actions the state could take that wouldn't just further enflame their conspiracy theory-addled minds

          treating this like a variable for one. Letting people legislate and have political voices based on nothing but their own religious views or paranoia. Treating freedom of speech as equal validity of speech is one of the greatest flaws we have.

          I just wish we had a better filter in government to maintain representatives with an interest in governance for the good of the people. I wish we didn't have to defer to our founding document to find possible methods to reign in obviously corrupt behavior. I wish we didn't have to cross our fingers and hope a non-representative democracy would magically decide to regulate itself.

          Ugh, ultimately I'm just frustrated at our willingness to institutionalize cruelty and ignorance. That we make an effort to protect it as much as our empathy and generosity.

          6 votes
          1. [2]
            Promonk
            Link Parent
            I share your frustrations for sure, but I can also see the wisdom in not allowing the state to dictate reality for the citizenry. The same mechanisms that would allow us to disregard the...

            I share your frustrations for sure, but I can also see the wisdom in not allowing the state to dictate reality for the citizenry. The same mechanisms that would allow us to disregard the sentiments of what are to us the unhinged can also be used to oppress minority groups, and if there's one thing we know about fascists it's that they thrive on twisting the mechanisms of governance to their own ends.

            They already get enough attention bemoaning an imaginary repression of their views; we don't need to go justifying it in fact.

            1 vote
            1. Gekko
              Link Parent
              While I do worry about the same thing, I also wonder if it's just another mechanism to foster complacency. We have fascists in our government, we have corrupt politicians in our government. The...

              While I do worry about the same thing, I also wonder if it's just another mechanism to foster complacency. We have fascists in our government, we have corrupt politicians in our government. The last thing they want is any sort of legislation that would hinder their ability to be fascist or corrupt.

              It seems extraordinarily convenient that they can weaponize their own regulation against any attempt to do so. Convince us that it's in our best interest to let them act unabated. We can't stop fascists because any legislative attempt to do so would just cause them to be fascist harder? Seems like a win-win for them.

              I guess I don't care so much about the state dictating reality for the citizenry so much as reality dictating reality to the state and citizenry. Leading back to my original point, we treat objective truths as optional subscriptions. We allow empathetic collaboration share sides of a coin with targeted racism, and treat them as equally valued opinions in governance.

              1 vote
      2. Gopher
        Link Parent
        Should we treat them the way punks treated Nazis infiltrating the punk scene?

        Should we treat them the way punks treated Nazis infiltrating the punk scene?

        2 votes
  4. [2]
    Finnalin
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    I know people personally who have had to do this for their own safety from florida to the north

    I know people personally who have had to do this for their own safety from florida to the north

    9 votes
    1. FeminalPanda
      Link Parent
      Yeah, my friend wants me to come down to Florida and I just tell her by law I can't use either bathroom.

      Yeah, my friend wants me to come down to Florida and I just tell her by law I can't use either bathroom.

      13 votes