There is a particular kind of fear that comes with parenting in America right now. It's the fear of watching debates unfold on television, social media, and in legislative chambers and realizing that the subject being discussed is not an abstract policy issue, but your child.
For many parents of transgender children, this is not a hypothetical concern. Our children’s medical records are being subpoenaed, and parents, alongside providers, are being criminalized in well-coordinated attacks at all levels of government, legal courts, and in the court of public opinion.
I could share statistics and research studies, but those seem to fall silently on the ears of most caught up in sensationalized headlines. Instead, I invite you to sit with me and ask yourself: What would I do to protect my child from bullies?
Bring into focus a young person whom you love dearly. Perhaps a child, a grandchild, a niece or nephew. Let yourself feel the wave of joy that comes with being together, and think about all the ways you work to ensure they are happy and thriving. Think about how you feel when they are hurting. Perhaps school is hard. Friendships are complex. There are sibling rivalry and struggles with sports. Even bullies who are trying to make your loved one feel less than.
Now imagine that the bullies are not just other teens, but people they've never met. People who have formed opinions about how they should be, who they should be, and what access to the world they should have. Imagine these bullies have the power to strip your loved one of their security, their sense of safety, and their place in the world. Imagine your loved one needs life-saving medical care, but these bullies — who are not doctors, who don't even know your loved one — have decided they can't access it. Imagine your loved one internalizes this, and their light, the light that makes them who they are, starts to dim. They start to withdraw. They stop going to school. And instead of seeing the bullies for what they are, they see themselves as the problem. They look at you, the adult in their life who has always done everything possible to protect them, and say: "It's all my fault."
How do you feel? What would you do to help them?
This is my life as the mom of a transgender teen in the United States right now. Our youngest child told us 11 years ago, at age 4 (with no access to media, an "agenda," or even an LGBTQ+ community), "I'm a girl in my heart and my brain."
Over the last 18 months, we have watched our daughter change in the shadow of fear — a fear of losing access to her care.
We had no idea what that meant, or what it would come to mean, but we knew that, alongside her doctors, we would listen and see where the journey took us. For many years, all that entailed was a shift in name, clothes, hair, and pronouns. Then came the teen years, and we had decisions to make as a family and together with doctors who had known our daughter her whole life. The answer was clear for our child, and the science supported it. If my child were to go through male puberty — a direct affront to the way she had been living her life for many years and to how she understood herself — she’d suffer.
So we researched. We talked to a range of doctors. We sat with our child and truly listened. And, in concert with all, we decided to pursue gender-affirming care: medicine that would allow my child to fully realize who she was. In this, we watched her and continue to grow into herself as an artist, a friend, a gamer, and a musician. We watched her light shine.
Then the bullies came.
Over the last 18 months, we have watched our daughter change in the shadow of fear — a fear of losing access to her care. We've had to make decisions as a family to sell our home in another state and move while we determine whether we may have to leave the country entirely to access that care. We have left behind friends, community, and everything we knew so that our child has the chance to simply be herself.
And you know what? Our daughter, who has known herself since before the age of 4, who has never questioned who she is, and who certainly cannot change it, has said the words I asked you to consider above.
"It's all my fault."
As her parents, we know that is not true. But as a teen just trying to live and navigate this complicated world, the bullies' assumptions about our daughter, and critically, about what access to her medical care she should have, seeped in.
Unfortunately, she absorbed all of it — not as their failing, but as hers.
What if your loved one needed medical care that's been shown to save lives, and someone was trying to take it away? What would you do to ensure they could access it, even if you don’t understand it?
What do you say to a 15-year-old just trying to make it through ninth grade and everything that comes with high school, when her very existence and access to medical care is debated on a national stage? As her parents, we know this has never been her fault. It has been clear from an early age that she is exactly who she says she is. But the voices of bullies, especially inside the mind of a teenager, are loud and relentless, and over the last 18 months, they have been absolutely unceasing.
Please think back to your loved one. To everything you would do to protect them, and how you would feel if they internalized bully language and narratives so completely that it changed their very essence of their joy. What if your loved one, like ours, needed medical care that has been shown to save lives, and someone was trying to take it away? What would you do to ensure they could access it, even if you don’t understand it? What would you say to those bullies if you could?
My daughter's bullies are some of the most powerful people in the world, and they are using their power to dehumanize and try to crush the spirit of some of our most marginalized youth.
We need you — parents, grandparents, and community members — to dig deep, to hold that "I would do anything" instinct to keep your loved one happy and alive. Take that feeling and consider how much you would want to do everything in your power to ensure their safety and protect their joy. Instead of doubling down on preconceived notions or people’s experiences that may be unknown to you, that may feel uncomfortable or “new,” I ask you to allow two questions to find their way forward: Do my actions put this young person's life at risk? Do I want to be the bully?
If any part of you can sit with that question, I ask that you move forward with the same empathy and love you hold for your own loved one and extend it to mine. Because if you don't, your loved one may get to live their fullest, most authentic, joy-filled life.
But mine may not.
Vanessa Ford (she/her) is an award-winning educator and author. She co-authored The Advocate Educator’s Handbook: Creating Schools Where Transgender and Non-Binary Students Thrive (Wiley, 2024) and Calvin (Putnam, 2021), which won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Children's Book 2022. Through her work with schools and organizations across the country, she helps leaders create environments where all young people belong and thrive.
