What One Mom Told Me About Her Trans Kid Shook Me To My Core

Last week I was walking into church with another late-arriving mom. I hesitantly asked (as we do these days living in the Washington, D.C. area), “How are you doing?”

Dressed in jeans and a bright top, she sighed and looked at me as we climbed the steep hill from the parking lot. “My child is no longer recognized by the US government. So it’s been a week.”

My stomach flipped and I felt my hand move to my heart as I imagined the conversations she was having with her high schooler at the breakfast table. There are several trans kids at our church, and I had been so absorbed in the crises around science and democracy that I honestly hadn’t been thinking about what other moms and their kids might be going through.

I sucked in a deep breath and whispered, “I’m so sorry,” as I felt my own tears begin to flow from my eyes. At that moment, my hometown state of Iowa was debating whether they would strip trans kids of their civil rights, which they voted to do a few days later. We walked the rest of the way in silence and parted to find our families during the service.

What it means to be safe as a child in America has been on my mind a lot over the past week. I know that the attack on trans and non-binary people – especially children – is part of the culture wars that are meant to divide us. Children are weaponized for political gains — and it’s affecting our collective sense of belonging in a changing world. It makes us question what truly makes us belong to each other.

I am an anthropologist who works at the nexus of culture and health. We’ve known for centuries that the two genders constructed for men and women (im)posed in western cultures is a limiting way to think about how people live in the world. Many indigenous groups in the United States, for example, recognize two-spirit people, where people do not identify as men, women, or trans but rather something else entirely. In fact, two-spirit is an umbrella term because people the world over have expansive ideas about gender. It is a myth to think the range of diverse identities and experiences of people living in the U.S. is any different.

When our gender conforms with dominant ones, however, it’s easy to forget how different people are. I don’t have to think about my gender that much as a white cis-gender woman, even though I’ve certainly faced gender discrimination in life and work over the years. It wasn’t until becoming a mother that I realized how society attempts to shape our genders so acutely in America. I watched as my young daughters obsessed with blue, green, white, brown, red, and pink stuffies in diapers. I noticed how people increasingly gifted them pink stuffies, toys, and clothes as they grew from toddlers to opinionated kids. I observed the ways in which gender was constructed in the shows they watched on TV, even when I tried to suggest shows with strong female leads. These are only some of the ways we are pigeon-holed into imagining who we are in the world.

I can’t imagine how hard it is for my church friend to talk with her child about the politics in a world that is claiming to hate her right now. I always tell my kids that it’s not about what you look like on the outside that matters but how you stay true to who you are on the inside that matters most. Identifying as your true self — especially as a child — takes courage.

I was struck again by the harm of this legislation when I was on the phone the other day with a colleague who is a trans man. He expressed to me how frightened he was that passports might be forcibly returned to reflect assigned sex at birth. This would not correspond at all to his appearance or identity as a man. He transitioned over a decade ago and this could make international travel impossible for him even when his work demands it. How on earth could we make someone carry a card to identify their biological sex at birth when it doesn’t align with their gender?

As moms, we all – no matter where we lie on the political or social spectrum – want our kids to grow up to be safe and happy. I’m so sad that we’re still at the point where it isn’t obvious that we need to cultivate a culture of love for our families—even when our families look different. To me, this has been the hallmark of our more progressive, inclusive generation; we shouldn't give up without a fight.

Emily Mendenhall is a medical anthropologist, Guggenheim Fellow, and Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She published UNMASKED: COVID, Community, and the Case of Okoboji in 2022 and has a new book, Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long Covid, coming out in the fall.