<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/09/transgender-daughter-investigation-legal-protection>
"One autumn day in 2011, an investigator from our state’s department of
children and families knocked on our door. At the time we lived in a
conservative state in the American south. Someone had made an anonymous
complaint accusing us of child abuse for allowing our child to have a girlhood.
A lawyer told us that, in this state with decades of Republican-appointed
judges, we were at risk of losing custody of our transgender daughter.
The investigator’s visit felt like a bizarre clerical error; our four kids were
thriving and we were well-liked in our community. The investigator ultimately
found us to be good parents doing what was best for our child. However, it had
become urgently clear that we would have to leave the deep south and move to a
place where our youngest daughter, who had recently transitioned to she/her
pronouns and a nickname, would have basic rights to equal education, housing,
healthcare and, as she grew up, employment.
Our map of the United States included about 13 states where there were laws
likely to pass or already in place that would allow us to live as a family
fully protected by law. It was a shock to have our country suddenly shrink,
almost overnight. My husband and I are white, able-bodied, cis-gender, and
straight; we’d taken for granted that each and every part of the United States
was available to us. That was over. We were still Americans, but the terms of
our supposed agreement with our own country had changed."
Via Muse.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
