Finding the Courage to Leave the U.S. for My Trans Daughter's Safety

Well, we did it. Two weeks ago, I climbed into our SUV with my 23-year-old trans daughter and drove to Toronto. A foot firmly in the highly logical and practical, and another in the conceptual and creative, means I am not risk-averse because I can sense a problem and decide whether I can absorb the outcome.

As a result, I don’t scare easily. Every now and then though, my more intuitive self will sound an alarm letting me know that I need to pay attention, and so I do – especially when it comes to my children. Like many of you, my internal sirens have been clanging at air raid levels for some time. It’s been clear to me that trans people are becoming both a political tool and a targeted group in the current climate. As unsettling forces converged to deliver the results that fateful Tuesday in November, I have been battling the urge to grab my family and simply leave. To get up, get out of the way of what I feel is coming. That’s irrational, right? This is the United States. I mean, we can’t be there? You know what I mean. THERE.

The place that created the phrase: “Pessimists went to New York, optimists went to Auschwitz.” Rounding up people and simply sending them somewhere. I think we are, and I can't wait to be wrong.

As I listen to the stunning silence from leaders and witness companies capitulating in advance, I am appalled by so few rising to meet the moment. I am disgusted by the demonstrated cowardice just about everywhere we look. What luxury it is to think that as a politician you’re secure enough to wait it out, as though there will be anything left. To think that you will never be in the crosshairs or to think that it’s too hard to do more than you already do. I decided I didn’t have that privilege; for my family optimism could be ruinous.

On occasion, I ask my daughter how she feels about things as they evolve, the clank of each hammer on the chisel chipping away her rights, or each time a leader regularly declares my child a villain or abomination or the result of some viral ideology. Being aware, far too sharp and equally sensitive, the question would overwhelm her, “Mom, I know. I know. I just can’t.” For months that would be the end of the conversation. Sometimes she would come to me in tears to talk about how it felt to be unsafe in your own country, or to know that the system wants to eliminate you. It’s gut-wrenching.

Her circle of friends, many of whom struggle, are her lifeline. We all know how important our 20-something tribes are. But when she’d raise the topic with her loves in hopes of creating a plan, they too would shut down. This is not unique. For so many of us, it is overwhelming. For my daughter, any desire to leave felt like a betrayal, or like she would be abandoning her circle. Any desire to stay felt perilous. I’ve shed torrents of tears at their predicament. That this is their future. And I waited, hitting the snooze button on my internal alarm.

Then, discussions about camps and withholding medications became more frequent. I got a text. “Let’s go. It’s time.” Three weeks later, we left.

My family members are fighters and protesters. Ask any one of them and they’ll roll up their sleeves and argue. My parents marched on Washington in the 1960s. They demonstrated at nuclear plants in the ‘70s. My daughter has always imagined a world where the only good fascist is a defeated fascist, embracing her free-floating desire to stay and fight. It’s only a fantasy, but I get it. I have that blood in my veins and that idealism thumping in my heart. A political science student and obsessive political hobbyist, I have joined my peers to rage against the machine, and been an activist from time to time. I never imagined that I would be willing to walk off the field.

The optimist in me says it will all work out, that it is always worth the fight. The middle-aged woman, burdened with the tasks of modern living, complains that it’s too hard, too expensive. But my child, my child. My child has begged for her safety. So, I must go. It’s really just logistics, like everything else when you have to move mountains — or countries — for your child. Rent our house. Sell our things. Pack. Drive. Get gas. Check and check. Just like we’d do for any other life change. Look for jobs. Split up the family and delegate responsibilities. Done. As I go through this I think, is it any less than what other families do when they move for opportunity or safety? I’m not going to lie, I picked the easiest place to go, and the one she was most willing to take on. We joke that if things get worse and borders close, she may choose to fight for the side where the government stands behind her.

“I want to live somewhere my own government doesn’t want me dead.”

Staying to fight the good fight is important. But leaving to protect the vulnerable and the precarious is doable. I hope. If you feel you should, do. If you feel you can’t, look again. If you have to, you will.

Anonymous is the mother of a trans daughter who recently moved from the U.S. to Canada.