(Minneapolis) We had to leave Texas, and quickly. Measures targeting transgender minors were on the rise, so Mary reviewed states in the United States where her child could fully live out their identity. This is how the family packed their bags, heading to Minnesota.
“The idea of the state (of Texas) betraying us in this way, I still can’t quite get over it,” Mary told AFP, sitting in a Minneapolis public garden alongside Jasper. , 16, on an unusually hot April day.
The wound is all the more acute as Mary and Jasper – assumed names they have chosen to protect themselves – have, like many Texans, a strong sense of belonging to their State. They miss their extended family and friends. This afternoon, Jasper, who now identifies as a boy, came over with a crossed out T-shirt with the name of his hometown, Austin.
PHOTO STEPHEN MATUREN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Jasper and his mother Mary
But in Minnesota, where they settled last summer, “it feels much, much safer,” says Mary. The welcome was so warm despite the harsh winter months, the procedures for having Jasper’s first name recognized at school so simple that his mother cried with emotion more than once as she was about to leave. claws, she says.
This northern state is indeed committed to it: it will be a “refuge” for families fleeing the avalanche of legislation aimed at restricting the rights of transgender children elsewhere.
“The coffin” or “the closet”
Like abortion or racism, the issue of transgender minors is at the heart of the “culture wars” which are widening the gap between American states ever further.
In areas they control, the Conservatives have gone on the offensive to outlaw transitional treatments for teenagers or ban transgender students from using the toilets of the sex with which they identify.
No student born with a male sex in the girls’ toilets, they insist, despite statistics showing no increase in aggression.
In Texas, parents have even been investigated by child protective services.
On the contrary, states led by the other camp like Illinois or California want to be “sanctuaries” for young trans people.
The Minnesota capitol has just adopted a law guaranteeing care for trans people from elsewhere.
“We’re trying to not just say that being trans is okay, but that you can come here and be safe,” Leigh Finke, Minnesota’s first openly elected transgender woman, who brought the legislation, told AFP.
Because, she recalls, “the average lifespan of trans people is very low”. “We know what it means to force people not to be themselves: it’s either the coffin or the closet.”
That’s why caring for transgender minors “saves lives,” pediatrician Angela Goepferd, program director at Children’s Minnesota, a major medical center, told AFP.
” Shallow breathing ”
Children who have access to it “are less depressed, think about suicide less often and take action less often,” she insists.
Beyond the partisan divisions, which see one side accusing the other of “mutilating” children, some parents, even of progressive sensitivities, say they fear that irreversible treatments will be offered too soon to minors in full questioning about their identity. and who might later regret their choice.
According to Angela Goepferd, the surgery is “almost exclusively reserved for people over 18”, although some minors – “less than 1% of older adolescents, 16 or 17 years old” – can have access to mastectomies (removal of breasts).
Care consists mainly, she says, of “meeting families, answering questions, helping to see how to support a young person at school”.
“Then, for some kids who are going through puberty or older, it may involve medication”: hormone blockers, the pill (to stop menstruating), testosterone or estrogen.
With the battle between conservatives and progressives showing no signs of abating, Leigh Finke expects “thousands of families” to move to Minnesota.
Mary is aware that with her husband and Jasper, they were lucky to have the means to leave Texas. She says she knows families “who can’t and are just holding their breath.”
Jasper is still very homesick for his home state and can’t wait to get back there on vacation this summer, but his mom is confident he’ll be adjusting to Minnesota.
As for her, she continues to get “gasp” with relief whenever Minnesota passes a measure in favor of transgender people, she said.