Cam, Age 8, Minnesota
MOM: Do you remember what happened when we were in Florida for Spring Break? Their state government passed an icky law when we were there in March and we said ‘Lets get out of here!’ When the attorney general in Texas put forth their statement about investigating families, although we’re much safer in Minnesota – and I really want you to hear that, Cam – it made me look at our social circle and think if something like that were passed here, who would turn us in? Who isn’t safe?
CAM: Mom, if someone passed those laws would we move?
MOM: Yes. I would go anywhere on earth to keep you safe.
CAM: Like Antarctica?
MOM: If I had to go to Antarctica, we would go there and put a trans flag up. Totally, buddy.
The school tried to give him an alternative bathroom to use in first grade, and it was called the Special Education bathroom. It was a place where they did diaper changing for disabled children. And you came home from school one day and said ‘Why do I have to use the gross bathroom? Is it because I’m gross?’ And then mom got really mad and said absolutely not. We met with the superintendent and the principle and the Human Rights Officer, who is also the head of HR, and a lawyer and the director of student support services and I showed them your picture and I said ‘This is the boy that’s in your class, we just want the record to match the child’ and they changed your gender marker and your name, and then you could use the boy’s bathroom after that.
CAM: So that’s why I used the boy’s bathroom in second grade!
MOM: Yeah, cause you are a boy.
CAM: I felt good after that. Also I never told you this mom, but I was secretly using the boy’s bathroom when people used to think I was a girl because I wanted to be a boy and I felt like a boy.
MOM: Even in a place that’s supposedly inclusive and supportive, there’s still pockets of intolerance. Activism is a broad spectrum, and sometimes just affirming and supporting your kid is the best way that you can show up. I didn’t know this is where I would be called to do activism, but for our kids we’d move to Antarctica if we had to.