Cassidy Araiza for Them
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As the returns came in from the November presidential election, Kimberly Shappley took the American flag off the pole that came with her house when she bought it. “This is the United States of Jack Shit,” she thought to herself as she took down the banner. “There’s nothing united about this.”
The results were especially bruising for Shappley’s family after they were forced to move twice so her 14-year-old trans daughter, Kai, could live safely: first from Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott issued a 2022 executive order forcing child welfare agencies to investigate parents whose children have received gender-affirming care for abuse, and then from Connecticut earlier this year. Despite fleeing to a blue state, New England wasn’t as safe as they had hoped: They would often come home to find transphobic graffiti on their street, and parents of Kai’s classmates frequently left hateful comments on her social media. Although their family got settled in another new state earlier this year, Shappley says she still hasn’t unpacked or hung her artwork on the walls, scared they might be forced to flee yet again.
“I might just need to put it right back in the box at a moment’s notice,” Shappley tells Them. “You never had to wake up under the Biden administration and wonder if laws had changed that could put you in jail or take your kids away. Under normal leadership, that’s not something you have to think about every fucking day. Now I’m going to have to for at least four years.”
Across the U.S., trans youth and their parents have been forced to adjust to the harsh reality of yet another Trump administration. During his 2024 campaign, the president-elect vowed an unprecedented attack on trans rights if reelected: from the passage of a federal law erasing trans and nonbinary people to a nationwide ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. His presidential platform also hinted at a total assault on LGBTQ+ education, including sweeping “Don’t Say Gay”-style directives, restrictions on the ability of trans student-athletes to compete in sports, and so-called “Parents’ Rights” policies that could potentially out trans students to unsupportive families.
With the inauguration just days away, Them spoke to three families about how they are preparing for life under Trump: where they are finding resources, how they’re coping from day to day, and what brings them joy, even in the darkest of moments.
Daniel Trujillo, 17, in his bedroom.
Cassidy Araiza for Them
The Importance of Self-Advocacy
As a Texas resident, Amber Briggle had no choice but to be ready for the election: Her family was among the many families of trans children investigated by the Department of Family Protective Services following Abbott’s directive. “We’re always prepared,” Briggle tells Them. “Half my phone is lawyers. We’ve been through it.”
Since before the election, Briggle has been working on making sure her family’s documents are in order, including having corrected birth certificates, social security cards, driver’s licenses, IDs, passports, and passport cards at the ready, just in case they are needed. Her trans 16-year-old son, Max, was born in the Netherlands, and his birth certificate is in Dutch, but he has a Consular Report of Birth Abroad through the U.S. State Department. In case Trump decides to issue an executive order stating that trans people are no longer permitted to correct their name and gender marker on the latter documents, Briggle says that she has applied for enough extra copies of his birth records “to last a lifetime.”
While Briggle’s husband, Adam, says that he has been coping with the aftermath of the election by tuning out the news, his wife has taken the opposite approach: staying on high alert, being proactive, and preparing for the worst. Briggle stays glued to every single update about the Trump administration, she says, because she wants to “know what these motherfuckers are up to.” She often thinks of a former colleague whose father survived the Iranian Revolution by being as loud as possible: The noisier you were, the harder it was to make you disappear.
“I have lived by that rule,” Briggle says. “I might end up on someone’s list, but I would hope it would be harder to silence me because of the noise I’m making. There’s power in numbers.”
Her children have a different approach to self-advocacy, choosing to take a step back and preserve their energy. Briggle’s 12-year-old nonbinary child, Wren, says they are currently writing poetry and music while striving to live their “best life.” While Max admits that he has been struggling with resentment toward older classmates who he feels voted against his very right to be, he is focused on living out his normal, everyday existence. He knows that it’s important to be visible, raise his voice, and educate people, but he also enjoys the opportunity to be quiet every once in a while.
“I definitely feel like the world’s totally crumbling around me, but I don’t think about it all that much,” he tells Them. “Being transgender is like having hair: You don’t think about it all the time. I go to school, I go climbing, and I’m just kind of a… guy. I don’t think about it.”
Daniel Trujillo’s parents, Jose and Lizette, look on as their son Daniel rides a bike.
Cassidy Araiza for Them
Staying Rooted in Community
Even before the Trump administration, the Trujillos fought for years to make sure that they would be prepared for extreme, worst-case scenarios. Their family were plaintiffs in the lawsuit to overturn Arizona’s restrictive birth certificate policy, which required surgery before a trans person was permitted to correct the gender marker on their birth records. Lizette Trujillo says that she was cognizant of the importance of having accurate documentation for her 17-year-old son, Daniel, after going through the naturalization process with her husband. She hadn’t realized how heavy being a family of mixed immigration status had weighed on her until her partner, who was born in Mexico, finally became a U.S. citizen in 2018.
“It means a lot in this country to have IDs and legal status,” she tells Them. “It allows you to live openly and freely. Undocumented people and trans people who do not have access to legal documentation end up living in the shadows or not being able to participate in public life because they don’t have accurate IDs. It’s been a priority for us, and I feel really lucky that we were able to get everything done [for Daniel] in time.”
For the Trujillos, doing the work of preparing for Trump also means showing up for community. They were active during the election canvassing for local progressive candidates and working to get out the vote, and as the results came in, Daniel spent the day checking in with friends and fellow activists. Since November, they have stayed busy with volunteering and working to raise awareness about the impact of anti-trans policy on youth. Both Lizette and Daniel spoke at a December rally on the steps of the Supreme Court as judges heard arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a landmark case that could determine the constitutionality of state laws restricting gender-affirming medical care for minors.
Daniel’s mom, Lizette, keeps the phrase “Como tú los quieres los demás los van a querer” close to her heart. It expresses, she says, “that the way that you love someone will mirror the way other people should love them.”
Cassidy Araiza for Them
Speaking at the Supreme Court was important to Daniel, he says, because he wanted to make sure that trans youth “know that they’re not alone right now.” He is aware that he is blessed to have the support of his family members and loved ones, and it’s important that others feel as if they have community as well. His mother believes that parents also have a role in making sure trans kids feel supported and seen, citing a phrase that she keeps close to her heart: “Como tú los quieres los demás los van a querer.” The saying expresses, she says, “that the way that you love someone will mirror the way other people should love them.”
“I’m a firm believer that if parents show up in pride, love, and protection of our children, the world will mirror that back to us,” Trujillo says. “We’ve been able to give Daniel a life that he can be proud of, that he feels secure in, and that he feels affirmed in.” She is aware, though, that this very love is what she will be fighting to protect under the Trump administration. “To think that our government can strip all of that away, it makes me really angry. It makes me really scared.”
Having a Back-Up Plan
While Shappley says that she struggled to get out of bed for the first few days after Trump’s win, she has since stayed focused on the basic fact of her family’s day-to-day survival. On top of working two jobs, she spends her evenings researching the safest countries for LGBTQ+ people, in case they have to relocate yet again. That backup plan, though, has been complicated by several factors, such as the difficulty of finding employers that will accept her U.S. licensure as a registered nurse. Other potential hurdles include securing the required shots and paperwork for her pets, as well as making sure they can obtain gender-affirming care abroad.
How Viable Are Trump’s Anti-LGBTQ+ Threats? We Asked Legal Experts
Trump has vowed to end gender-affirming care for trans youth, ban trans kids from playing sports, and erase trans people from public life. Can he really do it?
“My brain is going in 17 directions right now,” Shappley says. “I don’t even know which bases need to be covered, so I’m literally day and night thinking how I’m going to cover all those bases. I don’t even know how many there are. This game doesn’t even have rules in place.”
The fact is, though, that Shappleys don’t want to leave yet again. They have finally found a community in their new state, she says, where her daughter has trans elders and role models whom she can one day aspire to be like. They spend every Sunday in the loving company of neighbors and friends, and after years of running, it feels as if Shappley and her children might finally be home. Her mother says that constant moving is the only life Kai has ever known, and here, in their fragile idyll, she hopes to show her little girl that the world doesn’t have to be that way. “It would be nice just to have an average life,” Shappley says. “It would be really nice to just relax.”
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Originally Appeared on them.
