Military Families Becoming Political Refugees:

Our family’s story of fleeing to safety with our transgender child

Anonymous Author

Imagine dedicating your life to the service and security of a nation, only to be told that your family isn’t wanted in half its states.

Imagine being forced to become a political refugee in your own country simply because you support your child and adhere to best practices for their health and safety.

Imagine having to split your family in two, with one parent living in a state that is hostile towards LGBTQ+ youth, while the other parent takes your beautiful child and flees to a safer state.

Imagine hearing politicians say, “Thank you for your service” and “We support the troops,” all while simultaneously passing laws designed to strip away rights from military families and their children.

I don’t have to imagine it because I am living it.

THE BEGINNING: LEARNING ABOUT OUR LGBTQ+ CHILD

Our journey started about five years ago when our youngest child told us she was transgender.

As a military family, both of our children have been through their fair share of challenges. It’s no secret that being a military kid is difficult. My daughter has now lived in eight different houses and attended ten different schools. You read that right – TEN schools.

The life of a military child is already fraught with uncertainty and anxiety. Add to that chaotic lifestyle some gender dysphoria, and you have a recipe for emotional distress.

That’s where our child was six years ago before she shared her truth with us. She was living inside her personal hell, trying to understand and navigate this revelation about who she truly was. Like many trans kids her age, she struggled with if and how to tell us what she was experiencing. She was fearful about the outcome, knowing full well that many LGBTQ+ youth do not have supportive families. Through it all, she was also struggling with being a military kid: living away from grandparents and other family members, trying to find new friends at yet another new school, and settling into another new home.

As parents, we noticed that she was withdrawn and depressed, but we certainly couldn’t have imagined the magnitude of her despair, nor what was causing it. We tried to help her the best we could: therapy (though, looking back, we picked the entirely wrong therapist for her), more time spent outside, and doing things together as a family. We even changed schools, trying to help her find “her people.”

As it turns out, what she really needed wasn’t finding new people. What she needed was to find herself and be able to tell us who she was. She needed us to truly see her and support her through her journey.

One night, she slipped a note under my door. I read it with tears streaming down my face. My beautiful child, about whom I was so worried, told me her truth. She simply couldn’t hide any longer; she told us she was transgender, and she begged us not to give up on her.

A STEEP LEARNING CURVE

This revelation came as an enormous shock to both my spouse and me. I was grossly ignorant about the transgender community at that time. I hadn’t even heard the word “cisgender” before, let alone understood its meaning. Immediately, we wanted to be her biggest supporters, but we had no idea what that meant or how to help her.

To say we had a steep learning curve is a drastic understatement.

As any responsible parent would do, I sought out care for my child, adhering to the professional suggestions of medical and psychological experts. We visited with licensed, trained, reputable mental health professionals. We met with doctors. We sought peer-reviewed research from trusted organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association. We also consulted with those in the LGBTQ+ community and other parents like us who were trying to make the best decisions to help their children.

PFLAG and MilPride, a subgroup of the Modern Military Association of America, were instrumental in getting us through those first few months. Like so many families before us, we were struggling to understand our child’s needs and find age-appropriate care for her. Slowly, we surrounded our child and ourselves with a team of experts who provided her with world-class care.

A CLOUD LIFTED

Once our daughter understood that we loved and supported her no matter what and would work to do everything in our power to help her, it was like a cloud lifted from over her head. That sadness she had been carrying suddenly became a little less heavy. Her smile returned as she moved from who we thought she was into who she really is. It’s not always sunshine and roses, but our daughter has flourished over the past several years.

Being a military kid came in handy at that time. Another PCS meant she could start over in a new state, in a new school, as her true self. We’re one of the fortunate families whose transgender child was born in a state that allowed us to change the gender on her birth certificate and other legal documents with relative ease. Therefore, school registration and all her school documents reflected her correct name and gender, making the transition to a new location much smoother.

MILITARY KIDS BECOMING POLITICAL PAWNS

The year was 2021. Our daughter was once again adapting to a new place, in a new home, in a new school, in a new state. Our family was flying largely under the radar. She was happy, had access to gender-affirming healthcare, and was making friends at her new school. We were living our lives like any other military family.

We had recently moved from one conservative state to another, which isn’t surprising considering that the majority of U.S. military installations are located in solidly red states like Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

“Like so many military families, we assumed that we would somehow be exempt from the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric that swept through state legislatures that year. But that wasn’t the case.”

As legislative sessions opened across America, it became very apparent that transphobic policies would be at the forefront. By the end of 2021, the majority of U.S. states would have anti-trans laws in place, whether that be banning trans girls from playing sports, disallowing trans people to use the bathroom of their preference, requiring educators to out transgender students to their parents, or outright bans on transgender healthcare.

Things only got worse in 2022. Another wave of anti-LGBTQ+ laws was introduced into state legislatures. And although only a handful became law, that handful was enough to wreak havoc on the lives of trans people from coast to coast.

In Texas – one of the states with the highest military population and home to San Antonio, otherwise known as “Military City USA” – politicians embraced anti-LGBTQ+ legislation with fervor.

In February 2022, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a nonbinding legal opinion that labeled certain kinds of gender-affirming care for minors as child abuse. Citing that opinion, Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents of transgender children who were receiving gender-affirming care. A Texas family quickly filed suit, and the investigations ceased. But the message was clear: if you have a transgender child, you should be worried.

Then, in June of the same year, the Texas Tribune reported that workers at the Department of Public Safety say they were asked by Paxton to “compile a list of individuals who had changed their gender on their Texas driver’s licenses and other department records during the past two years.” Ultimately, DPS informed Paxton that no such data existed and declined to provide those records.

Even though neither of these instances led to legislative changes, the damage was already done. Texas families, including many military families with transgender and nonbinary children, began making contingency plans.

Throughout the rest of 2022 and into 2023, other states followed suit. As of this writing, 22 states have enacted laws that either restrict or ban transgender healthcare for anyone under the age of 18. Many of those states have a large military presence: Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. And with anti-trans rhetoric at a fever pitch in American politics, lawmakers will surely continue to introduce such legislation in the remaining states.

As these hateful laws and policies continued to spread, our family, like so many other military families with LGBTQ+ kids, felt sheer panic and fear. We began discussing possibilities to keep our family safe. For some military families, that might mean an early retirement, thus missing out on hard-earned benefits. For others, it might be requesting a transfer to a safer state. But the red tape surrounding this process makes receiving a transfer unlikely, especially as the pool of trans-friendly states with military installations dwindles. Still others considered what we ultimately decided: with no way to retire nor a path for transferring to a safer location, the military member would remain in place while the spouse and child moved somewhere else.

ONE STATE, TWO STATES, RED STATES, BLUE STATES

My family was living in one of the states where transgender healthcare was ultimately outlawed for minors. We saw the writing on the wall fairly early into our time on station and began making plans for what to do next.

Anger and anxiety seeped into my daily existence. My spouse and I were frantically trying to decide what to do, where to go, and when to do it. I did not, and still do not, understand how lawmakers who profess to support military families can be using our child and our family as a pawn in their political game.

Earlier this year, we made the decision to split up our family and move my daughter and me to safety. Our military family, like most military families, has already spent plenty of time apart due to military service. Deployments, TDYs, and trainings have kept my spouse from experiencing some key moments in our children’s lives. Now, we were facing yet another separation. But this time, it’s not because duty has called my husband away from home. This time, it’s because lawmakers chose to pass a bill that would make it impossible and illegal for my daughter to receive life-saving healthcare.

My spouse didn’t have a choice. He isn’t yet eligible for retirement and has several years left on his service commitment. But more than that, he wants to serve this country. My spouse made a commitment to protecting our national interests and he intends to fulfill that commitment. Unfortunately, a dangerous political agenda has led us here: with my daughter and I loading up a U-Haul, leaving my spouse behind, and starting over, once again.

Choosing where to go was easy. Thankfully, we have family in a state that has passed protections for LGBTQ+ people, making it a safe haven for transgender youth. So, when we decided to flee, we knew we had a safe place to land.

Of course, that’s merely dumb luck. Many other families with transgender kids have also left hostile states in search of safety, and they don’t have the same resources and support my family has. I’ve heard story after story of families fleeing states where their families had lived for generations, leaving behind loved ones, homes, careers, and lives they had built over decades. They are forced to flee their homes and become political refugees in their own countries.

Here we are, my spouse in one state and us in another, struggling to afford two households’ worth of expenses. My spouse will miss out on even more milestones with his daughter simply because lawmakers think they know our child better than we do.

How is this freedom?

HOW TO MOVE TO SAFETY: A CONVOLUTED GUIDE

As anti-LGBTQ+ and other conservative laws began picking up momentum over the past few years, leaders in each branch and at the Department of Defense began brainstorming how to adequately support military families impacted by this legislation.

In early 2022, the Air Force and Space Force released a statement outlining resources available to military families impacted by anti-LGBTQ+ laws. It outlines potential programs and policies that could help military families with LGBTQ+ kids leave hostile states and move to safety.

However, that statement was essentially the only time military officials directly addressed this troubling issue. Other service branches have yet to release official guidance for families impacted by state laws. MMAA continues to work closely with policymakers in each branch and DoD-wide, but largely, families haven’t had support from the military.

Air Force and Space Force families, whose branches have at least addressed this issue, are frustrated with the branches’ guidelines. The suggested paths for families to request a transfer of station aren’t as clear-cut as the statement makes it seem. Requesting an Exceptional Family Member transfer via the EFMP program means outing a transgender child to military medical staff who may or may not be affirming. Approaching those in command positions has the same risks.

Even if a family can transfer to another installation, that process takes time. With state laws and policies already in effect in many conservative states, military kids could potentially go many months without access to life-saving, gender-affirming healthcare. If it’s impossible to receive a transfer to a safe state, and a family is forced to split up as we have, the financial burden falls entirely upon the military family. Every penny of our move to this safe state — a move we had to make to keep our daughter safe – was out of our own pocket and will not be reimbursed by the Department of Defense.

That’s simply unacceptable.

PROTECTING TRANSGENDER MILITARY KIDS

Being a military kid is difficult enough. Being an LGBTQ+ kid in a military family is nearly intolerable. No child should worry that they won’t be safe and accepted for who they are. No parent should have to fear that a military move within their own country might strip their child of access to necessary healthcare.

Supporting military families means supporting all military families. LGBTQ+ rights, specifically transgender rights, are under attack in many U.S. states. Our story is not unique; many military families with LGBTQ+ kids have been forced to make difficult decisions about their careers, their families, and their livelihoods.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than seeing adults who claim to support the troops simultaneously passing laws that make our children’s lives infinitely more difficult and dangerous.

Lawmakers, policymakers, and the Department of Defense must do more to support our families and prevent a mass exodus of talented servicemembers out of active service.

From the moment our daughter came out to us, our lives have never been the same. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. We made plenty of mistakes in the beginning – and continue to make mistakes along the way – but our daughter never doubts our unconditional love and support for her.

Seeing her bravery to live authentically has been one of my greatest joys as a parent.

About the Author:

MMAA is running this op-ed anonymously to protect the privacy of the LGBTQ+ military youth discussed in the piece.