The GOP’s Most Dangerous New Policy Forced My Family Out of Our Home. I’m Afraid They’re Not Done With Us Yet.
Sign up for Slatest to receive the most insightful analysis, reviews and advice available every day.
In May 2020, my family moved so I could attend a clinical doctoral program in mental health at the University of Iowa. I remember being very excited about the program’s LGBTQ counseling clinic, where I would be assistant director and could focus on providing much-needed therapeutic care to queer people. This was the deciding factor for me as to which program I would end up attending.
At that time, I never would have predicted that the same clinic that lured me to Iowa would no longer exist when my family was forced to flee the state in 2025.
When our Iowa adventure began, my kids were 9 and 12, and the plan was to stay at least until our oldest graduated high school in 2026, if not longer. A few years after we were in the Hawkeye State, my oldest came to us because he wanted to start taking puberty blockers, since he was trans, and wanted to delay body changes that didn’t match his gender. When my child first came out, I worried that because I am a trans clinician who works in gender-affirming mental health care, others would assume that my child’s choices were influenced by me. I was very careful to make sure they knew that whether or not they pursued gender-affirming care was entirely their own choice. The most important thing was that they knew we loved them and would support them whatever their choice.
By early 2023, my 15-year-old son was sure he wanted to start blocking puberty. So we followed the World Professional Association for Transgender Health standards to help them get started, including obtaining a letter of support from a doctoral-level mental health clinician after a thorough assessment. At first, my child felt relief and joy; they were beaming and so happy to be able to do something to slow down the changes in their bodies that didn’t seem consistent with who they really are. But that levity would soon be crushed by a statewide ban on caring for transgender minors.
The fact that children would be denied medically necessary and age-appropriate care did not matter to the Iowa lawmakers who passed the ban. It didn’t matter to Iowa lawmakers that this ban didn’t change the fact that my child was trans — something I think they believe (or at least hope) they can control. It didn’t matter that this ban meant my child would have to wait three more years to access a well-researched basic standard of care supported by several professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society, and more. It also doesn’t matter that this ban means my child will have to undergo much more expensive and invasive procedures than if he had been able to continue taking puberty blockers at age 15. After years of unnecessary stress and pain, this child began gender-affirming care the week after turning 18.
By the summer of 2025, we were packing our bags again. Less than a month after my child was finally able to access trans care, my two children and I moved to Colorado. I had just spent the last five years completing a doctorate. in Couple and Family Therapy and a Master of Arts in Educational Measurement and Statistics. My now 18 year old son, a summer baby, had one more year of high school. While we originally wanted to make sure they didn’t transfer midway through high school, we no longer desperately wanted them to come of age in the state whose legislature had just voted to roll back civil rights protections for trans people like them and me, including the right to be free from discrimination in education, employment, housing, and public existence.
With this vote echoing in our minds, my partner and I realized we needed to get our family out of Iowa and into a safer state. So I took our kids and moved to Colorado, before my partner could even find a job. Our family spent the next six months apart, with my partner flying in for milestone events like the first day of school, birthdays, and Christmas (an inexpensive arrangement). We’ve gone through live footage and video calls for major events, like our youngest’s first concert and our youngest’s last high school band concert, or when they played at a University of Denver basketball game. Finally, last month my partner started working here and our family is together again.
But unfortunately, we don’t live happily ever after. Instead, our family seems to be living a terrible story — one that trans families across the country are increasingly familiar with. We thought we were safe, but now I see the same types of warning signs in Colorado that led my family to flee Iowa.
Recently, a primary care provider in Colorado asked me if I knew of any private practices they could transfer trans children to, because the system they are with won’t accommodate minors according to their gender affirmation. A few years ago, I had a nearly identical conversation with a PCP in Iowa, and more recently, in the summer of 2025, a PCP in Iowa contacted me because they were lacking gay-friendly mental health providers to refer their trans patients to. It’s not difficult to correlate these two demands and see a similar scenario looming in Colorado’s future. This is a state that already faces a shortage of mental health providers in general.
My family chose to nearly double our average cost of living by moving to the Denver metro area, attracted by the strong state protections here. However, even in the absence of a state ban on gender-affirming care for minors, access This care is being phased out as health systems decide to stop providing some or all care to trans minors in response to anti-trans federal and political pressure. I once saw a state decide that health care for trans minors was an acceptable sacrifice. I know what it looks like.
I wonder what is stopping the people who make and support these decisions from understanding that any delay in care has a cost, whether financial, medical, emotional or even fatal. I wonder if people who repeat arguments from flawed and biased news sources like the UK’s controversial Cass Review – as in a recent New York Times opinion piece titled “Medical Associates Trusted Belief Over Science” (which, ironically, pushes belief over science) – understand that this cost is paid by young people and their families who have done nothing wrong and who deserve access to appropriate care. And I wonder if the problem is really that they TO DO understand, but that their reluctance to admit ignorance, mistakes or outright bigotry outweighs any concern for the well-being of trans youth.
I am grateful every day that my child survived the wait for gender-affirming care. But data and statistics, including a study that found that national anti-trans laws increase suicide attempts by 72 percent among transgender people, are supported by recent data that showed a sharp increase in trans youth mortality as a result of the pandemic. Bell v. Tavistock in the UK (which has tightened control of puberty blockers for trans children under 16) – warns us unequivocally that some other trans children will not make it. I wonder what it will take for people to understand that the price we all pay for prejudice and political cynicism is the very lives of our children.
Colorado isn’t the only state facing a line Iowa crossed years ago. I remember the feeling of dread when Iowa passed its ban, even though it was explicitly warned that it would mean “Iowa children would die.” I remember realizing that the lives of trans children were an acceptable loss to those in power in Iowa. I also remember that, even before this ban was passed, gender-affirming care was becoming increasingly difficult to access. What begins as temporary pauses and institutional “caution” due to the “political climate” ends with children being denied care and families being forced to choose between safety and stability. If states like Colorado want to remain places where families flee has rather than Sincethey must view access to gender-affirming care for minors as essential and non-negotiable, and they must do so immediately. The map of viable trans life in the United States has already shrunk to a frightening degree: we cannot afford to cede any more ground.
