Pride as resistance: LGBTQ+ people struggle against right-wing war on their legal rights
Kimberly Shappley tried for years to make Texas work for her bubbly transgender daughter, Kai.
Shappley reconsidered her fierce evangelical faith and how she could best show love. She sought fact-based answers in her medical coursework as she studied to become a nurse. She became a vocal LGBTQ+ advocate and moved with Kai, now 12, and her son, Kaleb, 10, from conservative Pearland, Texas, to more liberal Austin.
Still, about a year ago, Shappley decided that wasn't enough — that Kai simply wasn't safe in a state where right-wing politicians had turned misinformation about gender identity and health care into a legal framework that threatened her family, and Kai's existence.
So, with the help of a GoFundMe account and the generosity of strangers, Shappley moved with Kai and Kaleb about 10 months ago to Connecticut, where it's been harder to make ends meet but feels safer.
"We're refugees," Shappley said bluntly one recent afternoon. "We didn't have a choice."
Across the country this Pride month, LGBTQ+ people — and especially trans kids and their families — are struggling against a wave of conservative backlash to the progress they've made in recent decades. That backlash has largely come in the form of hundreds of new laws designed to erase queer identity and suppress forms of expression, such as drag, that buck traditional gender norms.
More than 20 states have now passed laws banning gender-affirming care for kids. In many of those states, proponents of the bills harped on surgical procedures and permanent medical interventions that aren't even part of the standard care for transgender adolescents.
At the same time, the legislation they backed targeted more common treatments — including reversible puberty blockers — that medical experts say are vital parts of care for children who suffer from a disconnect between their birth sex and their true identity, and who
