Fighting Back Against Transphobic Laws

As states across the nation continue to target transgender children, some families flee for safety and refuge.  Some families choose to be as invisible as possible for their safety, and we support and celebrate that.  But other families are choosing to plant their feet and fight back. Today’s In the Den guest is a mom from Texas who fought back when the state investigated her and her husband for child abuse for nothing more than supporting their trans child. 

Special Guest: Amber Briggle

Amber Briggle (she/they) is a self-described “mama bear” of a transgender teen in Texas. Amber and her family were investigated by the Texas Department of Family Protective Services for “child abuse” in 2022 after TX Governor Greg Abbott directed the agency to open such cases against families like theirs. Consequently, Amber and her husband, Adam, sued Governor Abbott and are named as co-plaintiffs in PFLAG v Abbott, which seeks to permanently halt these types of investigations.

Amber is a founding member and the former national co-chair of the Human Rights Campaign’s “Parents for Transgender Equality Council”, and has previously been nominated by the Dallas Morning News as “Texan of the Year”. Along with her family, Amber starred in a nationwide PSA about trans-inclusive families that won a Telly Award and garnered over 300 million views, which she debuted onstage at the GLAAD Media Awards in Hollywood.

Amber has written for the Washington Post, Daily Beast, and TIME Magazine, and has been featured in numerous outlets, including Nightline, NHK-Japan, MSNBC, Newsweek, Teen Vogue, The 19th, and People Magazine. She and her family star in Love to the Max, a documentary acquired by the New Yorker, which was released June 2024. Mostly, though, she’s “just a mom” who loves both her kids unconditionally.

Links from the Show:

•  Love to the Max: www.lovetothemax.net 
• The Love to the Max film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSYm4gBiFYA&ab_channel=TheNewYorker 
• Protect Our Families: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbad3efCic8&ab_channel=GLAAD 
• Join Mama Dragons: www.mamadragons.org 

In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you. Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at www.mamadragons.org.  

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Transcript

JEN: Hello and welcome to In The Den with Mama Dragons. I’m your host, Jen. This podcast was created to walk and talk with you through the journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBTQ humans. Thanks for listening. We’re glad you’re here.

At Mama Dragons we are all about supporting, educating, and empowering the mothers of LGBTQ+ children. And our guest today is a shining example of what an empowered mother can do for her children. As states across the nation continue to target these children, some families flee for safety and refuge. Some families choose to be as invisible as possible for the safety of their family. And we celebrate their decisions and their ability to make them. But other families are choosing to plant their feet and fight back. Amber is an example of that fight.

Amber Briggle is a self-described “Mama Bear” of a transgender teen in Texas. Amber and her family were investigated by the Texas Department of Family Protective Services for “child abuse” in 2022 after Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the agency to open such cases against families like theirs. Consequently, Amber and her husband, Adam, sued Governor Abbott and are named as co-plaintiffs in PFLAG v Abbott, which seeks to permanently halt these types of investigations. Amber is a founding member and the former national co-chair of the Human Rights Campaign’s “Parents for Transgender Equity Council”, and has previously been nominated by the Dallas Morning News as “Texan of the Year”. 

Along with her family, Amber starred in a nationwide PSA about trans-inclusive families that won a Telly Award and garnered over 300 million views, which she debuted onstage at the GLAAD Media Awards in Hollywood. Amber has written for the Washington Post, Daily Beast, and TIME Magazine, and has been featured in numerous outlets, including Nightline, NHK-Japan, MSNBC, Newsweek, Teen Vogue, The 19th, and People Magazine. She and her family star in “Love to the Max”, a documentary acquired by the New Yorker, which was released in June 2024. Mostly, though, she is “just a mom” who loves both of her kids unconditionally. Welcome, Amber! We are so grateful to have you here today.

AMBER: Jen, it’s an honor to be here today. Thanks so much for inviting me.

JEN: I am so excited for this example of what it might look like for all of us as we prepare for the next legislative session to fight for our families. But before we dive into all of that, can we start by having you share a little bit about your life growing up? What created Amber?

AMBER: I’m 46 so there’s a lot of life to talk about. I was born in Fargo. My parents divorced when I was about 3 years old. I spent my youth in North Dakota with my mom, my step dad, and my brother Shawn. And then I spent my teen years in Northern Wisconsin living with my dad, my step mom and my two half sisters, Katie and Kelsey. I also have a half-brother named Victor from my mom and my step dad. He was born shortly before I moved so we didn’t grow up together, but we’re still very close. And then I have an older brother named John who lives in LA who was placed for adoption before I was born. And we just met him a few years ago. So my family tree is really complicated and I have cousins related to half the state of Minnesota. We all get along beautifully. I’ve got a big, wonderful, complicated family and I love them all.

I met my husband, Adam, when we were both studying college in Minnesota. I went to the all-girls Catholic school and he went to the all-boys Catholic school and we met at a mixer in 1997. It was 100% a drunk college hookup. And I took him home with me. He didn’t leave and I never kicked him out. And we’ve been married 23 years now. We’ve got two kids. We live in the Dallas area. We moved here about 15 years ago after spending a couple of years in the Netherlands where my husband had a post-doc research opportunity at a university out there. We were in our 20’s when he got that call. And at that time we didn’t have any kids. We didn’t even have a house plant. So when the Netherlands calls and offers you a job opportunity, you answer and you go. I am a massage therapist. It was easy for me to kind of transfer my job skills from one place to another. Wherever my hands go is basically where I can work. So we moved to the Netherlands for a few years and my husband had his post-doc. I tried doing massage but I couldn’t really speak the language very well. So trying to build a small business was a little bit complicated. Massage isn’t as popular in the Netherlands as it is here in the United States. So it was a little bit of a challenge. But, again, you got an opportunity to start a family. That’s where our oldest child was born. We moved here when he was a year and a half. And we’ve been in this town now for 15 years. I’ve got two kids. My older child is transgender. He’s a junior in high school and I hardly see him and it breaks my heart ‘cause he’s basically a full-grown man already. And then my younger child is a lesbian and she is 12 and in seventh grade in middle school. And then we have a whole zoo of rescue animals. One dog and four cats. I’m a small business owner. I run a massage studio now. I have, I think, 25 massage therapists on staff and four front desk assistants, looking at franchising and growing big. And so I know I’m probably most well known for this advocacy world that I’ve been in for the last almost decade, ever since my son transitioned socially. But really what pays the bills is me running a small business downtown and just trying to be a good mom. My trans agenda is getting to sleep at a decent time and paying all my bills and trying to eat good and love hard. I’m basically, I’m just a mom.

JEN: So go backwards a little bit in your mind if you can remember. When you got married, move to the Netherlands, you start a family. Did you have a vision of what your little family might look like?

AMBER: No. My husband and I had to think, really discern, is having kids really what we want to do? A lot of my life I spent just kind of doing what I thought was the next best thing or the next expected thing. So you grow up and you graduate from high school and you probably marry whoever it is that you’re dating from high school. I grew up in this really small town. And whoever you’re dating at the end of high school is probably who you’re going to marry. And then you go to college. And if you go to college you have a career in the thing that you studied. And fill in the blank. Like it’s not really like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” sort of destiny, you just kind of do the next thing that’s expected. And so when I got to the point, my husband and I got married, I was 23, he was 24. I don’t know who in their mind let these two young babies like us get married. But it worked out. I was 23. He was 24. We got married. That was definitely the right thing and dating a long time and I spent a lot of time thinking about what my next step in life was going to be. I spent a lot of time in my college years just really trying to figure myself out because it’s kind of the first time I was away from my parents and had that opportunity. And I think a lot of people who go to college can probably relate to that. Anyway, we got married and spent a few years, he was going to grad school; I was going to massage school, still trying to figure out who I was. And then we got to the point where it was like we kind of felt ready to start a family, but I really wanted – especially myself – I really wanted to think: Is this really what I want to do or is this what’s expected of me? I’m the oldest daughter, so I’ve always been the care-taker. I have a lot of younger siblings that I cared for. My mom was a single mom. And then when she did get married to my step-dad, he was an alcoholic so mostly kind of absent. So I really helped raise a lot of my siblings. It’s just kind of in me. I’m just kind of naturally a nurturing person. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that I necessarily wanted to have kids or I didn’t know. I had to think about this. So we did spend quite a long time just thinking, is this what’s right for us? And it was. I didn’t really think of what my family was going to look like in the future. But I guess in no universe did I ever expect that I would have a double rainbow, a trans son and a lesbian daughter. I mean, they’re a blessing, absolutely, 100%. I love my kids. But I hadn’t really thought that my life would be where it is today. In no world did I ever expect I’d be suing the Governor of the State of Texas to protect my family.

JEN: So, your son told you pretty young – he was four, I think, right?

AMBER: Mm-hmm.

JEN: He probably didn’t have the word “transgender.” He was pretty young when he told you that something was different? Can you talk to us about how that came about and how he talked about it?

AMBER: Yeah. He was actually two and a half when he first said it.

JEN: Oh.

AMBER: You recently had Jack Turban on your show. He’s amazing. He talked a lot about gender identity. And it’s one of those things that people generally know at a pretty young age, at the age of 2, 3, 4 years old, their gender identity without a doctor or a politician telling them -- politician especially telling them who they are. He told me when he was two and a half years old.

JEN: And what did that sound like at two and a half? What did he say?

AMBER: We were coming home from preschool and I told him that his teacher said that he had been a very good girl in school that day. And from the back seat he goes, “Mom. I’m not a girl. I’m a boy. I like Spiderman.” And me being this like, “Girls can like lots of different things. You don’t have to like My Little Pony or Barbies in order to be a girl. You can like Spiderman and be a girl. It doesn’t mean you’re a boy.” And for years, I really tried kind of pushing that, “let’s embrace being a girl” in lots of different ways. Let’s redefine girlhood. And he kind of bought into it a little bit. Gender identity and gender expression are two very different things, though. And so when he was four years old, he got his hair cut short and he was wearing basketball shorts and Spiderman t-shirts and Buzz Lightyear tennies and he just kind of looked like your stereotypical, cisgender, American boy. People would often confuse him for being a boy. It didn’t confuse them. They got it right. They were like, “Oh, what a handsome young man that you have there.” And I would look at them and say, “That’s not a boy, that’s a girl.” It just made everyone feel really crummy. My son was mad at me. Mad isn’t quite the right word, maybe a little bit embarrassed that I outed him – I guess for lack of a better word. And then the strangers, totally just meaning to do a kind thing, were put in this place by this angry white lady, right? And it just got complicated and awkward. But I remember when he was four years old we were pulling in from running an errand. I don’t know where it was, pulling into the driveway. And from the back seat, he said, “Mom do you think scientists could turn me into…” – keep in mind he was already looking like a boy, acting like your stereotypical cisgender boy, like I said. And there was something in his voice that definitely seemed sincere. It wasn’t a sort of what-if. It was like, "Is this possible?" And it just kind of took my breath away. And I asked if it was something that he really wanted to do and he nodded, “Yes.” And I realized I had a lot of homework and research to do ahead of me. Because, again, I thought that dressing and acting like a boy was enough, and it clearly wasn’t. Because, as I said, gender identity and gender expression are two very different things, or can be. At that time, and now he’s 16, so this would’ve been 14 years ago when he first told me that he was a boy and 12 years ago when he first asked this question. And there’s a lot more information out there today for parents of trans kids that just wasn’t accessible a decade or more ago. I had a really, really hard time finding information. And the stuff that I could find online was from the American College of Pediatricians which was a known hate group and they have an intentionally misleading name. It was lot of conversion therapy stuff that I knew instinctively was not right for my son. The American Academy of Pediatrics – those are the good guys – they didn’t have any gender affirming statement for a couple of years after that. I can’t remember the year that it came out. But it was well after my son had said this to me. Fortunately, I knew a transgender man, actually, at my church. And I had mentioned to him this thing that my son had said. And he kind of got these tears in his eyes. And he was both a little bit sad about his own childhood and a little bit maybe proud of me as a mom. I’m not sure, but it was very emotional for him. And he was really, really helpful and he, also being an academic like my husband, was able to send me some great academic articles that were kind of largely unseen by regular people like you and me. And that really helped put me in the right direction too, seeing the research behind this really affirmed what my son was telling me. Honestly, I just kind of let him lead me, and I listened to my heart. There was not much information out there. I was living in Texas. I grew up in small towns. The word Transgender was just not a thing that I knew. It was kind of a joke in the 90’s. It was just not a part of my world. When my son got to first grade, that’s when he socially transitioned. And when I say socially transitioned, I mean he already kind of looked like a boy. His hair cut, his clothes, but now we’re talking about his name and his pronouns, maybe the bathroom that a child would use might change at that time, a social transition. And so it was like halfway through first grade because school is really gendered. Boys line up here, girls line up here. Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so. It’s just hyper gendered. And merely presenting as a boy no longer worked for him because he was a boy and he was constantly being misgendered. And he had a hyper-feminine first name, too, which just made him cringe any time he made friends because then they knew that he wasn’t “a real boy.” And so he socially transitioned in first grade. And, Jen, it was as if someone had torn open all the curtains and opened all the windows in the house and let in the fresh air and the sunshine. Overnight, it was just “Boom!” It was overnight. He was such a rule follower. He’s such a good, ethical, upstanding young man. He knows right from wrong. He always has. This boy, he could’ve raised himself from an infant. All I had to do these years was feed and water him regularly. He knows his way. But as we were approaching that point in time when he did need to social transition to save his life, he was six almost seven. He was losing weight. He wasn’t eating. Babies should not be losing weight. He was losing weight. He wasn’t eating. He wasn’t paying attention in school. He wasn’t listening. He was acting up. He was not the child that we knew him to be. And when we affirmed who he was by changing his name, changing his pronouns, calling him our son, letting him just live his life out loud without having to pretend that he was someone that he wasn’t, it was literally overnight. It was night and day. He was happy. He was outgoing. He was confident. He was so self assured. And we’ve never looked back despite all the trauma that this state has put on us, all the lies that certain politicians throw at us, despite all the challenges that the far-right extremists are putting in our way, we’ve never looked back because we know that his is the right thing to do for him and we just want all transgender and gender expansive kiddos to have the same opportunities and love that our kid has had. Because when you can see it up close, it’s clearly the right thing to do for these kids.

JEN: So for a while, I imagine at the beginning, it looked a lot like talking, like being a family, and then getting support and telling your friends and your extended family and trying to work with schools. In those early days, was it different? Was it easier before the legislature and the politicians got involved? Or were you guys just treading new ground and every conversation was difficult? I imagine in my head you kind of practicing your advocacy over the years so that, twelve years later, by the time Texas declares war, you’re ready to fight. Is that I made that up in my imagination? Was it hard from the beginning?

AMBER: I mean, it’s hard every step of the way because the challenges are different depending on which political party is in charge, which legislative session is ahead of you, even which school board election is happening in your town. It’s never easy. I do not want to be in this space, quite honestly, Jen. My dream is to be so far beyond this that being trans is the least interesting thing about my kid. You know what I want to do, I want to go off into the country and grow heirloom tomatoes. I want to put my energy into that and not into this. It’s never been easy. I feel like we’re smarter about our advocacy now than we were in our early days. I remember the first conversation we ever had to have was just his name, his pronouns, and his bathroom at school. And he was in first grade. He was six years old. He was the first openly trans kid that this elementary school had ever seen.

JEN: Yes.

AMBER: They didn’t know what to do. But I will say that all of the adults in that room, because they’ve seen him and it is hard to hate up close. We all wanted the best for this kid. They were following our lead as well because they just wanted to do right by my son. We didn’t have the weird laws and restrictions back then that we have today. So I think those conversations were a little bit easier. I wish that, as his parents, his school would’ve been a little more prepared. I understand why they weren’t, and his school district has been very supportive. They may not be proactive. But we’re also in Texas. So that might be a politically thoughtful move on their part to not be proactive on this, but just be supportive. I don’t know. I’m not on the school board. But I remember those early conversations about name, pronouns, bathroom were very open and thoughtful. I wish, as I said, that they maybe had – when we walked in there as parents, we were also like this was brand new information for us and we were trying to adjust and -- I guess for lack of a better word – transition ourselves. And I wish that the school would’ve had this menu of options like: “Who needs to know? What support do you need? When we send written information home, should it say this, but when we call home should it say this?” I wish we would’ve been presented with this “Here’s all the possible things we can do for you.” And that didn’t exist. And some schools do have that option for parents. And I’m really very grateful. Now we’re at the point where the internet is forever. And anyone can Google my son’s name. And he’s going off to college in two years. And I feel really gross about that. I really, really wish that we would’ve done a better job protecting his identity through all of this. He was part of the decision-making process, too, because I did not want to exploit him. I didn’t want him to go unnamed if he wanted to be named. I also wanted to be in the front because he’s my son and I didn’t want people attacking him. I wanted them attacking me. So I wanted to take the bulk of the hits to protect him. But I also wanted him to be visible because it’s about him. And so we had this, throughout the years, we’ve had these ongoing conversations as a family, is this the right media opportunity? Do we want to have this conversation? Do we invite this person over for coffee? What’s the best opportunity? What’s the best space for our voices to be heard in? Do you want your name to be in this story? Do you want your face to be in this story? Do you want it to just be us? And we just had these ongoing conversations. And looking back now, I really wish that we, as his parents, could've shown his name, we could’ve told his story if that’s what he wanted. And I think there were many years where we did. But we didn’t have to share our last names. I mean, we could’ve been the Bakers and we could’ve lived in North Texas. We didn’t have to say we were the Briggles and we lived in Denton. We could’ve been just as effective. And if there’s parents out there who are wondering with the next legislative session how they can do best by their kids and tell their stories, I really highly, highly recommend either using a pseudonym if you do talk to the media or when you’re speaking to a legislature, don’t use your child’s name. The internet lives forever and I cringe thinking about how much we as a family exposed him. We did what we thought was the right thing to do in that moment. But looking back now with this decade of experience I have being in this world, I definitely would’ve made some decisions differently.

JEN: So the last few years have been particularly intense as far as I can tell because of some of these new laws. Your family was actually investigated, like we talked about in your intro, to see if, under the implication that you were abusing your kids by allowing one of them to transition, a question that maybe they needed to be removed and placed into foster care. What was that whole experience like for your family and are you still nervous about it?

AMBER: So a little bit of background. So it was in 2021, the Texas legislature tried passing a bill that would equate gender-affirming care with child abuse. I testified against that bill. I think it’s maybe still a pin to tweet at the top of my page. I don’t know.

JEN: It is. I watched it.

AMBER: It was good. It was a good testimony. We were fortunately able to kill that bill in that session. And we kind of thought the worst was behind us. But it was in 2022 that the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who coincidentally was also our dinner guest six years prior. That’s an interesting story if we have time to talk about that later. He penned a legal opinion, not a law, an opinion, stating that parents who provide gender-affirming care to their kids are committing child abuse. He then gave that opinion to his friend, Texas Governor Greg Abbott who then basically – for lack of a better word – put out an executive order. I’m not quite sure if that’s exactly what it was. But basically directing the Texas Department of Family Protective Services, I call CPS because people are more familiar with that acronym, that they must investigate parents of trans kids regardless of whether or not they are providing gender-affirming care to their kids. Now I am sure that I had had at least one person in all these years call CPS to report me for child abuse because apparently loving your kids unconditionally is – I don't know – it’s like a radical political statement now these days. So I’m sure that at least one person over the years has called CPS to report me. And CPS never investigated it because I’m a good mom. My kids are great. He’s an honor student. There’s nothing to see here. Just because somebody calls CPS doesn’t mean that they have to investigate. But Greg Abbott said, “If you get a call about this particular situation, namely a parent of a transgender kid, you have to.” And within 48 hours, I received a call from someone from CPS saying, “My name is So-and-So, basically I’m 30 minutes away.” And I collapsed on the floor. I was at work. And I was able to acquire a lawyer and get my husband there before she arrived. She wanted to set up an in-home visit the very next day. We couldn’t do that. My husband had a work thing and it was all day. So we set it for the next day, which I think was maybe the day before my birthday or the day of my birthday so that was really fun. She came and – it’s really hard to talk about – we were able to acquire a lawyer for my kids in the meantime, thank you to Lambda Legal, who were able to provide a pro-bono lawyer for my children. My husband and I had to pay for our lawyer because, though there is now a network of lawyers through Lambda who can now represent these families pro-bono, that infrastructure did not exist because we were called so quickly. So we paid for our lawyer. Lambda Legal supported a lawyer for our children. She came and investigated us on our couch which ironically was the same couch that we had just kept all each other warm and alive on a month prior when the electrical grid failed in Texas for close to a week. And we huddled on that couch to keep each other alive. And now we’re back on that couch trying to keep our family from being torn apart. She talked to all of us together and then individually and walked through the house. And I showed her the kids' bedrooms, that there’s toys and clothes. And I showed her a bathroom where we keep our meds locked up. I showed her the food in the pantry. It was really awful. And before she left – sorry, I get really weepy talking about this over two years ago and it’s really still awful that the governor would weaponize an agent of the state to come to my home and threaten to take my kids apart for doing nothing more than loving my kids unconditionally. It’s still just really hard to talk about. Before she left, she went in to my son who was practicing his cello. We had to pull the kids out of school that day to deal with this nonsense. And so he was practicing his cello. And before she left, she pointed directly at him and she said, “You know, you have wonderful children. Clearly you’re doing something right.” And then the case stayed open for more than 100 days with us not knowing.

JEN: Did they keep coming back during that 100 days or was it just like this vague mystery?

AMBER: We didn’t know what was going to happen next. They didn’t come back. We didn’t get any more phone calls. I’m sure they were probably working with our lawyers. The case stayed open for more than 100 days. It was ironically closed the very same day that Lambda Legal filed our case, PFLAG v Abbott in Travis County Court to halt these investigations. We are one of the plaintiffs in that case. We’re the only family that’s named. There’s two or three other families in there but they’re using pseudonyms. But we were the named family in that case. And CPS closed our case that morning. Wasn’t that kind of them? I can’t really talk more about the specifics of that case because it is still kind of ongoing.

JEN: No. That’s fine.

AMBER: But I will just give a huge thank you to Lambda Legal for showing up when we needed them because we were, and still are, shocked and scared and traumatized by all of this and they’ve just been fantastic heroes every step of the way.

JEN: Such a traumatic situation for any family but particularly when you genuinely haven’t done anything wrong.

AMBER: Yeah.

JEN: But in between fighting on the legislative floor and doing a PSA and dealing with a CPS investigation, your family also somewhere in this timeline filmed a short but powerful documentary. I’ve shared it on social media myself actually in the past and didn’t even make the connection that you were coming until I watched it again recently. And we will link that in the show notes. I encourage everyone to watch it. It’s like 15 minutes. It’s not going to take up your whole day but it’s very powerful. And so many of us will relate to how normal your family is and how normal your son is and I think normalizing the reality of families is so important because it’s a lot easier to fight against our kids when it’s this nebulous mystery. So you made a decision to make a documentary. That is no small feat. That is pretty vulnerable. Talk to us about deciding that and how that has played out for your family?

AMBER: For years, years, I wanted the media to highlight normal trans-inclusive families like ours, to normalize loving parents, to normalize thriving transgender youth. I’ve wanted this for years. And I literally, I’ve lost count of how many opportunities we’ve been passed over for in the media because our story is “Not sad enough.”

JEN: That’s horrible.

AMBER: It’s infuriating. I literally spent an entire day with a vice documentary team doing all the legwork to make this happen and then at the end, we didn’t even get an honorable mention in the credits. And I called the producer and I’m like, “Hey, buddy. What happened?” And he was like, “Well, it wasn’t sad enough.” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me?”

JEN: That's the goal. That’s what we want.

AMBER: Because really trying to be out there, be visible in public, I’m trying to normalize our trans agenda which I said is like, eat a healthy meal, stay hydrated, pet your cat once in a while. It’s nothing scary. No one wanted to talk to me. And then what happens? The media gets this narrative that we have to talk both sides of them all the time and the only trans stories that we’re going to tell are the sad ones. So maybe if these kids weren’t trans, then they wouldn’t be so sad, right? And then what happens is we get investigated and we’re named in this lawsuit and now suddenly everyone wants to talk to me because I’ve got this traumatic story. And I’m like, “Where were you years ago?” So then we’re starting to get all these requests and everyone wants to talk to us. And I did try to protect my family, simultaneously running for city council at the same time, trying to run a business. And I’m like, “ I can't talk to everybody. I’m only going to talk to people that I know are going to tell our story the right way and that’s going to be impactful. I just don’t have the bandwidth for anything else. But now that you’re willing to listen, I’m absolutely going to sound the alarms and scream at the top of my lungs because you, now as the media, have the responsibility to make this right.” I was approached by a woman by the name of Tanya Selvaratnam, a brilliant, incredible woman. Everyone should Google her and follow her on all the places. But I was approached by Tanya to create this documentary. She and I were part of this, it’s a group called The List. It’s this fantastic group. It’s the women of the world doing good things. And it’s mostly this Google Group where we kind of connect and network and everything. And I had mentioned in this group about our CPS investigation and Tanya had mentioned in this group you should document everything. I hadn’t met Tanya in person. But someone else knowing Tanya’s filmmaking background approached Tanya and said, ‘Maybe you should document all of this.” And we just kind of started having this conversation. We did really think critically as a family, is this something that we want to do? And we felt that when you’re backed into a corner the way that we were, we were willing to do anything that it took to fight our way out of it. And I trusted Tanya to do a good job with this. So she came out, our investigation was in March. She came out on the Fourth of July. You’ll see one of the first things is us at a Fourth of July parade. Came out around the Fourth of July to film us for a couple days. And then came back, wisely, in November during National Trans Awareness Week. I had a story time that was planned. It was Transgender Day of Remembrance that was already scheduled. She wanted to show us in community, that there are so many more parents out there like us, right? So many more trans kids and trans people out there. So they came out. they did two filmings. One around the Fourth of July, one during that week of November. And then I just kind of sat back and watched all the edits come through. They did a fantastic job. It had a World Premier at the Aspen Shorts Film Festival in April. And then it had a Texas premier here in Denton with the Thinline Film Festival. It’s been acquired by the New Yorker so it lives on the New Yorker Youtube pages. So it’s really great that this story has a home and it’s really, really impactful. I was really surprised when I watched it. I guess I hadn’t realized how physically affectionate we are as a family because it’s just kind of a part of my normal life. But I see it and we’re constantly reaching out for each other and messing each other’s hair and hugging and kissing. And it’s such a beautiful film, kind of set against this weird dystopian backdrop. Going back to your question, did you ever think that your family would look like this? No. I didn’t. A son and a daughter and a beautiful home in a safe community. We have it all. But then when you superimpose the politics of being trans which is you’re just existing in the world. I don't know why this is political. But when you insert the politics of that on top of everything and complicate our lives as much as they’ve been complicated, that is not a part that I ever imagined we would ever be living today.

JEN: So I mentioned in the intro, I think it’s going to be obvious to everyone. But some families chose to leave. I live in Idaho. I talk about it all the time and we just keep saying goodbye to our friends and family who need to relocate so that they can protect their children. Other families that we know and love decide to become as invisible as possible and try to weather the storm until it passes. And your family has chosen to be very front and center. I’m sure you know families in all of those categories also.

AMBER: Yeah. I do.

JEN: Can you talk about what you know about these different realities and the motivations for the decisions and what motivated your own path through all of this?

AMBER: Yeah. I mean, I can’t speak to other people’s experiences so I don’t know what motivated their decisions. But I can say that I 100% support them. Every family is going to be making a different decision. So whether you just high-tailed it and moved to freakin’ New Zealand like one of my friends did, more power to you. That’s great. Other families that just want to lay low and live in stealth, I 100% understand that and support that all the way. And so there’s absolutely no judgment, no hierarchy of decision making. We’re all doing what we need to do to protect our kids and our families. My family, partly we’ve chosen to stay because we’re already out there. We’ve got nothing to lose at this point. Our names are out there. Everyone knows my son’s name. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it’s true. We’re suing the governor. We’re laying it all out of the field. We’ve got nothing to lose at this point. The other reality, though quite frankly, is that we can’t move. I am a small business owner. That job doesn’t not transfer. I cannot transfer to another branch in a blue state where gender-affirming care has been protected. It doesn’t exist. I’m 46 years old. My kids are going to college soon. I’m trying to save for retirement. Am I just supposed to sell my business and go manage a fast-food restaurant to pay the bills? What happens to our health care, right? My husband is a tenured college professor. Universities are not hiring tenured positions anymore. They’re hiring adjuncts, right? Again, what happens to our health insurance? Though we seem like we have all the privileges, being that we’re middle class, the reality is we just cannot leave the state because of our jobs. And so as long as we’re here, we’re going to fight as hard as we can, not only for our family but for all those families that just can’t do it for whatever reason. It’s scary. They don’t know how. Where do we begin? Do we want to have a target on our back too? We’re fighting for our family. We’re fighting for all families. And besides that, Jen, if we up and left, there’s going to be another generation of trans kids being born today. The last time I was in New York, I met up with some friends for drinks and introduced myself, “Hi. I’m Amber. I live in Texas.” “Oh, I would just move.” How about instead of saying, “Why don’t you just move?” You ask yourself, “Why don’t I just help?” Because it should not fall on the shoulders of trans kids like my son and busy working moms like me and my husband to do this work. And I’m sorry to say, people, but this does not stop with trans kids in the same way that the Dobbs decision did not stop with abortion. Now we’re seeing attacks on IVF and birth control and even divorce, no-fault divorce. It does not stop with trans kids. Even if we up and move, these attacks, unless we stop it today, these attacks are only going to get bigger. They’re going to go after trans adults. They’re going to go after same-sex couples who’ve adopted. It doesn’t stop with trans kids and it’s not only isolated to red states. The children’s hospital in Boston’s gotten their fair share of bomb threats. Do you know what I mean? This is not an isolated to Texas thing. This is not an isolated to trans kids thing. This is an all-of-us thing. And everyone needs to stand up and do something.

JEN: I admire your resolve and your fortitude because it’s not an easy fight. It’s kind of relentless. And there is a steep cost to it. You mentioned in the documentary, I feel like we told the whole documentary to everybody. But there are mean people saying mean and horrible things and they’re shouting at you. and I just felt my eyes fill with tears because these people shouting, “Protect children!” are literally yelling at your children and saying horrible things. But can you help listeners understand what realistic sorts of challenges your family is facing and has faced in trying to just support your kid and be a kid?

AMBER: I mean, the number one is, we were investigated by CPS, right? I will say that another reason that we haven’t moved, and I’m sorry if this doesn’t quite answer your question. We can come back to it. But another reason why we haven’t moved is that we do feel really supported here in our community. My son is incredibly popular. He’s surrounded by friends. He’s doing really well in school. My daughter, the same. She’s just got this really tight group of loving friends around her. She’s enjoying dance. Our jobs are good. I don’t feel scared walking down the street. We live in a really great place. That is not the case for every trans-inclusive family. And so I will say, we don’t deal with the daily sorts of sports teams, bathroom stuff that many other families deal with because we’ve worked so hard in our community to establish that. It also has helped that we’ve changed my son’s legal documents. Just so some of those laws may not apply to him. But that’s not the case, Texas is not allowing transgender individuals to change their birth certificates or their driver’s licenses. So doors are closing every day. So I will say, we’re not dealing with the same sorts of daily challenges that other families are often having to endure when it comes to their children’s safety and equality. But it still is that sort of like, constant ringing in your ears of, what’s coming next? They’re taking this away from trans kids every day. They’re attacking parents. They’re attacking doctors. Sports teams, bathrooms, pronouns, books, GSAs, Pride Flags, Don’t Say Gay. Everybody, “What’s coming next? What’s coming next?” And it’s just this constant. It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting and it’s traumatizing. And I feel sometimes like I’m just punching in the dark at this monster I can’t see. And once in a while, I’ll land a blow. But a lot of times I feel like I’m just kind of using up my energy. And so I really, in the last year especially, really kind of pulled back from the daily reading all the crap on twitter that’s coming next. Really trying to intentionally step back to care for my family because my family always comes first. And if I can care for them, then together we can fight. But if I’m out there just expending all my energy on the what-ifs, it’s exhausting and it’s no good for my mental health. So right now I’m kind of in the phase where I look at, “What can I do today? What is going to happen tomorrow?” And that’s kind of as far as I look. I know we have a big election coming up in November. And I can’t worry about that. I’m just looking at “What can I do today and what can I do tomorrow?” And that’s as far as I can look. Because if it just get too far ahead of myself with these what-ifs and these what’s-coming-next, I just can’t live like that anymore. I lived like that for years and it’s just too much.

JEN: It does feel like too much. It gets exhausting super fast. And I appreciate you touching on some of the ways that you’re taking care of yourself. I wanted to talk about that idea – because you mentioned community – the idea that sometimes when we’re fighting these fights it feels a little bit lonely, and how powerful it is to have community and find community support. Can you talk about what sort of community you’ve been able to create and how that’s been helpful for you guys? You mentioned originally just the fellow church member, just having one person to talk to.

AMBER: I will admit it feels really isolating being in Texas. I’m not a part of an official organization. My son is a GenderCool champion. I would encourage people to look up GenderCool. The GenderCool Project that’s fantastic. It’s a great, about two dozen trans and nonbinary young people across the country just living their lives out loud, just being trans is the least interesting thing about them, and they’re out there talking to Fortune 500 CEOs and doing these great – they had an hour long ABC special. Really great stuff, just normalizing it. That’s an organization that my son is a part of. And so we kind of a part of, tangentially, as his parents. We don’t have a PFLAG group here in our community. I know you can find PFLAG online. I’m not really part of the Human Rights Campaign anymore. So I admit, it feels really isolating and really scary to be out there doing this work because I don’t really know what sort of organizational efforts are out there because we’re not part of an organization. So we, therefore, had to kind of create our own community. Mama Dragons is such a fantastic organization. I’m actually a new Mama Dragon member. I just joined a couple years ago because I guess I kind of thought that you could only live in Utah or something to be a Mama. I don’t know how I thought this. So I was like, “That’s only for Mormon moms and I’m not a Mormon. I’m a Unitarian Universalist. So that’s not me.” But someone was like, “No. You should join Mama Dragons.” And it was so lovely. On my birthday, you all gave me so many birthday cards and stickers. I felt so blessed and special. It was amazing. So there’s online communities like Mama Dragons. There’s online communities like the Mama Bears organized by Liz Dyer. Just being in community with fellow parents here in north Texas getting together with other parents of trans kids is just the most wonderful thing whether we’re just going out for cocktails or coffee or we go see someone’s kid in a play. It’s just so fantastic just to kind of commiserate with each other and celebrate with each other and celebrate our kids and celebrate our victories. And regardless of where you live, if you might think you’re the only parent of a trans kid in the entire world, it’s not true. We’re out there. Everywhere. In every community. You might live in a really small town and you might be the only person in your small town. But there's plenty of online community that you can join. And what I love are the back-to-school pics and the prom pics of these kids. Because a lot of these parents will post on these online groups. They can’t post them to their regular Facebook pages because maybe their family’s not affirming or they don’t want to “out” their child. But they’ll post these pictures in these online forums like the Mama Bears and the Mama Dragons or what-have-you. And it’s so lovely to see all the love and affirmation and affection that we just shower on these kids. They’re all our kids. It’s really, really sweet and I really give a lot of credit to these groups for building such intentional community during these really scary times.

JEN: I love those prom pictures. It’s so fun to see these kids. They’re far more creative than the average prom pictures.

AMBER: Totally, yeah.

JEN: And everybody just celebrates that. I love it. Before I let you go, I need to ask you about the Safe Folder that you guys have created. We have over 4,000 members in our group of moms with trans kids right now and I think this is something that might benefit a lot of them, something that they may have not considered. So can you talk to us about the Safe Folder?

AMBER: Yeah. The Safe Folder, there’s a thing about this in our documentary too. The Safe Folder was recommended to us many years ago. Someone had said, “Put together a Safe Folder.” I said, “A what?” And it’s basically a compilation of things that show that you’re good parents and you’re not “Trans-ing” your kid. And there’s air quotes around trans-ing. So for my son’s Safe Folder we have, for example, a self-portrait he drew when he was in maybe third or fourth grade. We have cards he’s given me for mother’s day. We have a letter from his principal saying that he’s a good student and that we’re good parents. We’ve got report cards. We’ve got vaccination records. We’ve got pediatric reports, his growth chart shows that he’s growing and thriving. All sorts of things to just prove that we are caring for our child and that we’re not forcing him to be trans, which is the most ridiculous thing ever. I can’t get my kids to take out the dang garbage. Do you think they’re going dress and act as a separate gender, anyway. It’s a compilation of these documents and I really encourage people to start putting these together. I will say that when we were investigated by CPS, our lawyer advised us not to hand over the Safe Folder because “We don’t want to give them any more information than they need. So you’re just going to keep that to your chest.” So we did. But it’s there should we ever need it in the future. And it is heartbreaking to think that parents of trans kids need to have a folder to prove that they’re good parents. Because I do not think that parents of cisgender kids have ever had to think about that. So to document your love and care for your child in a court of law, should it ever come to that, is just the most dystopian sort of Margaret Alwood-esque scenario and it’s heartbreaking and gross. And, unfortunately, pretty dang necessary these days.

JEN: I said that was going to be my last question, but I forgot. Because you mentioned that you had Ken Paxton in your house for dinner. I feel like that’s a question that everyone’s going to be like, “Wait. We didn’t get to hear about the dinner story.”

AMBER: Yeah. I’m happy to tell the story. It’s a really, really unique part of this origin story. So we actually had the State Attorney General, Ken Paxton, and his wife, Angela – who’s now a state Senator – over for dinner at our house. I want to say September of 2017, maybe. He had been, along with other state AGs, was suing the Obama Administration over this Dear Colleague letter that was sent to schools about how to treat trans kids in schools. It wasn’t new law. It was established federal law and they were just clarifying it. Paxton sued the Obama Administration in Federal Court in Fort Worth, which is not very far from where we live. We showed up on a whim to be silent witnesses to what a trans inclusive family looks like and sat in that courtroom so that the judge could see us and see that my kid was not a threat. In so doing, we met a lot of media people that day because they knew we were coming. I had just discovered what Twitter was and so I was collecting everyone’s Twitter handles. And we sat in that courtroom. And then we left. And two weeks later, the judge came out with his ruling, as expected, against trans kids and for AG Paxton. And basically blocking these rules. Now, it didn’t say that schools couldn’t let kids use the bathroom. It just said that schools had no obligation to be kind. We sent our son off to school that day, it was the first day of school, knowing that he would be cared for because, as we said previously, all the adults in his school really just, we all just wanted the best for him. So we know he was going to be okay. But then the media starts calling. And they’re like, “Hey, do you have an opinion?” because they had just met us two weeks earlier. And so we just one-by-one did all these interviews in our backyard when he was at school. There was one reporter from the local NBC affiliate and I want to give her credit, Julie Fine, who interviewed us. And she said, “I’m going to see AG Paxton later today. Is there anything that you want us to say to him?” And that’s when we went off script. Plenty of parents would have been like, “Can you rip his face off for me.” But we were like, “No. We’d really like to have him over for dinner, honestly, and just meet our family. Because I think if he can meet a trans kid, he’ll see that they’ve got a lot more in common when he was 7 or 8 years old than you think.” And so of course, she goes down to Dallas and she does one of those walking interviews, like walking across the street you know, “AG Paxton, there’s a family in Denton that wants to, with trans people, that wants to have you for dinner. What do you have to say about that?” And he goes, “Yeah. Yeah. I’ll meet with them any time, that’s just fine.” And then he pivots back to his big victory, right? And no one paid attention to that answer except for me and my Twitter account. And I was like, “Did you all hear? Dude’s going to take his victory lap. I get it. But he did say he would meet us for dinner. Do I ask them to bring a dessert?” Kind of like, tongue in cheek sort of thing. And a couple of days later, one of his executive staffers called me and he’s like, “I guess we’re coming to dinner.” And I was like, “I guess you are. What day works for you? We’ll clear our schedules.” And so he came with his wife who was, I think, a high school counselor at the time which is really sad to see how much she’s bought into this anti-trans rhetoric too, because I’m sure that she had at least one conversation about this with some of those students when she worked at that high school. But they both came over. She, of course, brought a dessert. They stayed for about two and a half hours. I will say that they, in-person, at least in 2017, were lovely. They were lovely. We talked about our dogs. We talked about our kids. My son played a dorky little piano song for them. My daughter showed up and introduced herself as Princess Elsa. And she was fully dressed in her Elsa costume and Mrs. Paxton got down and said, “Oh, hello, Elsa. It’s lovely to meet you.” They were lovely, right? And because there was no media there. There was no halls-of-power-crap BS, who’s this weird pissing contest. They were just people. And before he left, we said, “We did not invite you over only for dinner. You’ve gotten to meet our son. We know that there’s going to be anti-trans bills coming up in the legislature in the next session. Can you put in a good word for him?” And he said, “Well, you know I don’t make the bills anymore. I’m not a legislator.” And we’re like, “We know. But you know the people who do. And so the next time a bill comes across your desk or a proposal comes across your desk, we want you to consider: how is this going to affect this child?” He didn’t assure us that he would do that. But he did say, “He seems like a pretty good kid.” I said ‘yeah. He is. Just remember that.” The goodbye was really awkward. Mrs. Paxton did reach out and give me a hug. I can’t remember if I hugged AG Paxton. I probably shook his hand. I remember giving his, he had big-dude bodyguards with giant guns probably hidden on their person. They were also in our house lingering. And then they left and as they drove away, literally there was a giant rainbow across the sky. And we were like, “We did it. We saved all the queer people in Texas. Hooray for us.” And that was not the case. We did not melt his grinchy heart. But what we learned from that was that while we didn’t change his mind, I think we did elevate the conversation and people paid attention to what a trans-inclusive family looks like and what a transgender child might be facing. And it’s important for people to realize that he’s just one person who, quite frankly, works for us. There are millions of Texans who collectively have way more power than he does as one person. I think that’s really important for people to remember, that you might not get the outcome you had imagined. But there’s still some good, some benefit, that comes from that. And then, just to tie it back to the CPS investigation and all of that, keep in mind, that was six years prior to this legal opinion that he had. So here he is, in my home, breaking bread with my children, exchanging magic tricks and dad jokes. And then six years later has the audacity to claim that families like mine should not exist. That it wasn’t child abuse when he came and sat and broke bread with us, but it was when he was approaching a primary election that he ended up having to do a run-off for because he couldn’t get more than 50% of the votes, right. This is so awful, political, and unfortunately it is heartbreaking that they’re taking such vulnerable people like transgender kids to prop up their political agendas instead of just doing the right thing like fixing the electric grid here in Texas so we don’t have to huddle on our couch to keep each other alive.

JEN: Weaponizing trans kids has got to be among the lowest of the things we’ve ever seen in politics. But thank you. Thank you for coming and sharing your story, sharing your heart with us. Your experience is obviously unique but also not unfamiliar to a lot of our listeners. But you’re telling of it was beautiful. So thank you.

AMBER: Thank you for inviting me on. It’s really a great opportunity to share our story. Thank you.

JEN: It’s a beautiful story. Thanks for joining us In the Den. While we have you, we want to let you know about the inaugural LUV Conference coming up this October 18th and 19th in Salt Lake City, Utah. The conference is all about learning and connecting and creating a more supportive environment for LGBTQ+ individuals and their families. Get more information at www.luvwithoutlimits.org . That’s L-U-V- without limits.org. Or find the link in the show notes under the links from the show. We hope to see you there. 

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