The Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. With this ruling, the court opens the door for more states to cut off life-saving medical care — care that is backed by every major medical association, and that has been shown to unequivocally improve the health and well-being of gender diverse, transgender and nonbinary youth. As dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned, this puts transgender youth and their families at the mercy of political whims.
This issue hits especially close to home for me, as almost exactly a year ago my younger sister came out as transgender.
Watching her grow into herself has been such a joy — from painting her nails for the first time and texting TikTok makeup tutorials back and forth to giving her advice as she navigates online dating and teaching her to style her new, long hair. When I was younger, I always wished for a sister. I just didn’t realize it meant that one day I’d have to share my mom’s jewelry and handbag collection (something I’m still coming to terms with).
But it hasn’t all been joyful. My sister hasn’t been able to update her passport to reflect her new identity. She has been hesitant to fly to Florida to visit our grandma, out of fear for her safety. She is worried that one day her doctor will have to stop providing care or that insurance will no longer cover the costs. That fear — of being harassed, denied care, or worse — is a fear that has only been further validated by this ruling.
Growing up, my sister went to school with Chief Justice John Roberts’s kids, and for some time, they were her closest friends. She played in their yard and watched movies on their couch. John Roberts introduced my sister to root beer, which to this day is still her favorite soda. We knew the Roberts family during an era when politics felt like something you could keep separate from everyday life. We’re far beyond that now.
The decisions being made by the court aren’t just political — they’re deeply personal, and they’re dangerous. And while the court hands down rulings rooted in fear, bigotry and rigidity, my 95-year-old grandmother, who immigrated to the U.S. from Chile over 60 years ago — a woman who is quite literally from another century — is learning and evolving in real time. She now uses my sister’s chosen name and pronouns with more grace and consistency than many people half her age. Sure, sometimes she still calls my sister “he,” but she also mistakenly calls me “Poppy,” the name of our family dog, who is arguably the favorite grandchild.
After Trump’s re-election, my family found itself having impossible conversations. I’m half British on my dad’s side, and for a while, we told ourselves that if things got too dangerous here, my sister could go to England. But the truth is, England’s not safe either. Regressive legislation in the U.K. has increasingly restricted gender-affirming care and fueled a vicious media campaign against trans people, one that is funded by my sister’s favorite childhood author, JK Rowling. The irony is that Chile, the country my grandmother emigrated from, may now be safer for her transgender granddaughter than the U.S. or the U.K.
It’s hard to ignore the hypocrisy: many in this country hate immigrants, yet they create unlivable conditions that force its own citizens — especially queer and transgender people, especially non-white people — to flee. The U.S. has spent decades destabilizing governments across the world, including Chile, and now it’s turning on its own children. It’s pushing people like my sister out of public life, forcing them back into the closet and locking the door.
We’re privileged even to consider leaving. So many can’t. But I won’t. I’m staying, as is my sister, both of us fueled by anger.
I’m staying because my sister deserves to feel joy and safety and autonomy here, in the country she calls home. I’m staying because we need people who are willing to fight, to testify, to tell the truth even when the courts won’t listen. And because some of the fiercest advocates I’ve had the privilege of meeting through this work — people who’ve taught me how to show up better, louder, more radical — are young, queer and transgender folks from the South who have been fighting the worst kinds of legislation with unimaginable strength and determination.
The other day, I told my sister I was tired. Working in reproductive justice and immigration advocacy, I feel like I am always in flight or fight mode. I joked that in another timeline, I’d be a cute monkey on a beach eating mangoes, minding my business. She laughed and said that in another timeline, she wishes she’d been born cisgender. My heart broke. This country makes it so hard to exist as herself; it shouldn’t require this much bravery just to be.
The attacks on our communities are relentless. Every day, we are slowly losing our reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, and our ability to decide if, when and how to create our families. The road ahead will be long and grueling, but we are not powerless. We can and will fight back because we’ve been left with no other choice. And because, as my favorite quote from author Mariame Kaba reminds me, “Hope is a discipline.”
Gabriella G. Watson is a fellow of the OpEd Project with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice and the Every Page Foundation.