PBS News Hour followed one family’s journey to access essential care, and explores what lies ahead for trans rights.

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'The stakes are that high'

Growing restrictions on the rights of transgender Americans in states across the U.S. have forced many families with trans loved ones to make difficult decisions.

Forty-five bills focused on restricting rights for trans people — across areas like education, health care and civil rights — have passed statehouses so far this year, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker ([link removed]) , an independent research organization. Donald Trump and JD Vance, have pushed ([link removed]) anti-trans ([link removed]) rhetoric ([link removed]) to extremes on the campaign trail.

PBS News Hour followed one family’s journey to access essential care, and explores what lies ahead for trans rights.

This newsletter was compiled by Joshua Barajas. ([link removed])
HOW A TRANS YOUTH CARE BAN AFFECTS THIS FAMILY

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Watch the segment in the player above.

By Sam Lane, @lanesam ([link removed])
Producer

By Joshua Barajas, @Josh_Barrage ([link removed])
Senior Editor, Digital

It was a big day for Rhyan.

With the help of a volunteer pilot, the 14-year-old and his mom, Mia, rode a small passenger plane to Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than 600 miles from home.

Rhyan made sure to pack his digital camera, snapping photos of the pretty sights thousands of feet in the air. Mountaintops jutting from the earth. Sheets of rain in the distance.
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Photo courtesy of Rhyan
The two had been waiting for more than a year for a much-needed doctor’s appointment. Rhyan and Mia live in Texas, the largest of 26 U.S. states that have passed laws that restrict or ban gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.

Months before the state’s gender-affirming care ban went into effect last year, Rhyan’s doctor could no longer see him. The teen had to stretch out his testosterone prescription until the family could find a solution.

Mia and Rhyan asked to use only their first names to protect their identities.

“Things that are outside of your control that people are trying to cause your child harm. It does something to you,” she told PBS News Hour’s Laura Barrón-López. ([link removed]) “You don't know who's safe. You don't know who's not safe. And all the while, you're trying to survive. You need to find a way to get your kid what he needs, and laws are being put in place that criminalize the doctors for wanting to help you.”

In recent years, the upswell of Republican-led efforts across the country to restrict medical care for transgender people has forced families with trans kids to seek treatments elsewhere.

Though a lapse in care was scary, Rhyan wasn’t as afraid because his mom would “figure out one way or another,” but he had a message for lawmakers.

“You don't know the people you're affecting,” he said. “You don't know how much of an impact it has on them. How dangerous it is.”

Barrier after barrier presented itself. The time and money required to book an out-of-state appointment and travel was added pressure for a single mom.

Buoyed by support from two organizations, the family was able to offset the costs of a trip across state lines to see a doctor at a University of New Mexico clinic.
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Photos courtesy of Rhyan
Campaign for Southern Equality, a nonprofit that focuses on LGBTQ+ rights, worked with the volunteer pilots of Elevated Access, an organization that flies patients living in states with restrictions on abortions and gender-affirming care to places where those services are legal.

With his own time, plane and fuel, “Clyde” flew Rhyan and Mia from Austin to Albuquerque and back for free. PBS News is using a different name for the pilot to protect their identity.

Along the way to Albuquerque, Rhyan snapped a photo of the glow from a low-hanging sun. For those few hours, Rhyan and his mom were above the fracas.

Mia said she’s grateful for people like Clyde who’d risk their livelihoods for people in need.

“When people like that step up and they say that they're not OK, that something's got to change, right?” she said. “That's what needs to happen.”
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Photo courtesy of Rhyan
Rhyan got a new prescription during his visit. A follow-up is scheduled for a few months from now.

A new president will be in the Oval Office by then. Vice President Kamala Harris is running on a platform ([link removed]) that includes policy proposals to shore up health care protections for trans patients, while also protecting other rights for LGBTQ+ people. Former President Donald Trump has promised to further roll back ([link removed]) queer and trans rights in a second term.

If Trump is re-elected, Mia said she’d move her and her son out of the country.

“I don't know how I would do it, but how could I stay?” she said. “The stakes are that high.”

WHAT LIES AHEAD
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Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
With each passing month, there are more trans people who are trying to find health care, navigate their existing health care, or relocate to access those services, Minnesota Rep. Leigh Finke said.

“As that reality continues to be the lived experience of trans people, the situation feels more and more dire, and we want to see and feel that the future will make it easier for us to just live our basic lives,” she told PBS News this week.

And depending on where you are, “that might feel very far away,” she added.

Each year crescendos to a new peak in the number of bills that target trans people. 2024 is the fifth consecutive year ([link removed]) there’s been a record-breaking total number of anti-trans bills introduced in the U.S., according to the Trans Legislation Tracker. More than 650 bills have been considered this year. Of those, 45 have passed so far.

A first-of-its-kind study published this week in Nature ([link removed]) found an increase in the number of suicide attempts among trans and nonbinary youth aged 13-17 living in states that have enacted at least one anti-trans law. In the 19 states included in the study, suicide attempts in this age group rose by anywhere from 7 to 72 percent in a single year.

“We're not talking about hypotheticals,” Finke said. “You're talking about people right now who are living.”

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Rep. Leigh Finke spoke with PBS News Hour in July on how a second Trump term would be “catastrophic” for trans people. Watch the segment in the player above.

GOP lawmakers in several states have enacted a range of restrictions that affect trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people. The bills aim to block their participation in school sports, bathroom usage and access to certain health care services. The Supreme Court, is set to review Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban for trans youth.

With fewer than 40 days until Election Day, one leading presidential candidate also continues to amplify anti-trans rhetoric to motivate his base.

Finke, who became the first trans person to be elected to the Minnesota Legislature in 2022, said Trump made a “Mad-Libs-style” remark ([link removed]) about trans people during the Sept. 10 debate with Harris. The moment underscored how Republicans have continued to create fear around trans people’s existence, she said.

“They're spending more time talking about us than I even thought they would,” Finke said. “I think that's even more clear and present for people in terms of what might be ahead from a Trump administration.”

For other trans people or people who have trans loved ones in their life, Finke said she offers the same thing she offers herself often when she’s “in the pit of it.”

“Trans people are entitled to not just every right under the law, but we have a right to live full, authentic lives with dignity and respect and freedom and autonomy and liberation,” she said.

“We have been doing that despite the situation that we have lived in in this country.”
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