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In this op-ed, Wyatt Williams details how anti-trans laws force trans teens like him to leave their home states. Williams's story is shared in journalist Nico Lang's book, American Teenager, published on October 8.
No one, much less a child, should have to be forced out of their home simply for wanting to exist. I was one of many trans youth forced to leave their home states due to anti-trans rhetoric, abandoning everything I knew in order to continue living the life that I knew was right for me. Amid an already heated presidential election, too many trans kids will be forced to decide for themselves whether to have their freedoms and selfhood taken away or start over somewhere that holds the promise of less pain. This can no longer continue to be the norm, and we all must do what we can to stop it.
My story, through its many highs and lows, is told in an upcoming book, American Teenager, written by LGBTQ+ journalist Nico Lang [Editor's Note: Lang has written for Teen Vogue]. Throughout the pages of Lang’s book I, along with other trans youth from across the country, talk about the sacrifices and hardships that got me to where I am today. My story also touches upon how difficult it would be to have everything I’ve fought for taken away. At the age of 10, I came out to my parents through a handwritten letter that I hurriedly placed on my mom’s dresser, afraid of where it may lead us. The letter told my parents that I was a boy and that I needed support in dealing with the thoughts and feelings I’d been having my entire life. My words expressed a desperate need for help, that I couldn’t continue living as the gender I was incorrectly assigned at birth. I just wanted to be like any other boy, and I couldn’t keep it inside any longer.
I had never even heard the word “transgender” when I confessed what I’d been feeling to my parents, and I also wasn’t aware that others, including my own elected lawmakers, would fight so hard to keep me from being myself. Just months before I wrote that note, South Dakota’s then-governor, Dennis Daugaard, vetoed a proposed bill that would have banned me from using the boys’ restroom at school. This was in March 2016, slightly before North Carolina passed the country’s first anti-trans bathroom bill; I had no way of knowing that this would mark the beginning of a long chain of harmful bills affecting trans youth in so many states. What convinced him to veto my state’s bill, Daugaard has said, was hearing the personal stories of trans people that would be hurt by the bill being passed into law. I can only hope that sharing my story can sway others as well.
As anti-trans bills began to proliferate across the U.S., I dedicated my time to educating adults about who I was, to combat the notion that trans youth were a problem to be solved. All of the most important people in my life loved and accepted me for who I was, including my mother, Susan, who founded the South Dakota trans advocacy group Transformation Project a year after I came out. If my mother, a pastor’s daughter who had never met a trans person before I told her that she had a son, could make such enormous strides, I didn’t understand why it was so hard for people who don’t even know me. In traveling to the South Dakota Capitol building with my mother to speak to lawmakers and put a human face on the struggles of trans youth, I only wanted it to be understood that I was not hurting anyone simply by being myself.
During the two and a half weeks Lang spent in South Dakota with me and my family, a looming question hung over our heads: Would we be able to stay in my state to continue this fight? The veto of South Dakota’s anti-trans bathroom bill hadn’t stopped Republican lawmakers from pushing many other bills targeting me and other trans youth across the state, including a ban on gender-affirming medical care for children under the age of 18. Several months after my story was recorded for the book, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) signed that bill into law, stripping me of the ability to access the medications that have made me happier, healthier, and more free — that have made my life possible.
My chapter of American Teenager ends with that same question of whether to stay in South Dakota, a state I love and cherish, or whether to leave. Many of the other teens featured in the book had to make similar decisions about what was more important: their community or their liberty. Thousands of trans people are estimated to have fled their homes in response to anti-trans laws being proposed or passed in their states. In 2024 alone, there have been more than 650 bills introduced in state legislatures across the U.S., and at least 178 of them attempt to make it harder for trans people — especially kids — like me to access our health care. To date, 26 states have passed restrictions on gender-affirming treatments for kids (though not all of those bills are in effect), and some states, like Missouri and Ohio, have even tried to take away certain health care for adults, too. It’s hard to keep living in a place that feels like it doesn’t want you to be there.
It’s been two years now since my story was documented in American Teenager, and I hope it’s not a spoiler to say that I did eventually leave South Dakota. I’m now attending college in another state, even though I would have very much liked to stay in my home state and pursue a trans adulthood there. I had no real choice but to leave behind my childhood spent surrounded by sunsets and grassy fields that I will forever adore. Though it doesn’t feel right to call myself a political refugee, I am. I feel these days as if I don’t have anywhere to call home, and I find myself missing the home that doesn’t love me back. My longing for South Dakota pesters me at the worst moments, and I am forced to confront the fact that my future lies in a state — or even a country — with more protections and less attention on such a small facet of my identity.
After losing my home, I worry about losing even more. The outcome of the 2024 presidential election could determine whether I have to move yet again, making another hard decision for my own personal safety; this constant fear of displacement is unfair to me and every other trans kid. It strips us of our humanity and robs us of the ability to be seen as a whole person. Although I value and cherish being trans, I hope I can show others that there is far more to who I am than an endless debate about bathrooms and pronouns. I am just an average teenager who wants to hang out with my friends in the evenings, walk the streets of downtown safely, or procrastinate on this week’s homework assignments. But instead of having the chance to be a regular kid, I had to fight for my rights, and that fight sadly isn’t over, even hundreds of miles away.
Trans youth, like everyone on this planet, are just trying to find our place in the world. We deserve better than to be made political pawns, and we deserve to live a life out of the public eye if we so choose. I should not have had to leave my state to lead a fulfilling life. And while I immensely appreciate American Teenager for telling part of my story and allowing others to see me as the multifaceted being that I am, no person should have to have a journalist follow them around so that others can understand their humanity. It should never have had to be this hard just to be me.
