Just a few days before Mother’s Day, moms of transgender children are demanding that lawmakers take a break from the anti-LGBT legislation sweeping conservative states—and simply meet their kids.
The language in such “bathroom bill” laws—and the rhetoric spewed to justify them—seems so at odds with the realities of the transgender community that it’s left many to wonder whether GOP lawmakers actually know any trans people.
The nation’s first transgender campaign lobby, Trans United Fund, introduced its first major publicity effort on Thursday to help introduce lawmakers to the transgender children and teens who will be most affected by their legislation.
In a video titled “Meet My Child,” mothers of transgender kids play, prepare breakfast, and talk about the moment when they decided to support their child’s transition.
The video features three moms from different backgrounds, each expressing the same kinds of worries and concerns all moms have for their kids—except theirs are a little more intense, given the unique legislative attacks currently targeting their children.
“The story of a mother’s love, dreams, and hopes for her children, and fierce commitment to protect them, is something that all Americans understand,” said Trans United Fund board chair Hayden Mora in a statement emailed to the Daily Dot.
One of the moms featured in the video, Rockville, Maryland, resident Zoila Fajardo, shared her anger regarding a Ted Cruz attack ad about trans people in bathrooms. She called the ad, released the same day as a vigil for a Washington, D.C., trans woman who was beaten to death, “ridiculous” and “profoundly dangerous.”
“I expect politicians to take my little girl’s life seriously, and to be working to make her safer, not in greater danger,” said Fajardo in a statement emailed to the Daily Dot.
Trans United Fund launched in early April as a nonprofit organization that aims to lobby for trans rights through campaign endorsements and legislative scorecards. But soon, the board plans to add the first-ever transgender PAC—bent on directly funding trans and allied political candidates.
For the “Meet My Child” video, the fund collaborated with Sundance award-winning director Melissa Regan, whose documentary No Dumb Questions followed a trans woman’s three young nieces as they worked through understanding their former uncle’s transition into an aunt.
“Trans United Fund was founded on the conviction that nothing is more transformative than trans people and our families sharing their lives authentically,” said Mora. “For too long, the voices of bullies who play to the public’s worst fears and demonize our community have been the loudest.”
