The disagreement between Elon Musk (left) and California Governor Gavin Newsom regarding LGBT+ issues has caused the tech billionaire to move SpaceX and X headquarters out of California.
In this share, Wyatt Williams - a young LGBTQ+ person in the US describes how transgender teenagers like him are struggling.
Williams' story is shared in journalist Nico Lang's book, American Teenager .
"I am one of many transgender teens forced to leave their home state because of anti-transgender legislation, giving up everything I know to live the life that fits me," he said.
Williams' story, which he describes as full of ups and downs, will be told in the upcoming book, American Teenager , written by LGBTQ+ journalist Nico Lang. An article about the book was published in Teen Vogue.
Through the pages of Lang's book, Williams says he came out to his parents at age 10 in a hastily handwritten letter left on his mother's dressing table, fearful of what might happen.
"The letter said I was a boy and that I needed support in dealing with the thoughts and feelings I had had all my life. My words expressed a desperate need for help, that I could no longer live as the gender I was assigned at birth," Williams told Lang.
Williams had never even heard the word “transgender” when he confessed his feelings to his parents. A few months before the letter, then-South Dakota governor Dennis Daugaard had vetoed a proposed bill that would have banned him from using the boys’ bathroom at school.
This happened in March 2016, before North Carolina passed the nation's first transgender ban, little did he know that this would mark the beginning of a long line of bills affecting transgender youth in multiple states.
What convinced Daugaard to veto the state bill, Daugaard said, was hearing the personal stories of transgender people who would be hurt if the bill were passed into law.
“I just hope that sharing my story can impact someone else,” Willams said.
As anti-transgender bills began to spread across the United States, Williams took the time to share with adults about herself, in an effort to combat the notion that transgender youth were a problem that needed to be solved.
All the most important people in his life loved and accepted him for who he was. His mother, Susan, founded the South Dakota transgender advocacy group, Transformation Project, a year after he came out.
His mother, the daughter of a pastor, had never met a transgender person before he told her she had a son who was different, but it was hard for people who didn't even know him, he just wanted them to understand that he wasn't hurting anyone by just being himself.
It's been two years since Willams' story was chronicled in American Teenager , and he's now left South Dakota and is attending college in another state, despite his strong desire to stay in his home state and pursue transgender adulthood there.
Williams said he finds himself missing home, missing South Dakota, though he understands that living somewhere else would place less emphasis on "a small aspect of my identity."
"Transgender teens, like everyone else, are just trying to find their place. We deserve to live out our lives if we want to. It should never be this hard just to be yourself," Williams said.
In the United States, there is no federal law against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, but at least twenty-two states and many large cities have enacted laws prohibiting it.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nguoi-chuyen-gioi-tre-o-my-ke-ve-nhung-tro-ngai-dang-gap-phai-20241010111206159.htm
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