Tell Me, David
Listen to queer stories — past and present. Produced by journalist and podcaster David Hunt, a regular contributor to This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine.
Tell Me, David
Family May Flee North Carolina to Protect Nonbinary Child
Meet Jimmy and Megan, a North Carolina couple who may be forced to move their family out of state to safeguard their nonbinary child's health. The Republican-dominated North Carolina legislature passed a series of laws targeting trans and nonbinary youth in 2023. One of those laws bans gender-affirming health care for children. Jimmy and Megan's middle child, who is nonbinary, may need puberty blockers in the next few years. With that option outlawed in North Carolina, the family is looking at other states, where gender-affirming care is protected. But moving means leaving behind friends and family members, a heartbreaking prospect for the family.
In an audio feature for This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine, Jimmy and Megan discuss their life in Raleigh, the new state laws targeting trans and nonbinary youth, and their efforts to help their child understand and express their gender.
David Hunt is an Emmy-winning journalist and documentary producer who has reported on America's culture wars since the 1970s. Explore his blog, Tell Me, David.
David Hunt
Welcome to Tell Me, David. Queer Stories past and present. This story originally aired on This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine.
It's a rainy November day in Raleigh, North Carolina, as I pull down a tree-lined residential street in the City of Oaks, stopping in front of a modest, split-level house with a brick facade. A typical family home in a family-friendly neighborhood not too far from an ice skating rink, a Korean barbecue restaurant and a trampoline park where kids can play dodgeball, climb the sky ladder, or explore something called the foam zone. It's a good place to raise kids as long as your kids meet the state's expectations for being a boy or a girl. If there are any questions, North Carolina has very fixed ideas about the answers to those questions.
I'm David Hunt. Republicans took control of both chambers of the North Carolina legislature in 2011, marking the first time in 140 years that the GOP had total control of the statehouse. Historically, North Carolina has been politically moderate, often electing Democrats to the governor's office and focusing on bipartisan efforts to attract the top companies in banking, computer technology and the life sciences. Any pretense of moderation ended April 5, 2023, when Representative Tricia Cotham, a Charlotte Democrat, switched parties, giving Republicans a veto-proof majority in both houses of the legislature. After that, it took the GOP just two weeks to enact measures targeting the rights of trans and gender-nonconforming youth. One law bans trans girls from competing in girls' sports, and another, the Parents' Bill of Rights, mandates that schools notify parents if their child changes their pronouns. The third measure outlaws gender-affirming health care for all children, making it a crime for doctors to prescribe puberty blockers or "change any anatomical features that are typical for an individual's biological sex." It's the reason for my visit to this Raleigh neighborhood, home to a married couple, Jimmy and Megan, and their three kids. To protect the family's privacy and, frankly, their safety, we agreed not to use their last name and to refer to the kids by their first initials: M, J and L. The kids were still in school when Jimmy met me at the front door, so the house was uncharacteristically quiet. I ditched my wet shoes in the entry, then joined Jimmy and Megan in the living room to learn about their family.
Jimmy
We're family of five. We have three kids, a ten-year-old and two seven-year-olds. Our oldest, our ten-year-old is a real book lover and a smart kid. Funny. And then our two younger kids are almost twins. J, our middle kid, is a couple of months older than their little brother who is adopted and who came to us as a baby. And so we've raised the two of them almost as twins, even though they're not quite twins.
David Hunt
It's a notable detail that both Jimmy and Megan emphasize when discussing their kids. The two seven-year-olds, J and L, are growing up together, but their gender expression is dramatically different. Megan explains.
Megan
L, our youngest, is such a gift in so many ways. But yeah, one of the things that having that dynamic brought to us is we had these two children two months apart. Two babies at the same time, two toddlers at the same time, who we raised and loved the exact same way. And our youngest, who's adopted is a stereotypical boy. He is wild, wide open, you know, wants to talk about anything roughhousing, just anything like that. Right? And then J, you know, by the time they were two and a half, three was saying, "I'm not a brother." That was the first thing they said.
Jimmy
When we found out that we were having what we believed, what we understood to be a boy because of their biology, I had a lot of a lot of expectations and a lot of ideas about what that was going to be like. I love dressing J in sporty clothes and just kind of thought of them as my little boy moving through the world with me.
David Hunt
The journey took an unexpected turn about the time J turned three.
Jimmy
If our oldest kid was coordinating some imaginative play that required the two younger kids to wear tutus, they were tutus. J really liked it more, and wanted to do it more frequently. And I think the pandemic, honestly, was really the thing that that made me see it as something deeper than just a child who likes to wear a boy, child who likes to wear dresses and stuff. And. But when the pandemic hit and we were all home all the time together, I started to see that there was something deeper in how J saw themselves and that they didn't feel comfortable with dressing as a boy, didn't feel comfortable with being called a boy.
Megan
Even just the two of them reading a book, reading the same book to the two of them when they were little and L, our boy and son, pointing to the male characters and identifying with them and J pointing to the feminine characters and identifying with them, you know, reading the same book. So it's I think it also honestly helped probably some of our family members not push so hard because they were watching that "experiment" play out. And it was pretty clear we're not pushing J in a certain direction. This is just unfolding. At two and a half, I remember it was around time we moved into this house, I was starting to just get inklings of this might be more than just wanting to wear dresses, which was fun. Little boys love to wear dresses if we let them. Most of them do. Dresses are fun. But I took J to their closet, and I'm always going through clothes, the children are always growing out of things. And I said, which things do you want to keep and what do you want to get rid of? We're going to go through your closet, which I do with all the kids. And J pulled out every single masculine piece of clothing and put it on a pile and said, these, I don't want these clothes anymore. And that was like, okay, that's pretty clear.
Jimmy
So there wasn't an aha moment, but it was it was that experience of being together all day, every day, and just seeing all of the little choices that that they'd make that wouldn't, wouldn't match, you know, their biological sex. And realizing that there was something really deep and different about that. I saw that I would be spending all day every day telling my kid, you're not who you think you are. You're not who you say you are. If I didn't accept what I was seeing for what it was.
David Hunt
You're listening to This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine. I'm David Hunt. Continuing my conversation with Jimmy and Megan, a North Carolina couple raising a nonbinary child in a state that has outlawed gender-affirming health care for minors. Even as a toddler, J, now seven, defied gender expectations. Jimmy and Megan are doing their best to support J, using the youngster's preferred pronouns, for example, and helping them understand the concept of gender.
Jimmy
They have initially talked about seeing themselves as a girl and wanting to use she/her pronouns. At this point and for quite a while they have said that they're nonbinary and that they use they/them pronouns. They definitely present in a femme way. This is a gender journey that is pointing toward a presentation that's that's very different from what their biology is. From my perspective, what we've done is, is to let J tell us who they are and show us who they are, and then we do whatever we can to help them be that person.
Megan
Thankfully, our family believes that we are good parents and that we are going to do what's best for our child. And they trust that even if they maybe don't understand this gender piece, they're willing to trust us. I think the hardest parts, so they've never directly pushed against that, but there's definitely been conversations where you could tell there was a sense of hope, that they were hoping that this would change and that this would be temporary.
Jimmy
J may end up in a place where they are nonbinary. They may end up in a place where they're fully transgender. To try and live as what society understands as a girl after going through male puberty is painful and it's damn near impossible. Things like puberty blockers, certainly, and possibly hormone replacement down the road, will be things that they need.
Megan
It just pauses things. It slows things down. It gives us more time. It gives them more time to grow, to make plans, to have discussions. And we really don't see any negative health side effects from this either. We're reading all the things and talking to all the experts. So what we do know is when trans and nonbinary kids don't get this care, when they need it and want it, the suicide rate is really high. Really high. And so it doesn't feel dramatic to me to feel like this is pretty life or death for our kid.
David Hunt
The state of North Carolina does not trust Jimmy and Megan to make the most important and personal decisions about their child's health care. In the words of one legislator, parents and doctors are "taking advantage of children for financial gain or other reasons."
Jimmy
I think citing logic behind those laws gives them too much credit. I think that they are expressions of ignorance and of fear. All of the language written into those bills is just backfilling rationale for bigotry.
Megan
To my mind, I think most people do not care or feel that way. Honestly, like in our personal experience, most people have been lovely to us and our family and been open to learning. But I think it's a way for them to create division and stir things up and and yeah, and we are one of the easiest targets, right? Such a minority of a minority. But we're real people who this is impacting greatly. I mean, we have a community here. Our children are thriving in a lot of ways, but it's not going to work for us. And we know that.
Jimmy
We're really strongly considering leaving the state and going somewhere where, you know, it's November 20 right now. There are still states where, you know, it's it's legal to have those therapies and hopefully it will remain so, You know, we'll see what happens with Trump. But yeah, we're thinking very hard about leaving. And that's really painful to me. I love North Carolina. I've lived here my whole life.
David Hunt
Fleeing North Carolina means uprooting their kids, tearing them away from the only home they've ever known, removing them from schools where they feel welcome, leaving behind people who love them: friends, grandparents, cousins, and other family. It's hard to think about.
Megan
I think the thing that boosts me or gives me hope is we've spoken with other families who have made these moves in very similar situations to us, and they tell us things like, "My kid has three other nonbinary kids in their class. My kid, half their school, the teachers are queer. There's rainbow flags everywhere." And so it's more than just the hormone blockers. It's not just that piece. It's like, how much are they going to see themselves and feel like they don't have to diminish themselves?
Jimmy
We want them all to grow up in places where they can flourish, where their own gifts and interests and abilities will determine where their lives take them, and not I"m a certain type of person, and the law won't let me be that type of person." I think we want to put them in places, in positions, where they can set their own course as much as possible and feel supported and safe and loved by us and by a community around them.
David Hunt
That used to be North Carolina. But those days are past. Seven anti-trans bills remain under consideration by the North Carolina legislature. I'd like to thank Jimmy and Megan for sharing their story. In Raleigh, North Carolina, for This Way Out, I'm David Hunt.
