Red state, blue state: Part 1

To leave or not to leave, that is the question

One state, Two states, Red state, Blue state
This one has a little car.
This one has a little star.
Say! What a lot of states there are.
Yes. Some are red, and some are blue.
Some are old and some are new.
Some are sad, and some are glad,
And some are very, very bad.

—Modified from Dr. Seuss

Notes:
1) I ran this past Griffin, and have his approval to use his name and his story.
2)This is the first installment of a two-part essay about state politics and leaving academia.

When I turned 50, my then 11-year old gave me two presents. The first one I no longer remember. The second one I will never forget. It was a small note, folded over and over into a tiny square. In it, Griffin explained that he identified as a trans boy, and wanted to change his name and his pronouns. I wasn’t totally surprised, but it was a still a shock. The most devastating part was how he signed it: “Your happy kiddo”. This amazing young person understood just how desperately his parents love him and want him to thrive. We have been trying to live up to that salutation ever since.

To leave?

When asked why I resigned my faculty position, I usually say “it’s complicated”; “there are a lot of reasons”, or “how much time do you have?” And one of the many, many complicated reasons I quit was to get my trans son out of the state of Missouri.

For a while after Griffin shared his note with me, my husband and I attended meetings of the local chapter of TransParent, held in a room at STL Children’s Hospital. The kids would do crafts or play supervised games in a room nearby. It was there that I heard about the bills coming up in Missouri state government. Parents in the group were actively testifying before the state senate, trying to humanize the issue of transgender affirming care for kids, and they were unbelievably worn out. We all shared a sense of futility. Not just that we couldn’t change what was happening to our own children—that was their business, anyway—but also, we couldn’t change how our state representatives would respond.

And it got ugly, fast. A former caseworker claimed that the Washington University Transgender Center at Children’s was not operating carefully enough. No matter that these claims remain unsubstantiated (see the CBS News Report here) and an internal review found no issues. The Missouri attorney general is currently conducting an external review, and issued a legally and medically questionable emergency rule to restrict access to gender-affirming care for both minors and adults. The Missouri State legislature just passed a bill that outlaws gender-affirming care for minors and restricts participation by transgender athletes in sports. The same thing has been happening in many other states, too many to summarize here, but Erin in the Morning is an excellent aggregator of this kind of information:

May Anti-Trans Legislative Risk Map

As a midwesterner for 15 years, I used to bristle at the typical coastal disparagement of Missouri life. We lived easily and well there, surrounded by parks, free museums, and a fantastic food scene. (And normal avenues for capitalism: I remember my own ignorant amazement that there was an REI and Trader Joe’s in St. Louis!) Every state is purple, some more blueish, some more reddish. But that’s at the level of people, not at the level of state government. Anti-trans legislation will affect everyone in a state, whether they live in a blue bubble or not.

So, (and after considering a lot of other factors), we moved to Oregon at the start of 2023. Now Griffin has access to gender-affirming care that is respectful and normalized. He sees supportive restrooms, signs, and accepting people everywhere he goes. And he knows that his parents think those things are important.

Or not to leave?

Since we moved, many have said to me that you have to do what is right for your kid, and I’ve certainly gotten a lot of approval from Portlanders for our decision. But this is what keeps me up at night: I know moving was the right choice for Griffin. But was it the right choice for society?

If we’d stayed in Missouri, we could have helped strengthen the TransParent community, maybe testified ourselves in Jefferson City. We lived in a big city, after all, and he went to school in a pretty liberal public school district—there were no issues changing names or pronouns in 6th grade. And there’s no guarantee that he will stay protected in Oregon. A bill designed to protect gender affirming care and abortion rights passed the Oregon senate but is held up in the House as Republicans stage a boycott, even at the potential cost of their own careers. (So, again, every state is purple).

That is the question

This all reminds me of another debate that surfaced earlier in Griffin’s life: the ethics of moving to a “better” school district. Sure, you (might) give your kid individually a leg up. But you take numbers and taxes and support away from the schools that you left. The question is: when do you prioritize your kid and when do you prioritize the welfare of other people’s kids? (for more on this, see this piece in the NYT or this episode of This American Life, both by Nikole Hannah-Jones).

Should we do things that we deem best for our family, even if our actions have, even indirectly, a negative effect overall? We did, but I don’t know if it was right. I’ll be agonizing about this for a long time, I’m sure. I’m also thinking a lot about scholars who make the opposite decision and choose to stay in red states. More about these folks, and how we can support them, next week in Part 2.