Trans teen and their family flee Texas

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For LGBTQ psychological well being help, name the Trevor Project’s 24/7 toll-free help line at 866-488-7386. You can even attain a educated disaster counselor via the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

One morning in July, Heather Crawford cradled her baby Cass Crawford on the ground of their bed room as they breathed via a panic assault collectively. Half-packed packing containers surrounded them. The family was leaving the house that they had at all times recognized in Texas, scared for the security of their 16-year-old transgender teen.

On the bed room flooring, Heather requested Cass in the event that they considered hurting themselves.

Determining that Cass was not at excessive sufficient danger for self-harm to name an ambulance, Heather gave Cass a Klonopin prescribed for extreme panic assaults.

She remembered the word that Cass left behind final time life turned an excessive amount of.

“I just can’t take it anymore. Do not resuscitate me please,” Cass had written. “I want this.”

Heather learn the word aloud at a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Council assembly earlier this yr after Gov. Greg Abbott directed the company to open child abuse investigations on dad and mom who present gender-affirming care to their children. Cass identifies as nonbinary and makes use of the pronouns “they” or “them.” After their suicide try, they have been identified with extreme gender dysphoria and started receiving gender-affirming care. Currently, Abbott’s order largely can’t be enforced as a court challenge plays out.

But the directive adopted years of Texas officers and lawmakers repeatedly targeting transgender Texans with laws and orders which have sought to restrict all the pieces from school sports participation to well being care entry.

That’s why the Crawford family determined to maneuver out of Texas forward of one other legislative session. And that’s why Heather picked up Cass, gave them medicine for anxiousness assaults and solemnly continued packing up their life in Central Texas, the place Heather and her husband each grew up.

“We don’t feel safe here,” Heather mentioned. “It took me a long time to apply the term ‘political refugee’ to our situation, but I think we meet the definition.”

Before the family left, associates got here from so far as Houston and Dallas to say goodbye to Cass and want them effectively with their new life in Minnesota, 1,200 miles away.

Cass tried exhausting to make connections at their new college in St. Paul. But it’s tiring, they mentioned, and awkward to elucidate to new individuals they meet. They’re nonetheless unhappy about what occurred, and for the spring semester, the family has determined to maintain Cass house and enroll them in a web-based highschool.

“What I would want people to take away from this,” mentioned Cass from their new house in Minnesota, “is how much this is hurting me.”