From a Trans Elder to Nonbinary and Trans Youth: We Got You

On June 18, 2025, the United States Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth, a decision that sends a chilling message to thousands of young people across the country: your existence, your wellbeing, and your autonomy are negotiable. In a 6-3 ruling, the court sided with a state law that prohibits access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors, even while allowing the same treatments for other medical purposes.

The decision doesn’t just set a legal precedent—it sets a tone. One that tells trans youth their lives can be debated in courtrooms, their care withheld for political gain. For many, this isn’t just about policy. It’s about getting through the hardest years of our lives. It’s about survival.

As an older transgender woman who came out long after puberty, I want to say this directly to the young people who are watching this unfold in fear, confusion, or despair: we see you, we care about you, and we know what it’s like to be told to wait, to hide, to suffer in silence.

And I want you to know this too: You will survive this. We did. And we’re here—fighting, grieving, surviving, and sometimes even thriving—because we made it through that same silence you’re being asked to endure now.

What It Was Like to Hide

I didn’t grow up with the word transgender. I didn’t grow up with representation, or access to affirming healthcare, or communities that would have embraced the truth of who I was. I grew up knowing—without anyone having to say it—that being who I was would make me a target. That visibility could mean violence. That disclosure might mean abandonment. So, I did what so many of us did: I hid.

I learned how to keep quiet about the deep ache inside me. I learned how to read a room before I ever read a book about gender. I made myself smaller to stay safe. I tried to succeed, to please, to get by, to survive—because for people like us, survival was not a given.

What I didn’t understand at the time was that it wasn’t just the lack of gender-affirming care that harmed me. It was the isolation. The sense that no one else knew this feeling. That no one could hold what I was carrying.

What Helped Me Stay

Even in the darkest moments, something small always reached me. A glimmer of possibility. A whisper in the gut that maybe one day I could live in alignment with myself. I found solace in art, in music, in nature. In the quiet safety of notebook sketches and poems. In the rare, sacred moments when someone saw me, not because I told them who I was, but because they knew how to look beyond the surface.

Later, I met others who had also hidden. Others who, like me, had transitioned later in life. The first time I stood in a room full of trans adults, I felt grief and awe in equal measure. So many of us had learned how to survive by becoming invisible. But there we were—laughing, crying, thriving. Proof that survival was possible. Proof that I was never truly alone.

We Got You

To every young person reading this: this ruling is cruel, and it is wrong. It is unjust. It is devastating. And still—I need you to hear me say this: this is not the end of your story.

If you’re scared right now, I get it. If you’re angry, numb, exhausted—I get that too. If you’re wondering how you’ll get through this, you are not alone in that question.

I made it through. Not because I was stronger than you, but because I found something worth holding on for. Because others before me lit a path I couldn’t yet see. Because—even in a world that didn’t want me to exist—there were people who did.

You deserve care. You deserve to be loved as you are. You deserve a future. And I’m here to say: you have one.

There are adults who will fight for you. There are trans elders who understand. And there is a future where this moment is not the whole story—where care is possible, where community surrounds you, and where the weight you’re carrying now can finally be put down.

This Isn’t the End of the Story

We are fighting in ways you may not see yet. Trans-led clinics are forming. Mutual aid networks are growing. Legal battles are underway. Parents, providers, organizers, and trans adults are not giving up—we are building what you deserve, even when the system tries to tear it down.

This is a loss. It is tragic. And it is not everything. We will continue to resist, to create, to survive—not out of obligation, but out of love. For you. For ourselves. For the ones who are still finding their way.

You may not feel safe today. But there are people—real people—working to make sure you will.

You Are Not Alone

This ruling may tell you that your care is a threat. But I promise you: you are a gift.

You are not a problem to be solved. You are not a mistake. You are not too much or too early or too complicated. You are a human being, worthy of care, love, and joy.

I wish I could tell you the United States and the United Kingdom will catch up quickly. I can’t. But I can tell you that you will find others. You will find yourself. You will become. You will belong.

Hold on. Please hold on.

We are still here.

We got you.