When Texas Came for Our Kids

If we could go back to 2020, we would be shocked at lives of transgender children, who changed their names and birth certificates, played school sports, and got puberty blockers and hormone treatment freely and without comment in all 50 states. But in three short years it would all disappear. Without warning, over 1,000 bills would be introduced across half the country criminalizing nearly every facet of their lives virtually overnight. What happened? Evangelical Christian nationalists—enraged after string of devastating Supreme Court defeats—had pivoted from gay to transgender, investing hundreds of millions of dollars into remaking trans youth as the new face of the anti-gay culture war. And it worked, beginning in Texas, which enacted the nation’s first effective ban on treating transgender youth by redefining providing gender affirming medical care as felony child abuse, criminalizing loving parents, and sending scores of families fleeing across its borders in panic. This is the story of how that happened. Filled with exclusive new details and behind-the-scenes interviews, this book is the first in-depth account of how evangelical Christian nationalists and their Republican allies conceived, plotted, launched, and prosecuted the nationwide War on Transgender Youth.