On the third episode of “The Threat of Project 2025,” Jen Psaki speaks with the ACLU’s Deputy Director for Transgender Justice, Chase Strangio, to discuss Project 2025’s specific language against LGBTQ+ people and how its policies aim to criminalize trans existence. Then, a look at the real-life consequences for trans people and their families who have been displaced due to restrictive bans on gender-affirming care as Jen speaks to Debi Jackson, a mom who’s been fighting for the safety of her child.
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Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
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Jen Psaki: Hi, I’m Jen Psaki. And this is the third episode of our special, How to Win series, The Threat of Project 2025.” On this episode, we’ll explore the threat of Project 2025 on LGBTQ+ Rights.
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Kelley Robinson: The ways that they’re defining heterosexuality and the ideal family unit, they are actually trying to put provisions into place to control us in our decisions.
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Jen Psaki: This is Kelley Robinson, head of the Human Rights Campaign.
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Kelley Robinson: Everything that we enjoy today is our normal way of being, right, from being able to go to work, to raise your kids in the way that you choose, to have a partner that you decide and pick, all of that they’re saying they want the government to control it. This is a dangerous, dangerous document that’s laying out exactly what they plan to do.
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Jen Psaki: On the first two episodes of the series, we looked at the Project 2025 playbook for criminalizing abortions and the threats to our public education system. But this plan also proposes significant risks to the rights of minority groups, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, especially those who are trans.
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Unknown: Some of the policies they propose include rescinding regulations, prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics, rescinding Biden era Title IX protections to LGBTQ+ students and eliminating transgender healthcare in Medicare and Medicaid.
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Jen Psaki: And for all of the efforts by Trump to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025, he sounds an awful lot like the team at the think tank that wrote the Project 2025 plan. Here’s Trump just last year.
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Donald Trump: We will promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers and celebrating rather than erasing the things that make men and women different and unique.
I will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth. No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender, a concept that was never heard of in all of human history, nobody’s ever heard of this what’s happening today.
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Jen Psaki: And in recent weeks, he’s doubled down on these views in his attacks against his political opponents.
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Donald Trump: Kamala’s record is horrible. She’s a radical left person at a level that nobody’s seen. She picked a radical left man that is, he has positions that are just not, it’s not even possible to believe that they exist. He’s going for things that nobody’s ever even heard of. Heavy into the transgender world, heavy into lots of different worlds having to do with safety.
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Jen Psaki: So, no surprise Trump is pretty aligned. Here’s the other thing, this rhetoric isn’t new and the threat to gay and trans rights has always been there. So there is a model at the state level of what could happen if these restrictive laws are implemented on the federal level.
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Unknown: Families and doctors are now suing the state of Alabama after the governor signed a bill criminalizing transgender healthcare for minors. The law would make providing that care a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed four bills that took aim at the transgender community, drag performances and discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom.
Unknown: Representative Brad Hudson says the Missouri SAFE Act would make it illegal for healthcare providers to prescribe hormone treatments and puberty blockers to kids under the age of 18. Hudson called the transition methods experimental and wrong.
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Jen Psaki: So, if gay and trans lives already at risk, what else could Project 2025 mean for LGBTQ+ rights? I’ll be speaking with ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio to walk us through the specific language that aims to criminalize trans existence. And then we’ll hear from Debi Jackson, a mom who’s been fighting for the safety of her child who is trans. That’s all coming up, so stay tuned.
Chase Strangio is the Deputy Director for Transgender Justice at the ACLU. We sat down to talk about the explicit and implicit anti-trans language embedded throughout Project 2025.
Chase, thank you so much for taking the time. I have been reading a lot of the Project 2025 900-page documents, and I keep coming across aspects of it that are more and more alarming. And I think the best thing we can all do is inform people out there about what exactly is in here. So let me just start off.
I mean, one of the broad ways people have explained, and I think I’ve done this too, Project 2025, is that it’s a large overhauling plan to roll back the clock. And there’s lots of meanings to that, but I wanted to ask you specifically about LGBTQ+ protections and rights. Where does this plan roll the clock back to if you can even put a timeline on it?
Chase Strangio: Yeah, well, so first, I, you know, I’m sorry that you have been reading the 900-page, you know, mandate.
Jen Psaki: It’s motivating, Chase.
Chase Strangio: Yes, it’s motivating. It’s both motivating and horrifying, but I do think it is so alarming and so much part of a vision of government that’s already manifest in this country in state legislatures and efforts to change the federal government. And so contending with it is critical regardless of what happens in this election. But particularly because if Donald Trump is elected, this is the plan.
And it is hard to think about, well, where does it roll it back to? Because it is such a fundamental assault on everything we understand to be true about government in the United States, that it’s hard to identify discrete structural moments in which the version of government that it envisions was manifest here in the United States.
So in that sense, I would say there is no analog anywhere in history to what it envisions. So then we have to look at what is it anticipating? And then with respect to LGBTQ people, it is catastrophic as it is for so many communities. And I would say it is in sort of two central ways.
One is that it takes away every discrete legal protection that LGBTQ people have fought for over the past many decades. That those protections that were so hard fought, whether it’s the right to marriage equality, the right to have employment, education, healthcare protections recognized under federal law, the ability to serve openly in the military, all of those things go away. So there’s that discrete rolling back of legal protection.
And then almost more concerningly, there is this sort of atmospheric assault on LGBTQ identity and particularly trans identity. That is really a central theme in the document. And sometimes it’s referred to as gender ideology and sometimes it’s referred to as pornography, but it’s the situating of LGBTQ people and trans people in particular as almost inherently pornographic and as a threat to children.
And the document is fixated on pornography. It’s sort of thematically obsessed, and then talking about the criminalization of pornography and purveyors of pornography, but we’re not talking about pornography in the way that many of us might think of pornography. It’s literally referring to LGBTQ people as pornographic.
Jen Psaki: And I want to dive into that because I think it takes you a couple readings of it to really understand what the document is trying to do as it relates to pornography. This is on the first page for those who haven’t read it. Look at America under the ruling and cultural elite today, children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.
There is so much to unpack there, but that is on the very first page, but let’s talk about the pornography piece because, you know, again, for those who are listening, who don’t know about this, Project 2025 is specifically called for pornography to your point, to be outlawed saying that quote, “the people who produce and distributed should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be class as registered sex offenders, and telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”
But there’s also a catch, to your point, which is their definition of pornography. In this document, it defines this as quote, “manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children.” So just like, this is my reading of it. The document is basically saying that people who distribute it should be imprisoned, educators who purvey it should be registered as sex offenders. And I guess my question to you is like, is it fair to interpret this as saying a trans person simply existing around a child should be either imprisoned or registered as a sex offender? I don’t want be too extreme here, but you’ve thought about this a lot.
Chase Strangio: Yeah. I mean, that is my read of it. And in fact, it is in some ways the logical extension of what we’re seeing. You know, we’re seeing the groundwork for this being laid right now, both in policy and in rhetoric. You know, if you look at the, Don’t Say Gay laws manifest to their extreme, they are saying in those laws that you should not talk about LGBTQ existence in front of children.
And so the idea that they are sort of metabolizing across the country is that LGBTQ existence is harmful to children. And this isn’t new. This is Anita Bryant on steroids in social media climate. These communities are then cast as inherently predatory. And then once that becomes part of the discourse, it allows for the expansion of government to control us. And that’s what this is saying. It’s right there on page literal one.
Jen Psaki: Let’s go back to this Anita Bryant reference. ‘Cause I’ve heard you talk about this before, but for anybody who’s not sure entirely what that is. Talk to us a little bit more about the Anita Bryant reference.
Chase Strangio: Yeah. So Anita Bryant is sort of the early manifestations of this Christian right campaign. And she in Florida had a Save Our Children campaign in the 1970s. And it was very focused on gay people being teachers.
This idea that gayness proximate to children is an assault, not just on children, but on society and the social order. And that had a huge impact because that rhetoric around gay people being harmful to children led to in Florida, the ban on gay people adopting children, which then was central to the many justifications for restricting same sex couples from marriage.
And so you see these rhetorical campaigns that start out as fringe, as Anita Bryant did and become increasingly mainstream leading, not just to these cultural understandings and realities, but these legal ones. Because we ended up in a world in the 1980s and 1990s and early two thousands where gay people were systematically attacked and excluded from institutions that allowed us to care for and protect our children.
And so if you think about now, what this means for me as a trans-parent, I have a child, what does it mean to say that I can’t be around children? What does that say to my child? What does that say to me? And what does that say to everyone that we interface with? And that is then the cultural framework that allows for those legal assaults on our communities. And that allows for Florida laws like we’re seeing now, which says that trans teachers can’t announce their pronouns in the classroom. That’s somehow an assault on the children. That’s the same as Anita Bryant saying gay people can’t be in the classroom with children.
Jen Psaki: There’s so many parallels to your point. It’s so important for people to understand too. It’s not brand new, but the Save Our Children campaign sounds good. Right? There’s a similarity here. Children shouldn’t have access to pornography.
Chase Strangio: Yeah.
Jen Psaki: I mean, you know, that sounds rational. It’s then when you dig into the details of it is what it becomes alarming, discriminatory so bad for families, children, and entire communities. You mentioned being trans and also a parent yourself. And I think part of what happens in society is people are scared of what they don’t know. Right. It feels different. And people act in fearful ways about things they don’t know. Tell me a little bit about yourself and your life every day as a parent. What’s your life like every day?
Chase Strangio: There’s so much in the world that is out of our control and our children are, in so many fundamental ways, who they are. And this idea that we are imposing queerness and transness on our children in a society that makes it quite clear that it prefers you to be cisgender and heterosexual.
And this idea that we as queer and trans parents have this ability to override all of that just by existing is completely absurd. You know, I’m always stunned by the fact that people are so fixated on what other people are doing with their lives when it’s, you know, parenting is hard.
Jen Psaki: No kidding.
Chase Strangio: You know, I wake up every day and I want to do right by my kid. I want to make sure that they feel loved, cared for supported.
And this idea that my transness is A, compromising my child, or B, wholly destabilizing a very unstable society is just ridiculous to me.
Jen Psaki: Or impacting someone else.
Chase Strangio: Else. Yeah.
Jen Psaki: This is a bottom line. Why do you care? Why do people who are so hateful care? I mean, what I’m getting at too here is look, I had a battle this morning with my kids about breakfast and what shoes they were going to wear to camp. Did you have similar battles this morning? I bet you, you may have, right?
Chase Strangio: Yeah. And it’s like, oh, my God, if your children are fed and wearing clothes out the door, I feel like, can we just celebrate that success and leave other people alone?
Jen Psaki: I think your personal story and your passion for this is so important for people to also understand. And, but you are also such an expert that I just want to go back and kind of dive into some key components of this to help people understand. I wanted to ask you about some of the legal cases that are referenced in here, and you’ve worked on some of them. Bostock versus Clayton County, Georgia. Let’s talk about that one. What did that case establish and what are they hoping in Project 2025 to change?
Chase Strangio: Yeah. So let’s just get right down to what Bostock was about. Three employees, two were gay, one was trans were fired from their jobs because they were gay and trans. That was the legal question. And the single question before the United States Supreme Court is, was it lawful under the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in employment to fire someone just because they’re trans or just because they’re gay.
And the Supreme Court said that federal employment law that prohibits sex discrimination includes discrimination against LGBTQ people. That being gay or being trans and being discriminated against on that basis is a form of sex discrimination. And it was a very logical conclusion. It was a six, three opinion. In essence saying, if you are firing someone because they are gay, that is because they have an attraction to someone of the same sex, that is because of sex. There’s no other way to look at it. If you are firing someone because they are trans, it is because they are coming into work in a way that you don’t think aligns with their sex at birth. That is because of sex. End of story. Very simple.
So that decision was decided in 2020, and then under the Biden administration, I think quite logically and rightfully interpreted other federal laws that prohibit sex discrimination to also protect LGBTQ people. So that includes Title IX, protection from discrimination and education. That includes the Affordable Care Act in healthcare. That includes the Fair Housing Act in housing. These are just basic parts of society where, you know, I think generally when people step back and think about it, we think we should not be discriminated against just because of who we are in these parts of our life.
This document says absolutely not. They want to erode all of those protections that were just confirmed in 2020, and they’re attacking each regulatory and sub regulatory decision by the Biden administration to ensure that LGBTQ people are protected. And that will be a day one Trump administration action to get rid of every single federal interpretation of law that protects LGBTQ people. You better believe it that’s happening right away first hundred days.
Jen Psaki: It’s sometimes hard to envision and understand what the impact of these flips, as you said, at the first hundred days, if they roll back these laws, what does it mean? But we have seen some states that give us a sense, right? Where as much as the Biden administration has tried to protect against discrimination, there are some states that have done the opposite and some laws that are in place are kind of a roadmap for what this would be like. Are there some that are most glaring to you or that you think people should really be aware of in terms of what this could look like if these protections are rolled back?
Chase Strangio: Absolutely. I mean, I think this is all familiar because we’ve seen it in the states. We’ve seen it in Idaho, in Texas, in Florida, in Missouri. Twenty-five states banned medical care for trans adolescents and ban trans girls from women’s and girls sports. So we see the blueprint, we have increasing number of states across the country that restrict access to restrooms in schools for trans students. We have schools that are allowing teachers to misgender trans students in schools.
We have laws like the so-called Don’t Say LGBTQ, or Don’t Say Gay laws that restrict discussion of LGBTQ people in the classroom, increasing censorship in libraries of books that simply mention LGBTQ people. And of course they’re being pushed in the states by the Heritage Foundation, by Alliance Defending Freedom, by America First Legal, Stephen Miller’s organization. And guess who are the architects of Project 2025, those same organizations that have been using highly gerrymandered state legislatures to push and enact these policies, have them implemented by governors like Greg Abbott, like DeSantis. And then we see the impact.
Jen Psaki: I mean, one of the things that Trump has obviously been trying to do is back away from Project 2025, but there’s a ton of overlap between his policies, what he’s proposed, what he is advocated for and everything in this document. So if we look at LGBTQ+ rights and the restrictions proposed in here, how does it overlap with what Trump has proposed and what his administration and people around him are talking about wanting to do?
Chase Strangio: Yeah. I mean, obviously the incoherence of Trump does make it hard to pinpoint a particular, you know, policy that he’s proposing, but rhetorically. I mean, you know, when he is talking about Tim Walz, for example, it’s, you know, he’s deep in the transgender world.
Well, of course what he’s talking about is he’s conflating legal protections for people with an ideology. And it’s all coming from the rhetoric from Project 2025, that is Heritage Foundation rhetoric. And he picked J.D. Vance as his running mate, who could be more closely aligned with these policies and with this Christian nationalist version of society, in which women have a singular role as bearers of children and caretakers of children and post —
Jen Psaki: And grandmas too.
Chase Strangio: And grandmothers, yes. And postmenopausal women, —
Jen Psaki: Don’t forget.
Chase Strangio: — as we know. The assault on trans existence is central actually to this notion of how they understand the gender binary more generally and how they understand the role of cisgender women. And they are envisioning very much a society in which the role of women is as caretaker, as subservient to the husband.
The child is cat lady is as much a threat as the trans person, because both are an assault to this vision of the heterosexual nuclear family. And so, what transness becomes is an existential threat to that model, but ultimately what they want to impose on society is a model that has hugely detrimental effects for cisgender heterosexual women.
Jen Psaki: As we’ve discussed, there’s not a specific section necessarily in the Project 2025 document about LGBTQ rights, but the restrictions proposed, they kind of run through it, there a thematic backdrop. But there are some references including on page 284, this is what it says about HHS. The HHS secretary should pursue a robust agenda to protect the fundamental right to life, protect conscience rights and uphold bodily integrity, rooted in biological realities, not ideology. What exactly does that mean? And what are its implications on trans people and their healthcare?
Chase Strangio: So, first of all, just this idea that there’s this binary between a biological reality and an ideology is very central to this Christian right project, it conflates transness with an ideology. This idea that to be trans is ideological at its core. What they’re saying here is that they want to create the mechanisms to restrict access to medical care for transgender people. And they propose that in some concrete ways.
So for example, in the document, they talk about rolling back the 1557 regulations. So the Affordable Care Act has a prohibition on sex discrimination that under the Biden administration and previously under the Obama administration have been interpreted to protect LGBTQ people and trans people in particular from discrimination and healthcare, including and accessing gender affirming healthcare. So it very directly takes, you know, an assault on that as they’ve already done through litigation over the last eight years.
But nonetheless, it sort of says explicitly, we’re absolutely not going to have healthcare protections for LGBTQ people. And of course, everyone thinks that means access to gender affirming care, but that also just means straight up being protected from discrimination when you go to the emergency room. And as a trans person, you are worried about that at all times.
Jen Psaki: As in you go to the emergency room and what happens, if you’re allowed to be discriminated against an emergency room, what could happen to someone.
Chase Strangio: I’ll tell a story of someone I know, which is that he, a trans man had an ovarian cyst, you know, he had his ovaries, but you know, he was someone who was very much perceived and read as a cis man. He was having an acute episode, a crisis, went to the emergency room in Texas. And when the doctor realized that he was trans, you know what they considered to be a man with ovaries, they would not see him. They said, absolutely not. They were disgusted by his existence and would not treat him.
And this is not uncommon. And our healthcare protections from discrimination are needed to protect against being turned away from emergency services. So of course, access to gender affirming medical care is critical, but so is also access to non-discriminatory healthcare that we need in all aspects of our lives, whether it’s going to see your primary care physician about any number of things, going to the emergency room when you’re in crisis.
Jen Psaki: And also, there’s massive mental health connections between kids who are trans and I mean, teenagers and adults too, to seek the medical care that they need and warrant. There’s lots of studies and mental health and suicide rates. There’s the other side of this, right? Which is that when people are prevented from living the life of who they are, and nobody talks about that on the right.
Chase Strangio: Yeah, no, I think this is so important. I really appreciate you bringing it up. Because we end up having this discourse in society and really across the political spectrum that talks about, you know, this idea that there’s all these risks attendant to medical care related to gender transition. And those risks are gravely overstated. And of course, risk is part of all medical care, but the benefits are so substantial.
And I work with families all the time across the country who had no idea what it meant to be transgender, who had a trans child who, I mean, they could not have been further from the vision of someone who was just so excited to have a trans child, but worked through watching their child suffer and suffer. And then the benefit of this care is that their child comes back. And any parent should just really relate to this idea. When your kid is suffering, you are suffering. You want to understand desperately what is going on? Who do I talk to? And you find a medical expert and you find research and you figure out that, wow, maybe there is something I can do for my child. Hard and confusing as that might be. And then these parents finally get there. Their children are finally thriving. And what happens? The state comes in and says, no.
Jen Psaki: You can’t help your child.
Chase Strangio: You can’t help your child. That’s what they’re saying to these families. And that’s what this document contemplates.
Jen Psaki: So Chase, we’re also going to be talking with Debi Jackson, who is, of course the mother of Avery, and well known, I think among people who have followed this fight. But I know you work with a lot of families and I know you know Debi and Avery too. So tell me a little bit about what these families are going through and what the kind of day-to-day challenges are like when you’re living in states where these restrictions are being put in place or are already in place.
Chase Strangio: I will say first as a trans adult, all I wanted from my advocacy was for life to be better for trans young people than it was for me. And as we started to see that as people were able to access medical care that allowed them to live fuller and freer adolescents, that was so liberating and beautiful. And then what do we see? But this just unbelievably aggressive backlash from all parts of government. And the consequences of that, our families are forced to go from helping their children, watching them thrive to being in utter dire straits, where you are at risk of losing the medical care that has enabled your child to fight back against anxiety, depression, suicidality, and live as themselves. Something that we should all get to do.
And then to have families be pushed out of their homes, and Debi’s experience is so devastating. And it is something that is being experienced across the country, where families are uprooting their lives, leaving their extended families, leaving their communities because they have to leave and find places to live where they can safely access medical care for their children, where their children can go to school without being surveilled and punished and kicked out of sports teams and bathrooms.
And I just, I do hope over time that there can be just a little more empathy, this idea that these are just kids trying to live and parents trying to take care of their kids as we are all trying to do. And the crisis that they’re experiencing, not everyone has the means to uproot their families.
Jen Psaki: No.
Chase Strangio: And so lots of people are selling everything they own leaving behind everything they have. I mean, it is truly an internal displacement within our country and sometimes outside of it. I know and I can relate to the idea that you will do everything you possibly can for your child, but nobody should have to do this. And no child should have to experience this. And bless all these parents who are doing whatever they can, but nobody should have to do this.
Jen Psaki: Up next, we’ll hear what this displacement was like for the family Chase is talking about. Back in a moment.
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Jen Psaki: Welcome back. As Chase Strangio mentioned the ongoing attacks on LGBTQ+ rights has led to an internal displacement as parents seek protections for their own children. And under any new policies modeled after Project 2025, it might get even harder to find safe havens.
Debi Jackson was already having to fight for her child. She was living in Kansas City when anti-trans laws passed in Missouri and Kansas led her to uproot her family and seek a safer place to raise her child, Avery, who is trans. It was a brave choice, but as Debi puts it, they never saw themselves as more than a regular family.
Debi Jackson: I originally came from the Deep South. I’m from a conservative Southern Baptist family. I was an Army brat. So, I grew up in that very conservative environment. And I don’t think my family is anything special. It’s always so hard to try to describe my family. We’re just your average American family Midwestern values. There’s really nothing that’s spectacular about us, except the fact that we have a transgender child. And didn’t know anything about trans people and their trans experience until this magical creature came into our lives.
Jen Psaki: Well, let’s talk about the magical creature the you’re mentioning. So let’s talk a little bit about Avery and their story. I mean, first of all, what kind of a kid was Avery growing up?
Debi Jackson: Yes, Avery was precocious. That’s the word that I’ve learned is the most polite.
Jen Psaki: That’s a good one.
Debi Jackson: Yeah. And brilliant, funny, laughed all the time. Just a super fun, happy kid.
Jen Psaki: Tell me a little bit about what it’s been like to be a parent of a trans child and sort of what that journey has been like for you since Avery was young, right? Three or four years old, I think you’ve said.
Debi Jackson: Yes, Avery’s social transition began at the age of four and they’ve just turned 17 this year. I mean, the easiest thing to say is we had a parenting challenge and every parent has a challenge with their child. You just don’t know what it’s going to be, but it’s with something that did not have the answers and didn’t have an instruction manual. We had to figure it out as we went along.
So, around the age of three, instead of that happy, bubbly precocious kid, we had a kid who started to get a little angry and act out. And around the same time we see Avery wanting to do things like play dress up in girl clothes, not boy clothes, and kind of take on the persona of girl cartoon characters, not boy cartoon characters.
But again, I didn’t know anything about gender identity. I had never given it a lot of thought, but instead that play time and imagination coincided with the mood swings and the darkness. And then there were questions about dying and hurting themself and all of that kind of culminated after several months of Avery saying very directly, you think that I’m a boy, but I’m a girl on the inside.
And that moment changed everything. We talked to our pediatrician and our pediatrician said, yeah, this seems much more than imaginary play. Go see a child psychologist. The child psychologist says I know about trans people, but I don’t know about kids. Go see a gender therapist.
We went to a gender therapist and she said, everything you’re telling me about your child makes perfect sense. Everyone was telling us trans people exist. They must know as kids. Why don’t you go ahead and change pronouns, say daughter instead of son and see what happens. And we ended up with a completely different kid. I have a happy affirm child. This kid has changed my life, opened my eyes. I have completely changed my perspective on life. And it’s given me purpose to go out and fight for other kids and have more compassion for all kinds of other people that I’ve met along the way. And honestly, it’s been a blessing.
Jen Psaki: Such a good parenting lesson that could be applicable to so many things. Tell us a little bit about what’s been happening on the legislative level in Missouri, how you got involved in that, how Avery got involved in it, what that has been like?
Debi Jackson: Sure. I mean, it began innocently enough. We had a bill that was proposed in our town to add LGBTQ protections. And it was in one of the little tiny towns that was outside of the Kansas City Metro area. And I went to do some public testimony because we had people trying to fear monger about trans people in the bathroom. And I stood up to testify and said, I’m worried about my daughter’s safety in the bathrooms too. But the reason I’m worried is because my daughter is the trans one. And I’m worried about these adults coming in and looking at my child or accusing my child of something.
And that flipped the script on a lot of what was being said. And I think it really got everyone’s attention because I described myself how I describe myself to you, Southern Baptist conservative. No one could believe that a parent with that kind of background would possibly support a trans child much less go up and publicly talk about it and do so with love and pride.
Jen Psaki: Yeah. It’s really inspiring backstory. And just your support for Avery has been remarkable, such an amazing model. You did decide to leave the state and that I’m sure was a difficult decision. Talk to me a little bit about why you made that decision.
Debi Jackson: Yeah, well that one positive win that we had in our city was followed by a few others, but around the same time, that’s when they started introducing legislation at the state level across the country. And I’m sure everyone has heard of HB2. And they knew about the bathroom bill and how it failed. But the problem was that was like testing grounds. And they started introducing other legislation across the country.
Missouri and Kansas were no different. So each year we needed to start going to both of the state capitals sometimes on the same day, driving back and forth across the states to testify against bills that wanted to allow discrimination on religious grounds. And it was just one bill after another, after another, after another.
Avery did go with me at first, wanted to be there would wave the flag outside at the rallies, would sit through the hearings with headphones on generally to not have to hear all the hateful things that were said.
And about three years ago, decided I need to do my part. I want to go and testify. Went to the Missouri state capital with me one day, testified about sports and why playing sports would be really important to them. And in the middle of that, hearing one of the senators interrupted and said, but what parts do you have? Have you had a surgery? I would be uncomfortable being in the bathroom with you. And I could not believe that a person in power of authority sat in a room full of strangers and asked my teenager about their genitals.
Jen Psaki: What did you do in that moment? What was going through your head?
Debi Jackson: Oh, Avery was incredible and tried to just defend himself and say, I’m here talking about sports. And I can’t believe you just asked me that. And I went into mom mode and was like, how dare you ask my child about that. I would never think to ask you about your genitals. This is highly inappropriate. I can’t believe the behavior I’m seeing from people here.
And we just wrapped it up. I could start to see the sweat happening and the shaking, my child was shaking. I’m holding their hand. We went to the back of the room and Avery had a full on panic attack. This was trauma in real time, crying, shaking red. And the hearing, thankfully only had a few more minutes, we ended, everyone out. There were other trans kids sitting in the audience there. They were having panic attacks and stress responses.
I remember so many adults were running and getting ice packs and essentially triaging a bunch of kids in a senator’s office because of what had just happened.
The dehumanizing language and treatment of a teenager who was there to talk about why playing sports would be fun. And after that a bill passed, it was going to allow legacy patients like Avery to continue with their healthcare. But we knew that was going to be a lie. They would come back the next session and try to take that out. And that session Avery couldn’t go. Every single time we got in the car to drive, started feeling sick of their stomach was having a trauma response every week when we had to go to these hearings.
And at the end of the session just said, why are we still living here? Like I can’t do this again. Why are we still living here? They’re going to do it on the Kansas side. They’re passing the bills, the governor is vetoing, but we can’t just move from one side of the state line to the other. Our hospital is gonna get closed. Why are we here?
And you know, for years I had said, we can move you to a safe place if we need to. I wanted to stay and be visible. I didn’t want to leave and send the message to other people that these very out public high profiles families would leave because they could and then leave everyone behind.
But I also needed to take care of my kid through all of this. And in that moment, when they said I’m willing to leave my friends and everything that I’ve known, I just can’t do this anymore. We said, okay. And we started packing and selling and looking at different places and trying to figure out who had sanctuary laws. Where could you afford to go? So many of the places that are safely blue are more expensive when you’re coming from the Deep South.
Jen Psaki: Yeah.
Debi Jackson: Like so many other families who’ve had to leave or from the Midwest. Instead of our house that has a yard that fits our dogs, we might be crammed into a smaller apartment just to be able to make ends meet, like what do we do? And that’s the scary part about the way this legislation has crept across the country. I’ve known families who have moved from one state to another, and then one year later the same bills get introduced and passed there. And now they’re stuck. They can’t move a second time.
Jen Psaki: Yeah. Such an important, I had not thought about the fact that some blue states and blue areas are more expensive and most people can’t just pick up and leave or might not be willing to leave and do as you did with your family. How is Avery doing now?
Debi Jackson: Avery is doing fantastic. Now we have been in our new, safe home with protections in place for just under 10 months.
Jen Psaki: Yep.
Debi Jackson: And they just broke up with their therapist. That’s the best way I know how to say it but it’s the kind of breakup that you want to have. That means everything is going really well. They have been going through therapy for the last three or four years, and it’s not because of being trans. They started going to deal with all of the bills and the anxiety. And you know, every political season, seeing the ads that focus on trans kids and the lies that are said, and the speeches that are given and that kind of thing. So yes, they were able to break up their therapists and they feel so safe. Finally, for the first time.
Jen Psaki: I know you are so familiar with what is in Project 2025. What are some of the concerns you hope people understand and know about there, about the impact of something like Project 2025 could be on families who have a transgender child or a child who’s in the LGBTQ community.
Debi Jackson: I think the scariest part for me is the similarity in language that they used in a couple of bills. One that passed in Kansas last year too, which is to define sex by taking out all references to gender and reducing people to reproductive parts.
It’s not just the LGBTQ community that is experiencing this and will experience repercussions. It’s the exact same thing that we’ve been talking about with access to reproductive healthcare all along. They’re reducing people to reproductive parts, but they’re also in trying to define who can have access to healthcare. They’re trying to define who can and can’t make informed consent when they are not the person having the conversation with each individual patient. When the doctors are doing that, when the healthcare professionals are doing that, when the therapists are doing that, they are trying to take agency away from the trans community through these laws in various ways that will end up impacting other groups of people.
And that’s what is so scary. They are literally trying to define bodies and who has the mental capability to know who they are and to make decisions for themselves in so many aspects of their life.
Jen Psaki: That’s incredibly alarming. And there’s also some dark irony I’ll call it, coming from some who are from a party that have been more of the mentality of government get out of our lives. But this is the opposite of that.
Debi Jackson: Absolutely. That was why I always considered myself a conservative and a Republican. I don’t need you to tell me whether or not I should go see a doctor. I don’t need you to tell me how to spend my money. I don’t need you interfering in anything. I’m an adult. I can take care of myself, leave me alone. And that’s the exact opposite of what they’re doing.
But you know, at the same time, they’ve also been talking about parental rights. And so much of it said, you can’t tell me what to do with my child’s body because of vaccines. But they’re wanting to tell me what I can do with my child’s body. And they’re saying you can’t interfere with my child’s access to the education I want, but they want my child to go to school and not have a teacher use the name and the pronoun that makes them feel safe and comfortable. Like what about my rights as a parent? If you’re so concerned with parental rights, then leave my family alone and let me parent my child in the best way that I can.
Jen Psaki: It seems very reasonable and rational and apolitical in many, many ways.
Debi Jackson: It should be. Yes.
Jen Psaki: It should be. Debi, I’m so happy to hear that you and Avery are flourishing and what a courageous way you’ve approached your journey and using your voice and Avery using their voice. You know, Debi, I think a lot of people out there are looking for some hope in this moment.
Debi Jackson: Yeah.
Jen Psaki: And sometimes it’s hard to find. Your story has a lot of inspiration and a lot of hope in it. I know it hasn’t been easy along the way, but what would you say to families out there who were looking for that?
Debi Jackson: I would say that there are actually more families like mine out there than anyone knows. A lot of times they have to stay quiet right now for safety. But those of us who can be public are going to be public. There are so many ways that just as you hear my story and feel inspired, someone in your community is seeing you live your story and is being inspired by that.
And the greatest form of advocacy is just being out there, being joyful, letting people hear about trans joy, transitioning lets people feel joy, family acceptance lets people feel joy. And even if your family isn’t completely supporting you, there aren’t people in your direct community who are supporting you. There are support groups online. There are grassroots orgs that will welcome you in, get your kids out there, let them meet trans adults, let them see the possibilities that exist for their future. They are the future and spread the trans joy. That’s the best kind of advocacy that any of us can do. And we will win in the end.
There’s no way all of these folks who have come out and experienced that trans joy are going to go back and hide. They’re just not, they’re too strong. They’re too committed. They know how life can be and they’re not going to give up on it.
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Jen Psaki: Thank you for tuning into this special series, The Threat of Project 2025 presented by the How To Win 2024 podcast. All episodes of the series are available now, including a new episode on the threat to our climate led by Chris Hayes. So be sure to keep listening. The Threat of Project 2025 series is produced by Max Jacobs. Our associate producer is Janmaris Perez, research support from Seamus O’Toole, Catherine Anderson and Bob Mallory are our sound engineers. Bryson Barnes is the head of audio production. Aisha Turner is the executive producer of MSNBC Audio, and Rebecca Kutler is the senior vice president of content strategy at MSNBC. And I’m Jen Psaki. Search for “How to Win 2024,” wherever you get your podcast and follow the series.