Transgender kids seek treatment across state lines

(10 Jul 2023)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4443625

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Chicago - 13 June 2023
1. Various of Flower and her mom at the Chicago Diner
HEADLINE: Transgender kids seek treatment across state lines
2. Mid of Flower at the Museum of Science & Industry
ANNOTATION: For families with transgender kids, new laws are complicating efforts to give children what they need.
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Flower Nichols:
"This medicine is like the bridge between me saying that I'm trans and being trans."
4. Various of Flower and mom at hospital for appointment
ANNOTATION: A Chicago doctor agreed to keep Flower on puberty blockers if that care becomes unavailable in her home state of Indiana. 
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Flower Nichols:
++SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY OVERLAID++
"Without getting this medication, I will go through the wrong puberty, therefore making permanent changes to me that I do not want."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Indiana (exact location unknown) - 13 June 2023
6. Wide of highway seen through window of Jennilyn Nichols' car as she and Flower travel to Chicago
7. Mid of Flower in backseat of moving car

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Chicago - 13 June 2023
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Jennilyn Nichols, Flower's mother:
++SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY OVERLAID++
"It's really hard to explain to an 11-year-old kid that whereas we used to just pop to the hospital once every three months that now we have to travel out of state. And trying to make that a good experience for her, we came up and we saw a museum and we went to a new place to eat that she was really excited to go to and just trying to make a negative into a positive for her."
9. Various Flower & mom at the Museum of Science & Industry

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Indianapolis - 10 June 2023
10. Various of Flower and parents at Pride Parade

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Chicago - 13 June 2023
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Jennilyn Nichols, Flower's mother:
++SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY OVERLAID++
"They would split them up at preschool, like girls on this side, boys on that side. And she would go with the boys. And they would explain, you're a boy, you need to go over here and she started to become really distressed about it. One day she came home and the teacher had told her that 'God made you a boy.' And she crawled up in my lap and said how can I get God to change his mind - and just cried. So I went out and bought her dresses."
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
Families around the U.S. are scrambling to navigate new laws that prohibit their transgender children from accessing gender-affirming care.

With at least 20 states moving to ban or restrict such care for minors, some kids feel they are receiving a message that they are unwelcome to be themselves.

Parents, in the meantime, are doing their best to support their children through the turmoil.

That support takes many forms.

It means guiding their children through the usual pains of growing up.

It also, in many cases, means doing what they have to in order to help their children thrive.

On an early morning in June, Flower Nichols and her mother set off on an expedition to Chicago from their home in Indianapolis.

Seeking adventure on the cusp of summer, however, wasn’t the primary purpose of their trip.

The following afternoon, Flower and Jennilyn Nichols would see a doctor at the University of Chicago to learn whether they could keep Flower, 11, on the puberty blockers she has used for the past two years.


A federal judge on June 16 blocked parts of the law from going into effect July 1. But the scramble to maintain treatment was already underway.

[Mia]

That's a feminine boy, not a girl.

[YisroelSimcha]

I’m sobbing for him. I bet his mom wanted a little girl and she manipulated her son to be that “girl”

[bilbomalice]

I wish all the best for her and for the future

[ReyLaFleur]

Some people should never have had kids

[ghawkins]

Its so sad seeing these obviously taught and scripted responses. Munchausen by proxy is the term. It makes me sick and these parents should be punished for child abuse!