COVID was in full swing when I made the radical choice to become my happiest self. I had just returned from a run, my only opportunity to escape the house during lockdown, when I worked up the courage to tell my mom I needed hormone blockers.
I found this courage at a complicated time, while Donald Trump was still in office and campaigning for a second term. As a gender-confused, queer 13-year-old, my future felt like a mystery. What would another four years of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in the Oval Office look like for me? Already, who I am was under attack. Would my entire existence be denied?
This time around, my question — less for me and more for trans kids in red states— is quite similar. But I’ve also begun to question the other side of the political spectrum. Why are reproductive freedoms at the forefront of the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign while …