Barbara Fowler has a bag in the trunk of her car. The documents, burner phones, clothing, medication and a speech in Canada – are ready if your family has to flee from your country.
Fowler lives in the United States.
Her daughter is one of the 1.6 million American citizens who identify as a transgender – one of five between 13 and 17 years. According to the Williams Institute Think-Tank at the University of California, Los Angeles,.
Donald Trump’s re -election as president fulfilled Fowler with exceptional fear.
“I cry and I wreie and I’m afraid for my family,” said Fowler, who asked CBC News, not to use her real name, her place or the name of her daughter. “I don’t know what will happen with this administration.”
Like many parents of Transgender children in the USA, Fowler has grown a few weeks ago after Trump’s taking office. In his inauguration speech, the president said: “From now on, it will be the official policy of the United States to now be that there are only two genders: male and female.”
The explanation makes it illegal for transgender Americans to mark an X for their passports and other documentation. The marker was previously approved for people who, as a non-bober, intersexual, transgender or gender-specific, do not conform, while their documents go through the process of updating in order to reflect their confirmed genders.
In a number of executive regulations that were signed as president in his first days, Trump also stopped financing the gender health care and ordered federal employees, preferred pronouns to remove their signatures from their signatures that could take effect within 60 days.
“My daughter is beautiful, she has great friends, she plays the clarinet, she is so happy,” said Fowler. “And now we are in the balance because we do not know whether she can continue to receive medical care that she needs for the transition or can use the washroom in her school in which she feels comfortable.”
While US President Donald Trump runs back the transit rights in America, some families want to leave the country. Katie Nicholson from CBC speaks to people who are involved in the climate of fear, including parents who are considering claiming asylum in Canada.
Fowler says her daughter came to her and her husband at the age of 11 and told them she never felt comfortable in her own body. Fowler admits that she had to struggle with the revelation and knew for months and knew that the way in front of us would be difficult for her daughter. But not supporting them was never an option.
“We always told her that we would understand if she changed her opinion,” said Fowler. “But she never fluctuated. She only knew who she was and deep inside, we did it too.”
The clinic in the city in the middle west, in which the daughter is supplied by Fowler, currently decides how and whether they continue to operate as soon as the government financing is drawn. In the meantime, Fowler has identified a clinic in Canada that could treat her daughter when it comes to.
Fowler is not the only American parent of a trans child who thinks about moving to Canada.
Canadian law firm that receives dozens of calls per day
Joycna Kang, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, says that since the inauguration she has taken on dozens of calls from transsamicians who wonder how they could move here.
“Most of them are afraid and wonder if they can claim asylum here,” said Kang. “These claims were usually difficult because they have to prove that the state does not protect them or is unable to protect them and that it is nowhere else in their country that they can live safely. Now, with these changes, They have been passed and these commands that have been passed on, I think we see a much clearer picture of the (US) state as a representative of the persecution. “
A year and a half ago, Kelli, who also asked that CBC did not use her last name, pulled her six six-year-old family from Florida to Minnesota because of the security of her 22-year-old trans son Ollie. After she has settled in her new community, she now fears that she has to move again, this time outside the country, and has regarded Canada as a possibility.
“It is traumatizing to be uprooted by everything you knew,” said Kelli. “The children found friends. They dealt with their activities. They have settled in, and so the night of choice, my 11-year-old, sweet child, begins to cry and she says: ‘This means that we’ means’ Has to move again?
Kelli and Ollie are community activists who have both committed themselves to improve the life of the members of the LGBTQ community in which they live. Kelli says that if her son cannot get hormone therapy medication that he needs, she would not hesitate to move her family again. The fact that she is even considering moving again shocked her.
“How is the United States of America?” Asked Kelli. “The words come out of my mouth and in my head I am like, it can’t be real, it can’t be right. It is so bizarre … The most powerful country in the world and its citizens are looking for asylum to other countries Sense.
Insert in the Passport Schweb
Americans who already live in Canada are also affected by the president’s commands in the direction of the Trans -Community. Those who live here who do not yet have their confirmed genders fear their passports fear that crossing the border could be a problem.
Elliott Duvall is a transmann from Arkansas who currently lives in London, Ont. He moved here in 2016 to marry his wife. He has not been at home for more than five years to see his family because his passport still lists his gender as female, even though he presents and lives as a man.
“To hand over my pass to the border protection officials is scary,” said Duvall. “I would be afraid that I would get into secondary surveys and I would have to go to the immigration area, even though I am still a US citizen, and they will only ask me to the bone. And I don’t think I mentally in The situation would be to be honest.
Duvall has siblings that he has not seen for years. He missed the wedding of his brother and the births of several nieces and nephews because of fear of crossing the border.
His mother is sick now, but too much afraid that Duvall will visit her.
“My mother, she wants me to come desperately,” he said. “We wanted to do it for Christmas, we all. And she said: ‘Don’t come.’ And that is difficult.
Kang says that people like Duvall are concerned about.
“When we speak of Canadian to the X marker on her passport, who tries to go to the USA, we don’t really know what it will look like,” she said. “We do not know whether this only means an increased exam at the border or whether this means rejection of the entry or a potential confiscation of these documents.”
Duvall also fears that they have to drive through a few states in which bathroom calculations would make it illegal to use a public toilet of a men.
“If I used the washroom in Arkansas and there was a minor – so that everyone was there under 16 at the same time, I was able to arrest, 30 days in prison, fine of 1,500 US dollars and then I have to go for Register the rest of my life as a sex offender.
Duvall is simply not ready to take this risk.
Fowler and Kelli also wait for Trump’s executive orders to influence their lives directly. Both say that they will stay in the United States as long as their children get health care they need and not in danger.
“At the end of the day, they just want their child to be happy and healthy,” said Fowler. “Every parent wants that and we are no different.”
