Trans Healthcare Refugees

Families with trans and non-binary kids are facing bans on bathroom use, bans on sports participation, bans on affirming pronoun use in schools, bans on use of chosen names, and even bans on life-saving medical care for their trans children. Those of us with trans family members find ourselves in, what often feels like, an impossible situation of trying to figure out how we can possibly protect our children from the worst of the harm. Some families are considering moving states, or even leaving the United States, to escape anti-trans legislation and to seek safer, more supportive environments for their children. Today In the Den, we’re hosting a conversation with Suzy and Debi, two moms with families who have done just that–picked up and moved countries in order to access gender affirming care, safety in schools, and to find a less overall hostile climate for their queer children. 

Special Guest: Suzanne Solomon

Suzanne Solomon, her husband, and their son, lived in the Dallas area of Texas, where she was a professional opera singer. She has joined protests from the Women’s March to Black Lives Matter to Pride and more, participated in letter writing campaigns, called representatives, campaigned for Beto O’Rourke, attended ACLU of Texas events to help counter proposed legislation. Mama Dragons has been a huge resource, and a source of comfort and community. Getting out of the country is incredibly difficult and expensive, and the Solomons owe a lot to family, fellow US emigrants, and friends who helped them check every box on their journey from the US to Finland.

Special Guest: Debi Jackson

Debi is a longtime advocate for transgender youth and LGBTQ+ inclusion, known for her compassionate storytelling and public education efforts. She became an activist in 2014 when a speech about her child Avery’s gender journey went viral, and she’s been speaking out ever since to help other families feel less alone. Avery later appeared on the cover of National Geographic’s “Gender Revolution” issue — an iconic moment that brought global visibility but also intense backlash. In response to the growing wave of anti-trans legislation and public hostility in the U.S., Debi and her family made the difficult decision to move to Europe. Now, she shares her experiences as a parent, advocate, and expat to highlight the real-life impact of transphobia and the importance of finding and building affirming community wherever you are.

Links from the Show: 

• Anne Health
• Gender GP
• Transgender Map
• Mexico Transgender Center
• Debi’s Website
• Join Mama Dragons today

In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you. Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at www.mama

Transcript

SARA: Hi everyone. Welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons, a podcast and community to support, educate, and empower parents on the journey of raising happy and healthy LGBTQ+ humans. I’m your host, Sara LaWall. I’m a Mama Dragon myself and an advocate for our queer community. And I’m so glad to be part of this wild and wonderful parenting journey with all of you. Thanks for joining us. We’re so glad you’re here.

SHAUNA: Welcome. I’m Shauna filling in for Sara again today. So far in 2026, according to Translegislation.com, 645 bills are under consideration across the United States that would negatively impact trans and gender nonconforming people. And this number is only anticipated to grow. Families with trans and nonbinary kids are facing bans on bathroom use, bans on sport participation, bans on affirming pronoun use in schools, bans on use of chosen name, and even bans on life saving medical care for their trans children. Those of us with trans family members find ourselves in what often feels like an impossible situation of trying to figure out how we can possibly protect our children from the worst of the harm. Some families are considering moving states or even leaving the United States to escape anti-trans legislation and to seek safer, more supportive, environments for their children. Today, in the den, we’re host a conversation with two moms, Suzy and Debi, who have families who have done just that, picked up and moved countries in order to access gender-affirming care, safety in schools, and to find a less overall-hostile climate for their queer children. So welcome, Debi and Suzy. We’re happy to have you with us.

DEBI: Thank you. Glad to be here.

SUZY: Thank you.

SHAUNA: Okay. First, I’d love to just hear a little bit of your backgrounds, about your family and your trans child’s journey. So why don’t we start with Suzy if that’s okay.

SUZY: Sure. We lived in Texas, in the Dallas area. And when in 2022 legislation began with an order from the attorney general and the governor for people to report to Child Protective Services any families who have trans kids. We woke up that morning to text messages and phone calls from friends saying: You have to get out of the state. And we started planning, and were able to get out about a year and a half later and move to Finland. My son was immediately comfortable here. His school asked him what his name and gender was and they respected that. And pretty much anybody that we said, “Is this okay?” they said, “I think you’ll find that we’re reasonable here.” So it has been so much safer.

SHAUNA: That’s awesome. How about you, Debi? 

DEBI: Well, we were in Kansas City, Missouri, and it was an interesting place to be because it’s literally on the state line between Kansas and Missouri. So my child, Avery, was born in the state of Kansas, but we lived in Missouri. So for a decade, we had to deal with all of these anti-trans bills in two states at the same time. So it was exhausting, mentally and physically, going back and forth between state capitols, sometimes hearings in two states on the same day, just literally driving across states to do all of that. And I was working at Equality Texas at the time, in Comms. And I was online doing a bunch of work around the Texas bills which was even more disastrous than anywhere else. So with all of that, by 2022, 2023, Avery was so emotionally drained from all the work that I had been doing from all of our years of public advocacy – from never knowing from week to week what new horror was going to be hoisted upon all trans kids, whether medical care, bathroom bans, or something else – and finally had just gotten to the point of yet another year of going and testifying and having horribly invasive, I say abusive, comments from the legislators at trans kids, with the trauma said, “Why are we even here anymore?” And I had been trying to hint around that maybe we could leave the states for a while. I’d worked with a lot of advocacy orgs. I always said we had the option to go if we wanted to. And Missouri was their home. It’s where their friends were. And they really didn’t want to leave. And then also, just as public as we were, I thought if we pick up and leave, it’s going to be a really bad and sad message to everyone else. So for a long time, that is one of the things that kept us there, is that we just needed to stay and continue to be visible for others. But around that time, I could see how things were going because I was so deep in the advocacy. I knew that, depending on who the elections went, things could start going on the same trajectory at the national level too and probably very fast. So, like most people, moving is a lot. It’s very expensive. You give up jobs. You leave everything behind. You start over. And we knew that we could only do it once. So rather than try to find a blue state, we decided that we were going to leave the country. And because of our visibility, we didn’t tell people. So there’s another level of guilt there; for the first year, we just said we were leaving Missouri and people assumed we went to a blue state. And finally, after a year of life abroad, Avery felt safe enough, finally after a decade, that they allowed me to say that we live in Europe. And then it took another year as well and turning 18 and knowing that really nothing could happen to them, that they finally said, “Now you can be a little more specific and tell people that we’re in Spain because Spain has been so fabulous to us.” So that’s where we are now, and everyone’s doing really well. Like Suzy said, the amount of peace that our kids can feel and the safety – so instantly almost – is incredible and worth the hardships of moving for our kids to be able to kind of reset their nervous systems and just be.

SUZY: Yeah. Debi, I think our kids are the same age, maybe. So my son is 19 and he was 17 when we moved here. But we did similar to you. First, we tried looking at some blue states. We tried, of course, California, New York were way out of our price range. We tried Colorado. We looked at Minnesota. Minnesota was really promising and we flew up there to look around, look for job opportunities, things like that and it just didn’t pan out in time. And then it was in Texas that test law that they did where they would criminalize medical care including hormone replacement therapy for children under the age of 18 such that then they would call it felony child abuse, take your child away, and parents could have up to 20 years in prison. And that’s when it got urgent. And we said, “First thing that shows up, we’re taking it.”

SHAUNA: Yeah. We were happy we weren’t in Texas anymore. Our family used to live in Texas. And we live in Idaho and I feel like Idaho, Texas, and Florida are kind of the first states…

SUZY: Yeah, the beta testers.

SHAUNA: And it’s scary. So I’m curious to hear both of you, when did you kid come out and how was life in the state – what were your feelings about the state before you had a trans kid? You know, was it always hard for you or did that make it so much harder for you, Suzy?

SUZY: I think it was always hard for him and at first he didn’t know why. And then he spent an entire summer in out-patient care because he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him but he was wrong. And after that, and then after realizing, “Hey, wait, I’m not a cis/het person,” and he wasn’t sure what part of that, but that label was wrong. And then he started thinking about other labels. And then the pandemic hit. And that ended up being a blessing for him because he could, at home, in the privacy of our COVID bubble, ask us and our one friend who was in the bubble with us to try out different things and see what felt right and what fit. And when he landed on, “Hey. I’m a boy,” we saw such a change in him, from someone that really didn’t want to live. And we were told to lock the cabinet doors and the knife drawer in our house, be very careful and make sure to watch him. We went from worrying about him to watching him suddenly – like a flower in sunshine – suddenly come alive and be a person with a future and with interests and with things that brought him joy. And we were so happy about that, at the same exact time that Texas was deciding that this was abuse. And we were like, “How can you say that? You should’ve seen him before and now he’s alive and he’s happy and there’s joy and there are dreams, there’s a future. And this cannot possibly be abuse. This is his reality. And this is the only thing that hasn’t been abuse in his life until this point.”

SHAUNA: I relate so much to that arc for our child. It was a very similar thing where they were just struggling and suicidal and we couldn’t figure out how to help them. And transition and coming out and being themselves changed the trajectory of their life for the better in so many ways. And I wish people could understand and really see that.

SUZY: Yeah.

SHAUNA: How about you, Debi?

DEBI: Our story started when Avery was quite a bit younger. Avery was four when they said, “I’m not a boy. I’m a girl.” And we had seen for about a year at that point in time the dress up and the play dates and wanting to be in princess clothes and all of that. And we just thought it was kids going through phases and things. But at four, Avery was suicidal and talked about dying – and “Can I jump out of the car? Can I jump off the roof? How can I die?” – So I understand those feelings very, very deeply. But in Missouri, at the age of four, we found a therapist and an endocrinologist and they’re like, “Adult patients tell us that they knew at a young age and you don’t need to go through a bunch of crazy genetic tests. Some people are trans.” And taught us to go ahead and support and trust. And we jumped in and changed pronouns and everything at the age of four and were not welcomed back at our daycare. We knew that our child was not going to be welcome at the school in kindergarten that they’d planned to go to with all of their friends. So we ended up home-schooling. And for all the folks out there who know our story, I come from a very conservative, Southern Baptist, Republican family – Military family and everything. For a couple of years, they acted like they might go along with us supporting things. And then they ended up saying some really awful things about my parenting, my character, and my soul, and all of those other things you expect. And we thought that needing to home school instead of sending our kid to a regular school or trying to educate our parents and maybe losing some friends and family was going to be the hardest part of things because, at the time, LGBT awareness was growing. Obergafel was being confirmed. And Obama said “trans” for the first time in a presidential speech. And Loretta Lynch said, “Trans people, kids, we have you. We’ve got you.” But, again, like you said, at the state level things started going sideways. And Missouri is a test state. We were one of the first ones where they introduced the idea of the bathrooms and the child abuse charges a decade ago. And it didn’t go anywhere because they’d done the one bathroom bill and there was some pushback. And we thought, “Okay. They tested those waters and they realized no one has the stomach for this. And no one wants to call parents an abuser. No one wants to question their doctor.” But there’s certain, a couple of news networks out there that really just decided they were going to make this the issue of the day, of the decade. And with enough time, after a couple of years, they had convinced their entire audience that trans people were evil. And then all the bills came back again. And it started with the bathroom bills. And it started with going after parents a little bit. But then they switched and maybe the parents should be the victim and let’s go after the doctors. And then, let’s talk about sports because then we can divide the women’s movement from the LGBT movement. And they were so strategic about how it happened, unfortunately. But just going back to the family part of it, because at home, Avery was doing fantastic. Avery was supported. We were in a great home-school environment. Getting rid of the grandparents who weren’t supportive and just surrounding ourselves by chosen family meant that if you didn’t look outside the house, our kid was thriving. Or if you didn’t look in actual state houses, our kid was thriving. And they were thriving in their environment, in school, in extra-curricular activities. It was only the political landscape and in legislative houses where things were different, unfortunately. So a long time in getting here and, again, we all have that same story arc. Our kids are struggling, we figure out how to support them, they do great when they feel the support. Then it’s the outside world that comes along to mess that up.

SHAUNA: I want to talk a little bit about what you just said about how in your house things were great. I think a lot of parents right now are struggling with where the line is. It almost feels like a game of chicken that we’re playing with the government. Our home is affirming and we have affirming friends and we have this social system set up here. And maybe our child is doing okay. But we’re seeing the legislators, we’re seeing things change even in our federal government, we’re seeing things change. And I’m curious what the moment, what that calculus was for both of you and how you made that decision uprooting your whole family and moving and changing countries and cultures and all of that stuff. I would love to hear about your decision processes for that. Do you want to start, Debi?

DEBI: Sure. I was watching all of the anti-trans legislation around the country – those two words always get me and it’s the Southern accent that I try not to have so I have to be very careful – So I always thought it’s going to be something with one of the anti-trans bills. It’s going to be when they criminalize parents. It’s going to be when care is stopped in both of our states and we have to travel because we can’t afford to travel all the time for health care. It’s going to be something like that. But actually, the thing that got my kids was that within two or three weeks that the Supreme Court came back and they essentially overturned Roe V Wade, and then Uvaldi happened. So, Texan and former Texan, you know what that was like for the community. But that is the thing that got my kids to say, “We don’t want to be here anymore.” And part of it is because we were so public and visible that we had all the threats. We’ve had the [indiscernible]. We’ve had police and FBI on speed dial. We’ve got all the numbers because of how scary it’s been over the years. And then, when Uvaldi happens and it’s still just “thoughts and prayers” and nothing was going to change. And they were like, the anti-trans rhetoric has been heating up, that pretty soon, it’s going to be you, it’s going to be me. It’s going to be me as the trans kid who’s visible or you as the parent advocate who’s visible. Something’s going to happen. And if they don’t care about 7 and 8-year-olds being slaughtered, they’re not going to care about you. And, like so many of these other states, we’re sitting out at lunch having this conversation in an open-carry and concealed-carry state where people can just go get a gun at 18. And they’re looking around like, “Anyone sitting here could recognize us and decide that we are the enemy because of what they watched on the news this morning. We don’t want to be here because we don’t want that to be our future.” And at that moment, I realized how much fear they were carrying, that they were trying to be brave and put on that strong face all the time. And I just thought, if we have the chance and we can figure it out, now is the time to do it. And then came the research. What countries are the safest? What country can we get a Visa for? How could we do it? Where? Which countries are looking okay now, but have that building right-wing government? You know, you don’t want to make that mistake and move to a different country and then have it go south on you. So that was the big decision point for us.

SHAUNA: Yeah. I am relating to all of those considerations because those are the considerations running through my head every single day. Do we move to a blue state? But the federal government is shutting down health care in all of the states right now. And so it doesn’t protect you, necessarily. And moving is expensive. And changing everything is expensive. So Thank you for sharing that. Suzy, do you want to talk about your experience with that?

SUZY: I’ve had an aunt and uncle and cousins and their kids here in Finland. And shortly after the first election of Donald Trump, my aunt passed away of cancer. And so we came here to her funeral and the Women’s March was happening on inauguration day which was her funeral day here in Finland. And there were women in pink hats, in Helsinki, Finland, standing in solidarity with women in the United States. And I thought, “That’s beautiful. My aunt would’ve loved that.” And as we were being driven back to the airport, my uncle said, “Are you sure you want to go back?” And, of course, we had to go back. But in the back of my brain I thought, “No. I’m not sure I want to go back.” And through the first term of Trump’s presidency, Texas started feeling brave and doing the things that you were talking about, Debi and trying to go through some bathroom bills and kids’ sports teams and things like that, always at trans women, usually at trans women because you can make trans women scary. And trans men, “Well, we’re not going to talk about that, because how are we going to make them scary?” And then it came out that Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton did that notification to Child Protective Services, “Go after families of trans kids. And we’re going to write a law that says that it’s felony child abuse. And so we’ll take the kid away. We’ll put the parents away for 20 years.” And that’s when it got urgent. And we started doing the same research as you did. My grandparents were born in Ireland. So I have several layers of privilege that allowed this to happen. So I went through and claimed my Irish citizenship which would give us the possibility to live in any European, any EU, country. And right about then, the UK Brexited. So that eliminated that one, except if your citizenship is Ireland because part of the UK is part of Ireland. So we could still go by Irish citizenship. So we looked at all of those countries. We eliminated the UK immediately because of JK Rowling and what she was doing. Finland was not the top but it was getting higher. And there was a job opportunity for my husband here. And we also owned a house which had just burned down. And insurance rebuilt our house which increased the value of our house. So we were able to sell the house and give away and sell as much of it as we could. We lost everything in the fire and then we lost everything again when we moved here, all our friends, all our family except of course my cousins that are here, which was a huge help. Finland is a hard culture. Finnish is one of the hardest languages. And Fins are very private people so they don’t – very different from Texas, you don’t walk past someone on the street and “Howdy, Y’all”. They do not look at you unless you have to interact with them. They would consider that impolite or perhaps presumptuous. So making friends was challenging, too. But acceptance, my son was immediately accepted by everyone. And we had learned to be careful with doctors. His HRT provider was not advertised as that. We had to be slipped their phone number by a private care provider who said, “Talk to these doctors. They call themselves this other specialty…” I can actually say the name of the specialty because they had to flee the state. They’re not there anymore. But they were endocrinologists. And so they were pediatric endocrinologists. And we would go to that appointment and they would show you to the back of the building. And there, they would teach you your HRT. But we knew that we had to speak in code. We could never talk about what we were doing. And so it took us a little while to adjust to the fact that we can just tell doctors here what the diagnosis is, what he needs. And doctors are like, “Okay. That’s completely reasonable. You don’t have to speak in code. You can just tell us.” And Finland has been really incredible even though there is a slightly more rightwing government at the moment, but they’re very unpopular and they’re probably going to lose the next election. But I’ve had the same fears as you, Debi.

DEBI: Yeah.

SHAUNA: Wow. It feels overwhelming, I think, to a lot of families who are trying to decide, where would we go? Why Spain? How did you decide on Spain and how did you get there, Debi?

DEBI: My first thing was just looking up countries where it was legal for youth to have access to gender-affirming care. And there are not many of them. So once I knew what countries it was available at the age that we needed it – because we’re next door to Portugal and they say that it’s available but only at 16 or 17 with permission and things, so there are some limitations to some countries – and some of the places that had been leading things like Finland, Sweden, Norway, they’ve gotten very conservative recently, mostly because of political pressure. So the first thing I did was look at countries to see where it was available. Argentina was at the top of our list. And while I was doing research on visas, they took a hard swing to the right with an authoritarian, and it was like “That one gets scratched off.” And it was really looking at where care is available and then, where are they coming out of socialism versus going toward socialism? And Spain was still in the – I think this year is the 50th anniversary of overthrowing the dictator, or him dying, or whatever it was that happened – so all the Abuelas in the neighborhood still remember. They still talk about what happened with all of that. And even though there are some right-wing people here, the Abuellas are like, “No. It ain’t happenin’. We are not going back to that. Let me tell you some stories.” So I figured that would buy us at least a few good years. And then it came down to figuring out the visa situation. I have been working on mine and working with LGBT orgs and other orgs and doing writing and other projects for years working from home. So it was digital, give me one of those. They didn’t have the Digital Nomad Visa yet like so many other countries had already figured out through COVID and everything. So we started figuring out how we could do an entrepreneur visa or something and I can say that I have this business here or my husband can move. And he was an entrepreneur so he could just start over. We were writing business plans. And not many of those get approved. So we didn’t have our hopes very high. And we were looking at back-up countries. And then, right at the perfect time, they announced the digital nomad visa. So I just scrambled and worked with people that I had been working with like, “This is what I need.” And I kind of recruited all of the clients and organizations. “This is how much down to the dollar that I’m going to need, please let me do this work, let me do this project, let me do this project, so that I can cobble enough together in order to qualify for the visa. And then you can dump us and we’ll figure it out. I just need to get us there.” But we didn’t go through a fire. I can’t imagine losing everything and starting over. We had to go through the whole, “What can we take, what can we not take?” We did bring some things with us, but it was mostly my kids’ stuff because they were the ones who were giving up everything because I was saying we needed to go. And while they had said we don’t want to be here, it was still much more difficult for them emotionally to actually think that, “Now, in the middle of our teens, we already lost years with COVID of not seeing our friends and now we’re back in social circles and you’re going to take us to a country where we don’t speak the language?” And for my nonbinary kid who came out as nonbinary during COVID, “Now you’re going to take me to a country with this gendered language? What are you doing to me?”

SHAUNA: I didn’t even think of that, but that is so true. Spanish is a very gendered language.

SUZY: Along that, Finnish actually doesn’t have any genders. Even their pronouns are not gendered. The third-person pronoun is just, “hän” for everyone.

DEBI: I love it.

SHAUNA: Love it.

SUZY: So it was great.

DEBI: I’ve read articles about Finland and then teaching hän in kindergarten and other things for years. And I’ve always thought it was amazing. But we had to do all the same things, of just giving everything up. And we’re still trying to figure out learning the language. We’re trying to learn the language. We’re coming along slowly. But Americans are such a novelty here. There are lots of Brits and lots of people from other parts of Europe. Americans are still a relatively new thing. So when we meet someone, they’re like, “Oh, I love your accent.” They want to practice English with us. So I don’t get to practice Spanish as much as I need to. But otherwise, they’ve been so warm and welcoming and they can’t believe, “An American, you live here?” Because everyone’s dream has always been to move to the US. And at least two years ago, we left while Biden was still in office. So they would ask us, “Why in the world would you choose here instead of US?” And I could say, homophobia and transphobia. And they were like, “But why? I don’t understand. Who cares if your kid is trans?” So I just stopped having that conversation and I would just go, “Guns”. And they’re like, “Oh, yeah. Guns.” And then we didn’t have to explain anything further. But now we meet people and they’re like, “Oh, you’re from the United States. I’m so sorry. I’m glad you’re here. Are you OK?” And they’re checking in on us emotionally. And we’re like, “Yes. We’re fabulous because we’re not there.”

SUZY: Yeah.

DEBI: But, yeah. It’s been so welcoming. You give up a lot. But, like I said, just resetting your nervous system eventually makes it worth it.

SHAUNA: What was the timeline? Go ahead, Suzy.

SUZY: I was going to say, I ragged on the UK before, but I wanted to put in a stipulation because the Finnish Health Care System is, they have universal health care, but it’s got some rules with regard to trans kids who are under the age of 18 that made it difficult to transition. Like if you’re under 18, you can access care, but they require that you have six months of psychiatric care before you have medical care, which my son had in the United States. But acknowledging the United State’s psychiatric care, he had years of that and years of hormone replacement therapy in the United States. But to access that, they would have to go to an over-18 clinic, which he couldn’t access because he wasn’t over 18 yet. And they couldn’t look at his records for under-18 because they weren’t allowed to look at them until he came off HRT. And we were like, “But the whole reason we moved here is so that he wouldn’t have to come off HRT.” So we went to [indecipherable] which is – they call them Rainbow People here – where the rainbow people go for help and assistance. It’s their charitable organization. And they said there’s this place called Gender GP which is in the UK and you can order your HRT prescriptions after having Zoom consultations, Zoom teaching how to do injections if you haven’t done them yet and all things like that with Gender GP who’s operating in extreme distress in the UK helping people all over the world get the HRT they needed if their doctor disappeared. And so they are spectacular. They got us through the gap until he turned 18, and then he had full access to care here. So Yay for them and Boo for the rest of the UK’s policies on trans people.

SHAUNA: Exactly. How long was it from the time you decided, “We want to move,” to the time you actually moved? I’m sure it wasn’t just a, “Okay, let’s go.” And go because switching countries. You talked a little bit about visas and can you tell the listening audience who maybe is not as informed about what it even takes to change countries, what that looked like for your families?

DEBI: It took about a year. It was a little more than a year from the time that we moved. Our kids announced that they wanted to go. I had already kind of had in my head a couple of countries just in case we ever did need to go for some reason. And then, really getting into the research and looking up countries and what was available took several months. It was about six months after that that the visa came out. It was really new, so just applying in the first two or three months a lot of people were gambling. So I started gathering paperwork and documents because almost every visa that you have whether you go on one that’s a retirement – a retirement, non-lucrative, savings visas – where you just have a chunk of money or selling a house or retiring or a pension – you have to have several months of financial documents, usually bank statements. You need to, in a lot of countries, get your marriage certificate, your children’s birth certificates. They all need to be new copies that are apostilled which is a whole other process than getting them because that is the way that another government knows that this is an official government document. It’s been confirmed. It’s like a “Hey” thing. That can take several months. Of course a lot of people don’t even have passports when they’re first starting. So I should say, get your passport first. And then you start looking at all of your identification documents that you need to show family relationships, get those apostilled. Depending on the country you go to, you might need to have them, that the sworn translation needs to be done through someone certified by their government that they actually are legit and understand the translation and are doing it accurately. And then, probably work with an immigration attorney or some professional organization that helps with the paperwork because you’re not going to know. And if you miss one document, it’s going to make you start over. In some places, you can go through your local embassy and just have all your paperwork. You have to get an appointment with the embassies. That can take two to six months depending on the kind of visa and how many other people in your region are trying to get out of the country and go to that embassy as well for appointments. So there are a lot of things in a timeline you can kind of control, but a lot of things that you can’t, like getting an appointment at an embassy. For us, it was around June to June. We flew over in June so that we could try to find someplace to live and apply from within the country because then I could get a three-year permit versus a one-year permit if I applied from the US. And I didn’t want to do the paperwork for another three years again. I just wanted to be done. So we flew over for that. Flew back to the US. And that’s when we really just started clearing out the house, giving things away, trying to sell what we could, and to just get rid of as much as possible to have more and more dollars accumulated for the actual move and rebuilding portion of everything. And then we moved in September. So 15 months, probably.

SHAUNA: And you didn’t have any sort of family relation or anything with the country you were going to?

DEBI: Not a single person. Not a single one.

SHAUNA: Thank you for that. Suzy?

SUZY: This is where I have privilege. We started thinking about getting out of the country as soon as my uncle said, “I don’t think you should go back,” in 2016. But it didn’t become a serious consideration until toward the end of the first Trump presidency. And at that point I thought, we need to look at ways that we could go to other places. My grandparents immigrated to the United States from Ireland. And a grandparent that I do not know, immigrated also during the Holocaust. So I have Right of Return in Israel and Right of Return in Ireland. And I talked with my cousins. I’m like, “Which should I choose?” And they went, “Ireland. You get the entire EU and the UK.” And so then I had to start looking for my grandparents’ original paperwork in Ireland, but COVID hit. And everything slowed down. And sometimes you couldn’t even reach anybody in particular counties in Ireland because there was just nobody in the offices. Everybody was home. So getting my grandmother's original, apostille sealed birth certificate from Ireland, took a year and a half, just that one piece of paper. And I needed her birth certificate, her marriage license, her death certificate, her visa from the United States, her declaration of citizenship when she became a citizen of the United States, then my mother’s birth certificate, marriage license, divorce papers, whether she’s alive or dead – she’s alive – and then my own birth certificate, marriage license, name change, my passport. We had to get a passport for my son which meant we had to use his dead name because it was during the Trump presidency. We had that fixed which is different from his birth certificate now, and we can’t get that changed. So that’s complicated. But we managed to get all of these documents. Yes, we had to get our bank accounts. We had to drive down to Austin from Dallas for a day-long FBI interview with finger printing and going through all our paperwork and interviews and background checks and finally certifying us, send all that up to New York – which is the nearest Finnish Embassy – and then they have to certify it all. They have to FedEx it back to you. It’s so expensive. It’s so expensive just to get the paperwork. And I didn’t even actually achieve my Irish citizenship until we got here. But we had been seeing things get worse and worse. My husband is a white man, his wife is a disabled Jewish woman, his son is trans masc. And he’s like, “I don’t want to be Otto Frank. I have a really good life here. We have a beautiful house. I have a good job. Our kid has a good school-ish …”– I mean there had been several gun lockdowns and that was terrifying, but Texas I guess – And he thought, “I don’t want to throw everything away. But, by the same token, I don’t want to wait so long that we can’t get out, and then given my wife and child, what if I’m the only one to make it through okay and I don’t want to make that mistake.” And so that’s when we decided the first opportunity with three levels: If a yacht came along, that would be ideal. We’d get on the yacht. And if someone’s speed boat came along, we’d get on that. And if a piece of flotsam floated by, we’d get on that, just whatever came by first. And we got very, very lucky and got the yacht version.

SHAUNA: That’s awesome.

SUZY: We got a job. They did not relocate us. We had to relocate ourselves. That was part of the stipulation. But we were able to sell everything. And, like Debi, we had to get rid of so many things. Nothing that plugs in, anything from your hairdryer to your washing machine, you can’t bring it with you because they don’t use the same power. So we were giving neighbors toasters and things like that like, “Here, just have it.” But we started looking at Holocaust stories. And we were like, if we wait until we have the best way to get out, by then we might not be able to get out.

SHAUNA: Yeah. So I think I maybe know the answer, but would you do it again? Both of you.

DEBI: Oh, yeah.

SUZY: Yes. Absolutely.

DEBI: No question. For us it’s like if only we could’ve done it sooner.

SUZY: Exactly. I was going to say I would’ve done it sooner.

SHAUNA: Yeah.

SUZY: But we couldn’t have seen all this coming. If I could’ve done it when my son was five, he would learn the language and it’s be great. He’d have all of Europe to choose from. He could move to Spain, visit you.

SHAUNA: That’s right.

DEBI: I need to go up and see northern lights. I’ll put myself on a plane.

SUZY: Yeah. They’re pretty cool.

SHAUNA: That’s awesome. Do either of you have advice, practical advice, for other families who are looking to leave the country? Something that was the most helpful for you, organizations, websites, or anything you can recommend? Suzy, why don’t you go first?

SUZY: Honestly, the best help that we had was a friend of ours who had just expatriated right before us and took her family to New Zealand. And she had made this spreadsheet and kept track of everything from where to get the apostille seals and when to email them and which agency to check with in the US and with your new country and everything. When to get rid of your stuff, what you can bring, what shipping companies you can put your stuff in on a ship to bring your furniture if you have some to bring, and she and I have discussed, should we create some kind of a network where we can talk with other families who are trying to get out and be like, “Okay. This is our spreadsheet. Just use it. Use everything that you would like that you see in our spreadsheet and this is what we thought of? This is what was a huge – bringing your pets with you. It’s the hardest part.

DEBI: Absolutely. 100%.

SUZY: Of course, we were not leaving our cat and dog at all. We were bringing them. But that was the hardest part was all of the different laws in all the different countries and the timing of different injections and pills and stuff like that. It was chaos. But, yes, we thought there’s not an organization that we knew of – Debi, you might know of one – but we didn’t know of one and we just told our friends, “Anyone who’s trying to do this, send them to us.” We’re on Signal. I’ve gotten more than 15 contacts since we’ve been here in the past two and a half years of people who have said, “Can you help? I have questions? Where should we go? What should we do? Where do we start?” because they’re trying to get out. And people have been contacting her as well. Sometimes they’re friends, sometimes people we know, sometimes one-two-three steps removed but I don’t think there’s a “How to Expatriate Your Endangered Family” group. There should be. There should be. I’d be willing to help with that.

SHAUNA: So contact Suzy. That’s awesome. Debi, do you know of any websites or anything like that? What was most helpful for you?

DEBI: No. It was me making my own spreadsheet of all the info. And along the same way, I don’t want to self-promote, but I actually have done webinars to tell people how to go and did one that’s trans specific and I go over the dozen countries that are safest for trans people right now. And here are the visas that you can get for those countries. And here’s some tips about how to do it because there aren’t any other groups doing that. I see people that have, “How to move to Spain” and I’ve watched their YouTube channels and their content. It’s cool. And it’s like, “If you have a dream of a slower life and everything . . .” and it’s not about how to get your kid into the public health system for gender-affirming care. And do you know if your kids are going to be safe depending on if you go to a public school, a private school, or a semi-private? Is it different on how they’re going to respect their name, if their identity documents don’t match who they are, like from Texas. None of that is covered in any of these groups. And there’s great ones online too of QueerExPats, you can find American ExPats in Portugal, and Costa Rica. You can find the groups in Facebook and you can go and you can join and you can get some general tips about things. But there isn’t anyone just doing this. So, like I’ve said, I’ve tried to at least fill a little bit of a hole with the webinar on here is the countries to consider. And then now I have something where I’m like, “If Spain is your country, I’ve got you.” I’ve got a class you can take. What to do before you go, what to do once you get here because the bureaucracy is a nightmare and it’s in another language. And even people who speak languages from Latin America get here and get tripped up because it’s different. So everybody struggles when they get here with the language and the paperwork. So I don’t think there is one great resource.

SUZY: We should network.

SHAUNA: We’ll link your webinar in the show notes because that’s a good resource.

DEBI: But, then again, the same thing, putting that together, I was trying to find folks in all of these different countries because you can read something on a website. But what is it actually like day-to-day to live there as a trans person, as a parent who has a trans kid to enroll in school. So there hasn’t been a resource like that yet. And it’s really about trying to make connections, figure out where you can go and make connections.

SUZY: Yeah. You can’t do it without it.

DEBI: But I’m not a spreadsheet person, and I built a spreadsheet. You just need to have a place to put all of the notes and figure it out. There’s so many moving pieces that you have to keep up with, dates, expenses. Really, you could spend so much money trying to get everything done because you don’t know or you forget or you go with the more expensive option. And none of us have money to throw away on something like this because you never know what’s going to happen on the other side too. So, yeah. Just keep lots of notes. Get in those groups. Meet people. Ask if anyone else has moved in a similar situation. And start networking before you even go, I think is one big thing.

SHAUNA: That’s great advice. Thank you so much to both of you for being here and sharing your experiences. I know it’s on a lot of mom’s minds right now that are still in the US are considering moving states or just trying to decide what to do to protect their families. So I appreciate you both taking time to share your experiences with leaving the country. As we wrap up, we have two questions that we like to ask all of our guests. So the first one is, what are you fierce about? Because Mama Dragons, the name, came out of this fierceness for our queer kids. You know, we will breathe fire for them. So what are you fierce about? Suzy, you go first.

SUZY: I think when my son first learned, “Yes, this is me. I’ve settled on this,” is when we informed the families. And he wanted me and my husband to contact our families. We both did it together, both sides of the family. And I didn’t ask how they felt. I didn’t ask them if they were okay with this. I told them, “This is my son. This is his name. You can get on board or you can go away.” And almost all of them got on board. So we have – Debi, I recognize that, not me personally, I grew up in New Jersey so my family was like, “Okay.” Or most of them were. And my husband's family had more of a struggle with it. They’re more very fundamentalist Christian and so it was something that they had been told wasn’t okay. And so we told them “Get on board.” And many of them did. And some did not. But, yes, my son is my son and you can either get on board or you can go away.

SHAUNA: Preach it sister. I love that. Debi, what are you fierce about?

DEBI: Before I answer that question, I’d like to plug a couple of other things because Suzy mentioned Gender GP.

SHAUNA: Yeah.

DEBI: And because they help people all over the world but they also get bogged down because of the number of people. There’s another group from the UK, Anne Health that also is doing the exact same thing. Susie Green who helped found Mermaids years ago founded this, named after the daughter Anne. Anne.health is just how you get to the website. And they do the same thing. And she’s been figuring out ways for people in the UK to get puberty blockers and things. And some of that is they do telehealth, they get online, they come to Spain and they go in the pharmacy and they get it. So I definitely want to plug that. Also, for people who can’t leave the US right now or need something that’s a little closer than flying across the ocean potentially for that, there are a couple of clinics that have opened in Mexico that are run by trans physicians that are specifically saying, “Come here and we will take care of your young people.”

SHAUNA: Okay.

DEBI: So I don’t have a link to those right off the bat because they’d be too long. But I will absolutely go into the Mama Dragons Moving Abroad, whatever the subgroups there are and try to put a couple of links in there for folks because there are still ways while you’re in the US, while things are getting shut down, that you can get your kids some care. So I just want to make sure that folks know that because too many won’t be able to leave, can’t leave for at least a year of planning and everything. There are some folks who are working to try to make sure you still have access.

SHAUNA: That’s awesome. I’ll try to get as many of these in the show notes as we can too, so that people who are listening can find them there.

DEBI: Perfect. Perfect. And then as for fierceness, I didn’t know. I’ve had a dragon tattooed on me for years and years and years. It was my very first tattoo. And I got it with the trans colors behind it to represent my fierceness and that was before I knew about Mama Dragons. So what am I fierce about, possibly along the same lines as Suzy, I think I’m just fierce about everything because I have to be. But it’s about family and it’s about how we define family because my blood people, they’re not family. They’re people that I happen to be attached to through blood, but they certainly didn’t show what my child needed in terms of what a family is with unconditional and support and everything else. So I firmly believe, I see a lot of families struggle, a lot of people struggle, “But that’s my sister. But that’s my mom and I love her so much.” Cool. And now you’re seeing that she is a fallible, limited human being and your child has the potential to not be. They have the potential to be everything. So you have to shift from caring about the other people to doing whatever it takes for your child to blossom, to grow, to feel support and love. And that means surround them with chosen family because that is far more important to me than any kind of bloodline that’s out there. So I would say that about what family means and finding the family that you need and your kid deserves.

SUZY: 100% agreed. If you are not the absolute safest place for your kid in a world that is so dangerous, then they don’t have a safe space.

SHAUNA: That’s beautiful. Okay, final question, what is bringing you joy right now in this world where joy can sometimes be hard to find? Suzy?

SUZY: This one’s easy for me. My son just got accepted to college here this past January. And college in Finland is free. And, in fact, they have a student benefit that when you get accepted to college, they pay you monthly to help your expenses with whatever, books, laptop you might need, and stuff like that. And if you have to move – and he moved two hours northeast of us to his college. He’s got an apartment now and everything. And he’s got friends who are just like lots of trans people. And he’s there. He’s got support. They give you a housing benefit and a student benefit. He’s living in his own apartment for free, going to college for free. And I feel like we just succeeded. This whole thing that we just did to move across the ocean and get here, he is now himself. His passport has his real name on it. His citizenship paperwork has his name on it here in Finland. Everybody respects who he is. He has all the medical care that he needs. And he is in college, going for his dream degree and met people just like him who have become instant friends. This was the dream and we made it.

DEBI: Wow.

SUZY: It was really hard and not something anyone can do. You need so many privileges to be able to do it. But we made it. We made it.

SHAUNA: That is so joyful. Thank you for sharing that. That’s so beautiful. That makes me happy. That gives me joy.

SUZY: Yeah.

DEBI: I know. Wow.

SHAUNA: Debi, what’s bringing you joy?

DEBI: That’s incredible and now I’m going to sound so shallow and silly because when you first asked me. . .

SUZY: I love that. I love that. 

DEBI: And the idea of what college cost in Europe is fantastic. But I find joy right now it’s 7 at night, it’s 70 degrees and I’m not dealing with Midwest winters. And I can sit on my patio all day and we just keep the windows open. One, because it’s so safe that we can keep our windows all the time. Our front door is open all the time, even while we’re sleeping. And the weather is beautiful enough for that. And also, I’m still riding some Super Bowl Halftime Joy so much.

SUZY: Yes.

DEBI: Anyone who knows anything about me knows that Ricky Martin is everything to me and has been forever. So I was super excited for Bad Bunny, for all the queerness and the joy he brings to the world. I’m excited that living here now, I actually understand most of the lyrics even if I still can’t pronounce them well enough to sing along. I understand what they’re saying and the friends that I have here are fierce Latinas who have moved here as well. And just being able to get together with them afterwards and see them bursting with pride over that show and the celebration of their countries and their people and their cultures has brought me so much joy. I hope that the Super Bowl Halftime Show memes never end and that I keep seeing the stories and the grass people and the moms screaming when they recognize Ricci Martin because I was that person with my kids, my reaction. They were like, “oh my God, that must be Ricky.” I was like, [makes gasping noises]. So I’m just awash with all of the halftime show joy right now.

SHAUNA: I love that. I’m with you there. Halftime show joy is real joy.

DEBI: It is. It is.

SHAUNA: Alright. Well, our time is up but I want to thank you both again for taking time out of your lives to share your information and your stories with us. You’re both amazing. And thanks for being here.

DEBI: Thank you so much.

SUZY: Thank you. Mama Dragons is amazing.

SHAUNA: I agree.

SARA: Thank you so much for joining us here In the Den. Did you know that Mama Dragons offers an eLearning program called Parachute? This is an interactive learning platform where you can learn more about how to affirm, support, and celebrate the LGBTQ+ people in your life. Learn more at Mamadragons.org/parachute or find the link in the episode show notes under links.

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