I’m a queer mom with cis stepkids & I’m fighting for trans equality. It’s hard.

Molly and I planned a special dinner out for our 11-year-old, Small, while his older brother, Big, was at camp for the week. As I pulled into the driveway after work, New Hampshire Public Radio had an interview with one of the transgender girls who would now be banned from playing girls’ sports.

Six days earlier, the “moderate” Republican governor, Chris Sununu, signed three anti-LGBTQ+ bills into law, marking the first day in almost 40 years an anti-gay bill had been signed and the first time ever a New Hampshire governor signed an anti-trans bill.

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One bill requires educators to give two weeks’ notice on all course material related to gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

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Another bans specific surgeries for transgender patients under 18, as well as the referrals for this health care.

The third is the sports ban, which requires all athletes who want to play girls’ sports in 5th through 12th grade to show their birth certificate to prove they were born female. If the birth certificate is not available, or if it is questioned, they will need to show “other evidence,” which could include genital inspections.

I sat in my idling car, listening to the girl, the soccer player, who I had met a few months earlier and who reminded me so much of Small — except that Small is a boy and taller and younger, but they both have the same shyness around a group of adults — and whose mom I had talked with so many times.

“I tell every lawmaker about your daughter,” I said once. “I bring her up in every conversation I have.”

The soccer player, who would no longer be able to play on a team with her friends, who all know she’s a girl. Whose coach knows she’s a girl. Whose parents know she’s a girl.

“Read her story,” I had said for months to House reps, to state senators, to staff members. “Her team has never even won a game.”

I would come home from work after these meetings, throw my bag on the ground and collapse into a chair, ripping my tie off. “What’s wrong, Liz?” the boys would ask. “Bad day?”

I found it difficult to respond to them – how much should I, their nonbinary queer stepmom, share about the state’s attacks on people like me?

As I sat in my car and listened to the soccer player talk about her devastation, Molly walked up to my door, her expression asking, “Why haven’t you come in the house yet?”

I couldn’t move. I shook my head and held my hand up, signaling I needed a minute. Yes, we had reservations soon, but I needed to listen to the full interview. The grief in her voice, in her mom’s voice.

I texted a colleague the link to the interview, and he asked how much he would cry. “A lot,” I wrote.

We arrived at the restaurant, and Small was eager to read through every item to make his most informed choice for this special dinner. Molly tapped the table to get my attention. “Give her the gift card,” she said as the server approached. It was a gift from the group of advocates and lobbyists I helped lead since the end of March, who tried to stop the anti-LGBTQ+ bills – all 28 of them. After they asked me to facilitate the group, I half-joked that I had been asked to captain the Titanic after it had already hit the iceberg – because by then, five bills already passed the New Hampshire House, the “firewall,” the almost evenly divided chamber.

I placed the gift card on the table, a token of the losses.

My phone lit up with a text back from my colleague, who had listened to the interview: “We did everything we could, right?” A moment later, he wrote, “We did everything we could.” I set my phone face down on the table.

We ordered all of the food Small wanted, which meant multiple appetizers (“Who doesn’t want cheese, Mom?”), and we talked about him going to overnight goalie camp the next summer. “It’ll be perfect timing for when you can play middle school soccer that year,” I said.

“I have an idea,” he said, “for the girls to play.” He took a bite of the cracker with three different cheeses on it. “But I don’t think it will work because I don’t think people will do it.”

I smiled. In many ways, Small is like me. He wants to fix problems, especially those he deems unfair. He also looks like me, with the same freckles, the same color hair. His teacher told him once she saw his stepmom at the store.

“No, she didn’t,” Molly said. “She saw me.”

People assume Small is my biological child if they don’t know our family. “It defies science, but somehow, I gave birth to your son years before I knew you,” she said.

One giveaway, though, is how tall he is. At 11, he is 5’8″, towering over me at 5’5″ – if I’m wearing shoes and using my best posture. As a goalkeeper, he is almost as tall as the goal in his league. Other parents laugh as the team huddles up, with Small’s head up above the group, at least six inches taller than his teammates and some of his coaches.

“What are you feeding him? What shoe size does he wear, his feet look huge! Did you expect him to be so tall?” All of the questions are good-natured, and I respond back with a laugh. We feed him everything. He wears size 11, just like his age. I’m his stepmom; his mom is 5’9″ and his dad is 6’4″.

During one of his spring games, I thought about the anti-trans lawmakers who were pushing the ban on transgender girls playing girls’ sports. They claimed to care about fairness and advantage.

I watched Small stretch his arms over his head, his wrists resting over the top of the goal. “Small actually has a biological advantage, but no one would ban him from playing,” my jaw clenched as I spoke. Molly squeezed my hand.

Small explained his idea to let trans girls play, and I nodded. I didn’t know if it was worth explaining to an 11-year-old what policies are feasible to implement, what Title IX is, what we face in New Hampshire if a majority of the legislature remains hostile to LGBTQ people after the 2024 election.

Before I could respond, he said, “But I guess if you do that, some kids still wouldn’t get to play.” He took another bite. “I don’t understand why anyone cares. Why can’t kids just play soccer? Soccer is so fun.”

“That’s exactly right, buddy.”

Molly tousled his hair. “You’re so great, Small. We are so lucky to have such a great kid.”

His eyes shifted to the side and his mouth curved up in mischief. “Better than Big?”

“I saw that coming,” I said.

“Can’t you vote to let the kids play?” he asked Molly.

Small’s questions reminded me of the questions I asked in my office, on calls, in meetings, scratched in my notebooks and post-it notes on my office wall. Desperation. What argument could we use? What data? Which messengers would these lawmakers listen to?

Our group urged influential organizations to get involved, to help the trans teens and families who would testify at the State House to lawmakers who misgendered them, questioned their mental health, debated their existence. Can you talk to the Senate president? Can you call the governor? Just a private meeting, we don’t need you to make a public statement.

“We aren’t in a place to do anything this year, but we might be able to next year,” they said. Or “That’s not really a policy that impacts us.” I raged at my desk. Bullying trans kids is not good for mental health, it’s not good for businesses, it’s not good for the economy, and it’s not good for our state’s future. How could anyone claiming to care about these issues say anti-trans policies didn’t impact them?

Small’s final spring soccer game determined whether they made the playoffs; if they lost, the season ended. With two minutes left, the score was tied, and the opposing team had a corner kick.

Small, the giant among his teammates, stayed strong in the goal, as the opposing player crossed the ball. One of his teammates, who also played goalkeeper during the season, stood near Small and blocked the shot with his hands. Penalty kick.

I jumped out of my chair, livid. Goalkeepers are at a disadvantage in penalty kicks. Small stood in the center of the goal, facing off with the kicker. The shot soared past him. The game ended, the season ended. A loss.

“He’s going to blame himself. He’s really going to blame his teammate. We need to get over to him so he doesn’t say anything terrible,” I said to Molly. “I am so angry for him, that wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair for him to have to face that.”

We braced for impact – Small often casts the blame on others. On himself. Perseverates for days, weeks, longer.

When we reached him, he said, “I can’t believe we lost. We were so close. We just had to win that one game.” Molly hugged him. I grumbled behind as we left the field, still angry on his behalf.

As we walked to the car, the boy who blocked the ball with his hands stood across the parking lot with his parents. I tensed as Small called out his name.

“Good game!” he said. The boy, downcast, called back, “Thanks, Small. You too.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Small said in the car. “He’s used to blocking shots, you know? He couldn’t help it. He’s a good goalkeeper.” He hoped they would be on the same team next year.

Molly and I told him how impressed we were. He was learning, after so many conversations with us, one lesson of being on a team: some will make mistakes, some will play their best and still lose, but being on the team means working together – winning and losing, not as individuals, but together.

A lesson suited for all of us. We may have lost this year, but it’s not over. Because next year, when the soccer player and other trans girls are no longer able to play on their teams in New Hampshire, we will need everyone, every player, to suit up and work as a team to defeat the attacks on LGBTQ+ people – on children – in our state.

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