Despite the widespread passage of legislation limiting the ability of trans kids to access hormone treatment or other gender-affirming care, there has been little light shed on the lives of the young people these laws target—until now. In American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era, Nico Lang, an award-winning nonbinary journalist who has spent a decade reporting on LGBTQ+ issues, documents the hopes, sorrows and joys experienced by seven American trans kids.
American Teenager is not an attempt to portray a “typical transgender teenager.” Lang’s diverse subjects live in South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Illinois and California. Lang spent weeks living with each of the seven families and conducted in-depth interviews with the teens, their relatives and friends. The result is a series of complex, sometimes searing and always sensitive portraits of young people whose right to existence currently hangs in the balance. These kids do have things in common—their resilience, their exhaustion and, happily, their accepting and loving families—but Lang recognizes their individuality as well.
Several of the kids who live in red states are already fierce advocates for LGBTQ+ rights. Ruby, a young woman from Houston, Texas, testified in her state legislature against a bill that would require trans student athletes to compete on school sports teams that reflect their sex assigned at birth. Despite her efforts, the bill was eventually signed into law. Loved by her family and her church, blessed with a mother who fights passionately for trans rights, and planning a career in costume design, Ruby seems unstoppable. But she still couldn’t stay in Texas. She’s transferring to a California college and leaving behind a state whose legislators deny her humanity.
On the other hand, there’s Clint, a 17-year-old Muslim teen who lives in Chicago and has no desire at all to be an advocate, testify in front of legislators or attend marches. Clint demands what so many of us want and have: a private life that he can live on his own terms, where his gender is irrelevant to his opportunities. Perhaps Clint’s stubborn refusal to give up his autonomy in the face of repression is the most powerful response there is. “In the end, it’s everyone’s own life,” he tells Lang. “You’ve got to live it the way you want.”
