A lot has changed for Mikey since CityBeat first sat down with her in May 2024.
“We got kittens!” said Mikey, now 9, as her legs swung back and forth on a restaurant stool — still too short to reach the footrest.
“[Mikey’s] become a cat lady,” added Kate, Mikey’s mom. Kate and Mikey, who live in Cincinnati, have asked CityBeat not to use their real names for the sake of privacy.
Last year, Mikey was mastering Minecraft. Now her favorite video game is Blox Fruits.
“I’m almost at max level,” Mikey said.
Taekwondo was her extracurricular of choice last spring, but now Mikey is focused on building her already impressive brainpower through an after-school academic quiz team.
Her favorite category is science. Right now she’s really into studying eyes. Mikey asks us to quiz her on eyeball anatomy.
“What part is the color part of the eyes?” we asked.
Mikey blurted out “iris” before the question was over, a question likely too easy for the 9-year-old already learning algebra for fun.
“She’s found her people,” Kate said of the quiz team made up of kids from varying grade levels.
CityBeat asked Mikey if being on a team with older kids makes her excited about growing up.
“I don’t wanna grow up!” she said. “I’m Peter Pan!”
“What do you like about being your age right now?” we asked. Mikey sits with the question for a moment.
“I don’t have to go through puberty,” she said.
Mikey is a transgender child, living in a state where politics are actively working against her. The Ohio laws that Mikey’s mom worried about last year, combined with the priorities of President Donald Trump’s new administration, have expanded a layer of parenting that only guardians of LGBTQIA+ kids have to navigate. The rules, the tone – they’re all so different than when Mikey first came out to her parents in 2021.
“I had this 5-year-old transition and I thought…‘What a time to be a trans kid!’” Kate said, glancing to check on Mikey, who is deep into her game with headphones while the grown-ups talk. “We’ve got Children’s Hospital; we’ve got Pride flags. Everybody’s doing pronouns in their bios, there’s books — she is going to be super supported in this era of growing up. And then suddenly it has become just a nightmare.”
DING, ALERT, BUZZ
Since Jan. 20, each pop-up notification has felt like a jolt for Kate, not to mention the estimated half a million LGBTQIA+ individuals living in Ohio. On President Trump’s first day returning to the White House, he signed an executive order declaring that the federal government would limit the definition of a “male” or “female” to their reproductive cells. This was no quiet affair — the 45th and 47th president put the topic front and center of his inaugural speech.
“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,” President Trump declared to a round of applause from supporters, closing the loop on the anti-transgender rhetoric that apparently resonated well on the campaign trail.
Aside from a “proclamation” of sorts, do Trump’s words have any teeth? For one, the executive branch could potentially block federal funding from nonprofit and advocacy groups that don’t maintain this standard, impacting health care programs, educational programs and civil rights protections. Most medical and legal experts quickly pushed back against the executive order, saying that it disregards the reality of sexual and gender diversity.
President Trump didn’t stop there. He took aim at transgender troops, signing an executive order to block them from serving openly in the military. He also signed an executive order to ban transgender women and girls from competing in women’s sports. In late January, he signed an executive order to end federal funding and support for gender-affirming medical treatments for children and teenagers under the age of 19.
“It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” the order says.
On Feb. 13, a federal judge temporarily blocked this executive order after seven families with transgender or nonbinary children filed a lawsuit.
There is growing fear within the LGBTQIA+ community that these moves aren’t just political theater. Political showmanship or not, advocates tell CityBeat this feeling is all by design.
“The confusion, fear, uncertainty and constant flip-flop are a part of the point right now,” said Dara Adkison, Executive Director of TransOhio. “Executive orders are not instant law. The propaganda is not law.”
Put simply, executive orders can only direct how federal agencies operate within the bounds of existing laws. While a strong tool, they cannot be used to create new laws or allocate funds without congressional approval. They can also be overturned by a future president, congress or the courts — which are taking a close look at this latest series of signed documents now.
President Trump called gender-affirming care “barbaric medical procedures,” but it’s important to note that gender-affirming care for kids is widely considered to be safe, effective and lifesaving by every major medical association in the country and all over the world, including the American Board of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the National Association of Social Workers, the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, the Pediatric Endocrine Society and dozens more.
How does gender-affirming care actually work? Young people who consistently identify with a gender different from their sex assigned at birth are first assessed by a team of professionals. Some may begin with a social transition, such as changing their hairstyle or pronouns. Others may later receive puberty blockers or hormone therapy. Surgical interventions for minors are extremely rare – no Ohio children’s hospital performs gender-affirming surgery on patients under 18.
So far, Mikey’s transition has been largely social. Her parents legally changed her name a few years ago.
“It went from censored to censored!” Mikey joked about the anonymous interview.
But the election results set into motion another step Kate said was critical before the inauguration: Mikey’s birth certificate needed to reflect her female gender.
“Right after the election, I think I had, like, a 48-hour panic attack and started making all these contingency plans,” Kate said.
“Right after the election, I think I had, like, a 48-hour panic attack and started making all these contingency plans,” Kate said. “Like, okay, if my kid is not safe at school, here’s what we’re gonna do, and if my kid is not safe in our neighborhood, here’s what we can do. And if our kid is not safe in Ohio, here’s where we’re gonna go.”
Kate’s initial shock and rage soon turned into defiance. So she went to the paint store.
“I was like, ‘Republicans are not going to make me leave my house!’” she said. “So I painted my upstairs purple because I was like, this is my house, and I’m not preparing to sell it. I’m preparing to live in it.”
The Buckeye State battle
While President Trump takes aim at transgender rights on a federal level, Ohio’s GOP supermajority at the Statehouse is carrying out legal maneuvers of its own.
Here are three key pieces of trans-related legislation and their effective date.
- April 24, 2024: Law to ban gender-affirming care and a prohibition on trans girls and women competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams in high school and collegiate athletics. (House Bill 68)
- Feb. 25, 2025: Law to mandate people at Ohio K-12 schools and universities use the restroom that aligns with their gender assigned at birth. (Senate Bill 104)
- April 9, 2025: Law to require educators to “out” a student to their family. (House Bill 8)
Senate Bill 104, also referred to as the “bathroom bill” by opponents, is creeping closer to its effective date of Feb. 25. CityBeat asked Kate how she’s preparing Mikey for the possibility that she could be forced to use the boys’ bathroom at school.
“Teachers and admin know [Mikey] is trans because she’s been a student there for a long time. So I haven’t wanted to draw attention. I don’t want to remind them,” Kate said. “The way that the bill is written, though, is it’s up to each district to implement, and also it can be one malicious actor in the school who knows anything about any kid can out that kid.”
House Bill 68 is currently in effect. Adkinson with TransOhio noted some were “grandfathered in” to receive care and the ACLU of Ohio fought back for the future, telling CityBeat they’re awaiting a decision in state appellate court on House Bill 68.
As we often see, that decision might not come down to the issue itself; rather, the interpretation of the Ohio Constitution.
“It’s important to note that one of our claims is that House Bill 68 violates the Ohio Constitution’s single-subject rule by combining two unrelated provisions,” said Sean McCann, a policy strategist for ACLU of Ohio. “In this case, we’re talking about gender-affirming care and high school or college sports.”
Despite being a preliminary patient, Mikey was not grandfathered in at the Cincinnati Children’s Transgender Health Center. Her parents now have to take her out of state for her doctor’s appointments related to gender-affirming care.
“We went in the summer, and we’ll go back this summer, so a year later,” Kate said. “Then, when we notice signs of puberty, we’ll likely have to go back, you know, two or three times a year.”
The family spends hours in the car, hundreds of dollars on travel expenses and days away from work and home. All for one visit to the doctor. Every effort Kate and her husband make for Mikey’s transition journey involves obstacles, but Kate doesn’t let Mikey see it that way.
“She doesn’t know the hard work,” she said. “When we went to the probate court to get her documents updated after Thanksgiving, it was a long day, because we were at the Social Security office for, like, three hours just waiting. I’m like, we need to do this because this is a safety issue, this is an issue of legality. And for her, this is just a boring day waiting at the Social Security Administration office.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine – a Republican – made national headlines when he vetoed House Bill 68 in 2023. He said his decision was informed by testimony from parents and doctors who know gender-affirming care to be lifesaving for kids, but almost all GOP lawmakers overrode that veto in 2024. The law was temporarily halted, but then a judge ultimately allowed it to take effect, his court opinion noting, “The mere fact that a bill embraces more than one topic is not fatal, as long as a common purpose or relationship exists between the topics.” The ACLU appealed. Next, an appellate court is set to decide if that’s true.
McCann has served as a policy strategist for the ACLU of Ohio for three years. Before that, he spent two years as a legislative aide at the Ohio House of Representatives and one year as a legislative fellow for the Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Now, he’s on the lobbying side.
“That means oftentimes opposing harmful pieces of legislation that the supermajority in both chambers is pushing,” McCann said. “When people think of the ACLU or the state affiliate of the ACLU, it’s ‘those are the guys that are suing the government all the time,’ which is true.”
However, there’s a lot more to it — organizing, advocating and sharing information, often at the local level (think city council, commissioners and trustees).
“If we can’t stop that legislation from passing, we can still make a whole hell of a lot of noise about it,” said Sean McCann, a policy strategist for ACLU of Ohio.
“If we can’t stop that legislation from passing, we can still make a whole hell of a lot of noise about it,” he said. “[We can] mobilize people at the Statehouse and mobilize people in their communities.”
Although McCann’s expertise lies at the state legislature, he acknowledges there’s a bigger conversation at play. Sentiment doesn’t exist in a singular government body.
“Narrative building is really just gonna be a huge part of it,” he said. “[We need] to counter all the messaging that we saw in the lead-up to the election last year. Trans folks are just living their lives. There’s a longer-term story than just, ‘Oh, we’re gonna try to get this bill passed or this ordinance passed.’ It’s our role to connect the dots for people. Like, ‘Hey, if you met a trans person going about their everyday lives, you might think differently than you did after you saw that [political] ad, which made it sound like kids are getting gender changes at school — the ludicrous things that were in the end of the campaign that we saw last year.”
Parents of trans kids link up, look ahead
The big question now is how orders from the executive branch could or would change the landscape for Ohio. The leadership at TransOhio acknowledges the significance of this moment, but essentially says, “Take a deep breath.”
“As of [publication], none of the executive orders have impacted anything differently in Ohio as per gender-affirming care,” Adkinson said. “Trans people have always been part of Ohio since before Ohio was a state. There’s always going to be trans people here.”
Adkinson — who calls themselves “a trans parent with a big queer family” — said it’s important for families to focus on what’s in front of them today and not so much the possibilities, adding it’s easy to accidentally boost misinformation or to contribute to the persistent climate of fear.
“Be plugged into the community,” Adkinson said. “We’re sharing a lot of information via word of mouth. We’ve got a large parent support group that’s meeting every week and just trying to crowdsource. It’s also important what’s going on district by district because some of these policies are a compliment to how they were written by the state. So knowing how different districts are handling things is really helpful for other parents to share. No parent or trans kid needs to be on an island in this moment.”
Adkinson is encouraging families to find outlets that do a good job covering what you really need to know and filtering out what you don’t and stick with them.
“Parents don’t need to be following [all of the news] constantly,” they said. “I know many of them are going to choose to anyway. But there’s no need to follow the constant stream of stressful media that’s out there. There’s a lot of really good resources out there, depending on the age.”
One of those resources is offered by Adkinson’s organization. TransOhio hosts a civil rights tracker that distills all the legalese into an Excel-style spreadsheet. Families can use this regularly updated tool to find out if there are legal restrictions to activities like “updating passports,” “accessing bathrooms” and “playing sports.” Families can get the information they need to know, and then get back to their lives.
“They’re just kids,” Adkinson said. “And they just want to be kids.”
Whatever it takes
Trans Allies of Ohio is another organization giving parents of trans youth tools to navigate uncertainty as laws and administrations continue to change.
“They had a call right after the election – that was awful,” Kate said. “It was like, under fascism your neighbors are going to be the ones to turn you in. So you might need to think about being stealth. And here’s how to get all your kid’s documents in order before the inauguration. […] There’s families on that call talking about which countries you can fly to to get what you need. I had never thought about that, but they said if it becomes illegal to cross state lines to get gender-affirming care for your kid, or if your insurance stops covering it if it’s out of state because of some directive, maybe you should fly to Mexico because it’s cheaper.”
The online statewide calls, online groups – they’re all informative and helpful for parents like Kate, but she knew she would need in-real-life parents to find a local community. Not only for herself, but for Mikey.
“There’s a podcast called ‘How to Be a Girl’ and it’s about a mom raising a transgender kid,” Kate said. “And she did an episode, and she just offhandedly said, ‘And then we went to a playdate and it was just a room full of transgender girls having a super time together.’ And I thought, ‘We need that.’ That’s what we need.”
Kate put out a call in an online parents group for other parents of elementary-aged trans kids.
Now her family is one of eight that gets together regularly for their trans kids, all between ages 8 and 12.
“I think, well, if that family can stay in Ohio, maybe our family can survive in Ohio, too,” Kate said.
“The kids are [on one side of the room] doing their thing, being little kids, because they’re just regular kids, and the adults are stressed out and crying on the different side of the room,” Kate said. “But that’s been very helpful. I think, well, if that family can stay in Ohio, maybe our family can survive in Ohio, too.”
In February, a majority of lawmakers in the Montana Senate voted in favor of a bill that would make providing or procuring gender-transition-related medical care to adolescents a felony – including for parents.
CityBeat asked Kate if her family would move out of state if such a law were passed in Ohio.
“Ohio really likes to pass ugly laws,” she said. “I mean, I can’t go to jail. Yeah, we’d probably move out of state where my brother lives. It’s a more blue area, but I have caregiving responsibilities here in Cincinnati, a dad and a sister, so we’d have to uproot more than just our little family.”
But Kate told CityBeat she’d do big things for her little family.
“I’ve realized about myself, thinking about, what does it mean to live under an oppressive system and then, and if the law is unjust and it calls for non-compliance or it calls for resistance. And so it’s just so interesting how much I’ve been thinking, I don’t want to go to jail, but am I willing to commit that felony? Yeah.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental-health crisis, contact the National Suicide and Crisis hotline by calling or texting 988 to get help from a trained crisis counselor. Or contact the Trevor Project for free, confidential support at 1-866-488-7386 or by texting START to 678-678.
Follow CityBeat’s staff news writer Madeline Fening on Instagram. Got a news tip? Email mfening@citybeat.com.
Related Stories
The Pride Issue: How Transgender Kids Navigate Ohio’s Hostile Politics, While Still Remaining Kids
Ohio’s Transgender School Bathroom Ban Begins this Week as Law Takes Effect
BREAKING: Ohio Court Overturns Gender-Affirming Care Ban for Trans Youth, Republicans Vow to Appeal
Transgender Youth Care Remains Banned as Ohio Supreme Court Grants AG Yost’s Latest Request
This article appears in Feb 5-18, 2025.