Caring for Trans Kids, Transnationally, or, Against “Gender-Critical” Moms

This chapter names and indicts transnational anti-trans political alliances that target children explicitly for harassment, bullying, and legislative and administrative violence. Trans children are in the crosshairs of legislative efforts to make trans-affirmative healthcare a crime and to ban their participation in education and organized sports; the saturation of UK corporate media outlets with moral panic stories; the circulation of pseudoscientific theories; and their invocation as moral degeneracy incarnate by right-wing movements. This chapter focuses on the most “respectable” of such crusaders: “gender-critical moms,” who have organized around the aggrieved identity category of “mom” or “mommy.” Making use of a sentimental political mode from which white women, as mothers, have long benefited, these well-funded, organized groups claim to be sincerely alarmed at the supposed growing ranks among their children who are coming out as trans.