What do you think?
Rate this book
When Texas Came for Our Kids: How evangelical extremists launched a war on TRANSGENDER TEENS
If we could go back to 2020, we would be shocked at lives of transgender children, who changed their names and birth certificates, played school sports, and got puberty blockers and hormone treatment freely and without comment in all 50 states.
But in three short years it would all disappear.
Without warning, over 1,000 bills would be introduced across half the country criminalizing nearly every facet of their lives virtually overnight.
What happened?
Evangelical Christian nationalists—enraged after string of devastating Supreme Court defeats—had pivoted from gay to transgender, investing hundreds of millions of dollars into remaking trans youth as the new face of the anti-gay culture war.
And it worked, beginning in Texas, which enacted the nation's first effective ban on treating transgender youth by redefining providing gender affirming medical care as felony child abuse, criminalizing loving parents, and sending scores of families fleeing across its borders in panic.
This is the story of how that happened. Filled with exclusive new details and behind-the-scenes interviews, this book is the first in-depth account of how evangelical Christian nationalists and their Republican allies conceived, plotted, launched, and prosecuted the nationwide War on Transgender Youth.
But in three short years it would all disappear.
Without warning, over 1,000 bills would be introduced across half the country criminalizing nearly every facet of their lives virtually overnight.
What happened?
Evangelical Christian nationalists—enraged after string of devastating Supreme Court defeats—had pivoted from gay to transgender, investing hundreds of millions of dollars into remaking trans youth as the new face of the anti-gay culture war.
And it worked, beginning in Texas, which enacted the nation's first effective ban on treating transgender youth by redefining providing gender affirming medical care as felony child abuse, criminalizing loving parents, and sending scores of families fleeing across its borders in panic.
This is the story of how that happened. Filled with exclusive new details and behind-the-scenes interviews, this book is the first in-depth account of how evangelical Christian nationalists and their Republican allies conceived, plotted, launched, and prosecuted the nationwide War on Transgender Youth.
262 pages, Paperback
Published December 19, 2023
1 person is currently reading
8 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 4, 2024
Wow this book was not at all fun to read, but it is very important. It’s a modern history and such an important one. I knew everything described, though maybe not in such detail, but I’m a constitutional law attorney who is trans and has been paying attention to the news. I want everyone else who hasn’t been paying attention to read and learn!
I hope that people in the future read this and are shocked at how backward-thinking people were for demonizing trans youth.
I hope that people in the future read this and are shocked at how backward-thinking people were for demonizing trans youth.
January 6, 2026
This book is shorter than I thought (nearly half of it is footnotes and reference citation, which makes sense, given that it has almost 570 footnotes!). That being said, it still took me ages to finish because I had to keep taking breaks.
This is a tough one, y'all. It's highly informative but it's devastating. I've recommended it to several people already because Wilchins's information and analysis is really helpful for making sense of the current climate of hate and fear that we live in now. I find it interesting that Wilchins correlates anti-trans rhetoric with homophobia, but not so much with misogyny, when so much of the fearmongering comes down to the idea that transmascs "won't be able" to fulfill their alleged primary purpose, which as the far right sees it is motherhood and reproduction, while hatred of transfemmes is so openly based in the idea that a "man" would choose debasement by giving up the traits associated with masculinity. I can see why this parallel is difficult to discuss, though, given the high prevalence of TERF logic in public discourse. It all makes me so angry. I could go all day.
At any rate, Wilchins's main aim is to trace the through-line of transphobic hate and suppression, along with state-sanctioned harassment and abuse. For trans folks asking, "Why us?" and for cis folks going "Why are we hearing about trans folks so much?" -- here's your answer. This is a tactic used by design, and I'm not going to name-drop any four letter labels, but if you'd like to learn more about a society that chipped away the rights of its citizens using the abuse of trans and queer people as a testing ground, maybe read a book about German history. May I recommend the novel "The Lilac People?" Food for thought.
My hope would be that by learning about the history of the transphobic movement, we can learn to push back and resist this attack on our rights and bodily autonomy. This book is a great resource of understanding. My primary reason for giving 4 stars rather than 5 is that I did feel that this book could benefit from another round of revision and editing for clarity.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy of this book.
This is a tough one, y'all. It's highly informative but it's devastating. I've recommended it to several people already because Wilchins's information and analysis is really helpful for making sense of the current climate of hate and fear that we live in now. I find it interesting that Wilchins correlates anti-trans rhetoric with homophobia, but not so much with misogyny, when so much of the fearmongering comes down to the idea that transmascs "won't be able" to fulfill their alleged primary purpose, which as the far right sees it is motherhood and reproduction, while hatred of transfemmes is so openly based in the idea that a "man" would choose debasement by giving up the traits associated with masculinity. I can see why this parallel is difficult to discuss, though, given the high prevalence of TERF logic in public discourse. It all makes me so angry. I could go all day.
At any rate, Wilchins's main aim is to trace the through-line of transphobic hate and suppression, along with state-sanctioned harassment and abuse. For trans folks asking, "Why us?" and for cis folks going "Why are we hearing about trans folks so much?" -- here's your answer. This is a tactic used by design, and I'm not going to name-drop any four letter labels, but if you'd like to learn more about a society that chipped away the rights of its citizens using the abuse of trans and queer people as a testing ground, maybe read a book about German history. May I recommend the novel "The Lilac People?" Food for thought.
My hope would be that by learning about the history of the transphobic movement, we can learn to push back and resist this attack on our rights and bodily autonomy. This book is a great resource of understanding. My primary reason for giving 4 stars rather than 5 is that I did feel that this book could benefit from another round of revision and editing for clarity.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy of this book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews