Keeping Men out of Women's Sports

“I don’t think I’m being paranoid. I think I’m being cautious.” A mother decided that she and her trans teen should leave the United States, after the Trump Administration’s executive orders made her family feel unsafe. Using immersive renderings and handcrafted illustrations, Sam Wolson tells the story of the months leading up to their departure. 

Tina and her teen, J.J., who is trans, had lived in the Portland area of Maine for years. But in January, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order that used the phrase “chemical and surgical mutilation” to describe gender-affirming care, she felt it might not be safe for her family to stay in the United States.

As we spoke over the course of several months, Tina described a growing list of concerns, including worry that J.J. might no longer be able to receive hormones, anxiety about violence against trans people across the country, and more speculative fears about potential future legal trouble. “And then I picture myself, you know, worst-case scenario—J.J. is taken away from me, and I’m put in prison. I don’t think I’m being paranoid. I think I’m being cautious.”

I’ve moved countries multiple times for work and for personal reasons, so I know what it means to uproot your life—to leave the U.S. and start over somewhere new. But I’ve never moved out of fear. Their story was both deeply familiar and powerfully unsettling.

Tina’s decision to leave the U.S. unfolded against the broader backdrop of mounting political pressure against immigration. The Trump Administration has made no secret about its hostility toward undocumented immigrants. And yet, many still choose to take the risk to come to this country in search of safety and opportunity. Tina and J.J., however, were making the choice to leave. Throughout the reporting, I could hear Tina wrestling with herself. But her resolve was clear: “You know what? I’m done with this country. A totally unnecessary hatred being directed at my kid is unforgivable.”

In talking with Tina, it became abundantly clear how much their home in Maine meant to both her and J.J. They were preparing to leave behind their many pets, Tina’s garden, their community, family, friends, and the life they had built together. It was important to us that the audience could feel how visceral this story is. We wanted to give people a sense of what it means to say goodbye to a home you never wanted to abandon in the first place.

As it happens, in the past year, I’ve been experimenting with a new technique that we decided to use to re-create Tina and J.J.’s home. We developed naturalistic 3-D models—of special places such as the garden and their bedrooms—that readers could move through, as if stepping into a photograph. On top of these renderings, Lilli Carré, an artist, used handcrafted illustrations to bring J.J. and Tina to life, while preserving their anonymity. The result is a blended form of storytelling that we hope allows readers to not only see their world but get a sense of what it means to leave it.