Trans Teens Find Resiliency and Hope in Online Communities

A teenager with earlobe-length lavender hair, black hoodie hiding their hands and blocking their mouth, looks off-camera and says, tentatively at first, then louder when asked to repeat themselves, holding back tears, “Mom, I’m trans. I am a boy.”

Jasper Rodatz is a 19-year-old living at home. He came out to his parents as transgender earlier this year and posted portions of the ensuing argument on TikTok as @jaspertheelflord. The first video, in which Jasper’s mother refuses to respect his pronouns and name choice, has over 10 million views.

At the start of the pandemic, COVID was hailed as a “great equalizer” by as diverse public figures as Madonna and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. The past year has proved them very wrong. Time has shown that minority and disadvantaged populations have it much worse than the average American.

It might not come as a surprise, then, that one of the country’s most vulnerable populations — transgender teens — have had a hard time of things.

Teenagers have the lowest risk of mortality from COVID-19 of any age group, but they are not immune to the consequences of isolation and sheltering in unsupportive homes. Before the pandemic, queer and gender non-conforming youth were more likely to experience depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts than their peers. Take away social support and those problems intensify.

Jasper has several videos that indicate he feels unsafe at home. His mother ignores him or pretends he never came out. She uses female pronouns and Jasper’s “deadname” (his given name). Jasper’s father is more aggressive. When Jasper had a panic attack after his regular doctor denied him hormone therapy because it “goes against his religion,” he came home to a verbal assault of transphobic slurs from his father.

“I really wanna move out, but I have to have a car to do that,” Jasper says in a Q&A video. “I don’t know what to do right now.” In another video, Jasper sits in front of a pink-yellow-blue pansexual flag, asking followers if they, too, don’t want to eat or shower or go to the bathroom or leave their room until their parents go to sleep.

Though living at home takes a toll on his mental health, Jasper knows it could be worse. His parents have not been physically violent and haven’t threatened to kick him out. Not everyone is that lucky.

According to Lost-n-Found Youth, the only Atlanta-area shelter for LGBTQ youth, forty percent of homeless people ages 18–25 are LGBTQ. Queer youth are twice as likely as the average young person to experience homelessness. Fortunately, Lost-n-Found maintained the full functionality of their shelter and services in 2020, even as revenue dwindled and their thrift store shut down.

Many queer-focused support organizations weren’t as resilient. GLSEN Atlanta, The Shephard Project, Atlanta Coalition for LGBTQ Youth and JustUs Atlanta, once crucial resources for young queer Atlantans, no longer exist.

It’s difficult to operate a trans-youth-focused organization even without a pandemic. Providing gender-affirming services to minors puts non-profits at risk of litigation from unsupportive parents. “There’s so little help for youth out there,” says Lupa Brandt, the community outreach coordinator for TRANScending Barriers Atlanta.

Though TBA can’t offer its support services to minors, Brandt operates Phoenix Transition Program out of her home to provide care packages, case management, clothing and funds to help transgender and gender-nonconforming people transition. She recently received a request for an informational packet from a teen in Canada. Then, she says, “I get a phone call and it’s this person’s mother saying, ‘my child is not transgender.’”

For several months last year, doctors’ offices were closed. In many cases, that meant that transitional services like hormone therapy were no longer available. Katie Leikam, a licensed social worker and therapist who specializes in gender issues, says much of her work the past year shifted to support young people who were unable to get necessary medical treatment or who were cut off from social support. “For kids who didn’t have a support group already,” says Leikam, “it’s virtually impossible to make new friends.”

Transgender young people in many states are afraid that soon they won’t be able to transition, regardless of parental support. A record number of anti-trans bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country. Most are designed to prevent trans girls from participating in high school sports and competing with biologically female athletes, despite a lack of evidence that trans girls outperform cis girls.

Perhaps more worrying, though, is a smaller subset of bills that has significantly less media attention: legislation introduced in no less than 16 southern and mid-western states would criminalize providing transition-related healthcare to minors.

“Our patients are very anxious and feel even more attacked than usual,” says Dr. Izzy Lowell of telehealth provider QueerMed. In states where transition care bills look likely to pass, QueerMed attempts to provide as much medication as possible to current clients. Still, it’s not ideal. If the laws pass, Lowell says, “we will not be able to properly monitor treatment or help with any other aspects of transition.”

Leikam, too, is concerned about the proposed legislation, but she says she tries not to let it impact her work. “You go into this work believing that everybody is a person, and everybody deserves the same respect, the same medical care,” she says. “So, you just keep working, you know?”

As a result of the bills and the ensuing media attention, some parents of Leikam’s clients hear false information as far as what is and isn’t legal medical practice. She prefers to practice family therapy and include parents in their child’s journey. “I want [parents] to hear from an expert, a professional, that there’s nothing wrong with their child,” she says.

While meeting in person is still unsafe, Leikam encourages her clients to find supportive digital communities. Many kids, stuck at home and tired of virtual school, learned to take advantage of pre-existing forums like Discord, Reddit and the queer-focused social platform Trevor Space.

Lowell says many trans teens were isolated or homeschooling prior to COVID, so they know how to make those online connections. They already relied on virtual support systems because, she says, “there are typically few trans youths in any geographical community.”

If they have a stable housing situation, isolation can even be freeing for queer teens. Trevor Space user @dededont says Discord helped her discover her gender identity — and find a girlfriend, whom she plans to move in with this year. User @ellie-may says she feels less pressure to conform to expected gender norms.

And as difficult as recent months have been for Jasper, coming out has allowed him to begin to physically transition, albeit without parental support. The popularity of his TikTok videos — which range from emotional venting to education to showing off his six pets — has helped Jasper start hormones and get a chest binder. He hopes to be able to pay for top surgery soon.

“I just want to say thank you for all the support I have been receiving,” says a recent text-to-voice video of Jasper’s. “I didn’t expect those videos of me coming out to blow up, but I’m glad they did so hopefully I can spread awareness about trans people coming out and how scary it is.”

Thanks to Jasper and his TikTok videos, thousands of teens’ journeys to self-realization will be a little less scary.

If you or someone you know is LQBTQ and in need of support, contact the Trevor Project’s national 24-hour hotline, Lost-n-Found Youth’s Atlanta-area 24-hour hotline or PFLAG.