When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) began threatening to take trans children away from their parents, Sarah began coaching her daughter on how to advocate for herself.

Since she and her husband had never used the word transgender with their daughter, Sarah had a lot to explain about what was happening. “I didn’t go into a lot of detail, but I was like, some people think this.”

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Then her daughter turned to her and said, “Mom, I can try not to be transgender.”

“I’ve just never been more angry in my whole life,” says Sarah. “At that moment, if Ken Paxton had been in the room, I might’ve caught a charge because I was so mad. And I told her (this is not very sweet mom of me), I’ll fight every motherf**ker in this state. You will be you.”

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When their daughter first came out, Sarah and her husband weren’t familiar with trans identities. But they knew early on they did not have a son.

“From the time she could talk, she was telling us who she was,” Sarah told LGBTQ Nation. They took their daughter to a psychologist who encouraged them to follow her lead. “We love you, and you tell us what’s right,” they told their daughter. “And that was our life for a long time.”

But that wasn’t to last. In 2022, Paxton announced a policy that labeled gender-affirming care as child abuse and threatened to remove children from their homes. That was when they knew they had to leave Texas.

“I don’t hate anyone, but I hate that man,” Sarah said of Paxton. “We had to have talks and have laminated cards [with information to respond to the Department of Family and Protective Services] in her backpack.”

When Texas passed bills against trans inclusion in school sports or against gender-affirming care for minors, Sarah and her family figured they could still make things work, even if that meant crossing the border to Mexico for healthcare. But in Sarah’s words, “The idea that she could be taken from us, that was the line. I can’t live in a world where it’s even feasible that somebody would want to take her from me.”

It took them over a year to get out.

“At first, we were going to go to a safe state, and by the end of that time, my soul was like, ‘There is no safe state, it’s going to happen. [Trump’s] going to win again.’”

Sarah and her husband had never even used the word transgender with their daughter, and now, they were trying to figure out how to explain the rise in anti-trans hate across the country.

“I don’t want her to live in fear,” Sarah thought as the 2024 presidential race gained speed. “What is she going to see the next political cycle? What billboards are going to be up? We were already starting to get really hateful mailers. This is going to ramp up, and then she’s going to be seeing that at this developmental age that’s so important for building your sense of self.”

Finding home

Once they decided to leave the country, the next question was obvious: Where do we go?

“I was doing searches. I was very diligent about checking legal protections, cultural attitudes, healthcare availability, all of that.” Sarah is keen to highlight that different factors are key for different families.

So why Uruguay for them?

“We already spoke Spanish, so we wanted to move to an English or Spanish-speaking country.” Sarah had been told Uruguay would fit her approach to life. “People there are extremely laid back and they just don’t care what anybody else is doing,” she explained. “It’s just the most live-and-let-live kind of place.”

When it comes to trans rights and access to healthcare, especially for trans children, Uruguay easily sounds like a paradise compared to the United States. Uruguay’s constitution views healthcare as a human right and also protects children, recognizing them as people with rights independent of their parents.

The country passed an extremely progressive trans rights law in 2018, which protects access to gender-affirming care for trans children even if the adults in their lives don’t agree. The (translated) bill asserts that the country should guarantee trans people “life free from discrimination and stigmatization.”

Crucially, while many countries that have passed progressive trans rights bills have seen a conservative backlash in the aftermath, Uruguay has not. The anti-trans contingent there couldn’t even amass enough votes (10% of the electorate) to trigger a national referendum to roll back the bill.

That atmosphere around trans people in Uruguay seemed perfect to Sarah, who doesn’t want her daughter’s life to be irrevocably connected to advocacy — a trend that is becoming more common with younger trans people.

“The diversity pride parade was this past weekend, and she didn’t want to go because it was movie night. I think she was accepted so young that she just doesn’t think of it as a thing. [This country’s] been progressive for so long that people don’t really care.”

“We made the right choice”

Of course, there’s always bureaucracy and a complex process involved in moving internationally, especially for two working parents with multiple kids.

Uruguay is one of the easiest countries to immigrate to, though, as you can do so on a travel visa and then apply for residency there. Still, Sarah had to explain the move to her daughter. “I did not want to tell her we’re moving because of [anti-trans politics]. I didn’t want her to feel responsible in any way.” The family had always talked about traveling when their kids were old enough to appreciate it, so they framed it as a chance for the kids to learn Spanish and travel around South America. “It’s going to be fun!” Sarah said.

Despite these efforts, anti-trans policies and language are pervasive, and Sarah’s daughter is no fool. “The day after Trump won, when the kids woke up and I told them. She said, ‘So we’re never going back now.’ She knew. But I tried to protect her. As parents, we don’t want to tell them how horrible the world is.”

Establishing gender-affirming care for their daughter in Uruguay was simple. She had seen only a therapist in Texas and wasn’t ready for medical interventions, but in Uruguay, the doctor wanted to see her regularly to establish a rapport so that difficult conversations would be easier down the road. That healthcare is covered by taxes.

Recounting the difficult process of moving and the stressful six months before, when they had to say goodbye to friends and give away belongings, Sarah also highlights the positive. “We had good experiences right away with people here that made us feel like, ‘Okay, good, we made the right choice.’”

As Trump took power and anti-trans policies became federal rather than just state-level, Sarah’s doubts about whether she was overreacting subsided. “Everybody in our lives who thought we were crazy is like, ‘No, you were right.’ I’m like, ‘I didn’t want to be, I would have loved to be wrong.’”

A thriving group of queer immigrants

Sarah’s move didn’t just help her own family. In Uruguay, Sarah found other immigrant families with LGBTQ+ members, and they have formed a supportive, welcoming, and thriving community.

When she and the small group of other immigrants she knew started to see an influx of people from the U.S, particularly after the election, they wanted to help. “So we just created a group on a messenger app and said, ‘If you meet someone from the U.S. who moved here, they have to live here already and somebody in their family has to be LGBTQ+. That’s it. Those are the two rules. And we have now like 90 people in the group.”

The group helps people settle into everyday life, make new connections, and process any trauma they may carry from fleeing the U.S. They have a spreadsheet of English-speaking realtors, dentists, furniture salespeople, and other resources needed to get settled. They have a poetry group, a Dungeons & Dragons group, and are trying to set up a softball group. Their support extends to all kinds of situations, like when someone has to go to the emergency room or needs emergency childcare.

Sarah explains that it is not necessary for newcomers to find a strictly LGBTQ+ group. “You could just be a part of your community, and nobody cares. But what we found is that those of us who have been here for longer than a year or so know that, but when you’ve just escaped somewhere like the U.S., you’re terrified and you don’t trust that’s possible. People just need a little bit of time for that to really sink in.”

Sarah says the group is small enough to prevent it from becoming insular, and that life in Uruguay requires you to speak Spanish and make friends outside your immediate circle. Even some of the events within the group are more integrated: “Our D&D group is having a half Uruguayans and half USians group that’s going to play in Spanish and English. We have board game nights in both languages.”

Grief mixed with sunshine

For Sarah and her family, Uruguay has been a wonderful solution to a horrific problem. But as wonderful as it is, fleeing their home for the safety of your family has been far from all sunshine and rainbows. They’ve landed on their feet, but they had to sacrifice so much to get there.

Moving meant closing Sarah’s independent business and starting a completely new career. Her husband gave up a high-paying job in one industry and started lower down the ladder in another. Sarah’s family lived on a homestead in Texas; leaving meant saying goodbye to their chickens, ducks, rabbits, fruit trees, gardens, and wide-open spaces where their kids could run. In Uruguay, they’ve been living in a smaller, 700-square-foot apartment with two bedrooms and one bath while they get themselves reestablished financially.

Sarah is very aware of the things that you can’t simply replace. “We had a really tight-knit community [in Texas] and we all took care of each other. Our kids had grown up together in our church. I had a really hard time. Nobody else will have held you as a baby and then get to watch you grow up. That’s a really special thing that you cannot just start over.”

Despite all that they lost and anger over the reasons they had to give it up, Sarah and her family still recognize that leaving was the right choice. “We gained safety, and honestly, everything else pales in comparison.”

That safety isn’t just about Sarah’s daughter being trans. Another family arriving from the U.S. asked her daughter what her favorite thing about living in Uruguay was, and her answer had nothing to do with gender.

“My daughter said, ‘We don’t do shooting drills at school.”’

Again, Sarah is keen to point out that Uruguay isn’t for everyone. Things move more slowly, and for some, it’d be a very difficult adjustment: Clothes dryers are rare, and Amazon doesn’t exist there. But Sarah compares it to living in the 90s, in a positive way, when you could just send your kid over to another house, or have to work out whose kid had turned up at yours.

One thing Sarah notices every time someone new arrives is that they go through the same emotional pattern. “They feel great at first, and then they have a big decline, and then they even out.” She sees people focused on the minutiae of moving, but “many people don’t focus on the emotional part and are not ready for that downturn.”

“You’re escaping persecution, so there’s a certain part where you’re just trying to get out no matter what. But then you need to know it’s going to be really hard, and it will probably be worth it, long term, but you’re going to have a year when it’s horrible.”

Sarah’s community has set up a grief group with a therapist to help people with that process, but also to move on from their trauma and establish new lives in Uruguay.

Day-to-day peace

In Uruguay, Sarah’s daughter is not completely isolated from anti-trans news. She helps to greet new families to the area and hears about what is happening from them. Sarah knows she’s absorbing it but hopes that she can compartmentalize and know she’s safe where she is.

The important thing is that Sarah knows that harmful messaging isn’t being reinforced every day in Uruguay as it might be in the States. “She’s not getting any message over here that there’s anything wrong with her… There’s no politicians saying that, there’s no billboards, there’s no teasing. That’s just not a thing.”

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