When Bug got home from school one winter afternoon in late 2024, his mother was on the couch, watching 30 Rock re-runs. Bug sat down next to her; he had an announcement to make.
Bug, who was assigned female at birth, told his mother he was a boy — and would be using he/him pronouns.
"OK, cool," his mother, J, remembers saying. Bug, who was in sixth grade at the time, had previously come out as non-binary, but this felt like an even bigger step.
"We started talking about, like, 'What are you wanting to have happen? What do you need to be supported?'" J said. "And he asked to get health care."
Bug is a nickname, and his mother asked NPR to identify Bug that way, and identify her by her first initial, J, because the family fears harassment.
This was the kind of moment J had been anticipating for a while. She felt immensely grateful that the family had left Texas in 2024, and resettled in western Massachusetts, a state with laws that she felt were more supportive of bodily autonomy, and a culture more welcoming of diverse lifestyles.
Authorities in France have placed more than a third of the country under a red heat...
An influenza outbreak has reportedly sickened more than 150 recruits in training at Lackland air force...
One morning early last July, Micha Bitsinnie arrived at work to an onslaught of messages from...
