“It’s hard to move, it’s hard to leave family and friends behind. It’s hard to go somewhere with nothing and start over."
These are the words of Annie Holloway from Oklahoma; a mother and TikToker whose family, including her 17-year-old trans son, have chosen to say goodbye their home state due to bills which target the LGBTQ+ community.
At the time of writing, there are 400 bills in the USA targeting the LGBTQ+ community at large and the transgender community in particular, according to trans journalist and activist Erin Reed. The state of Florida is currently seeing some of the most draconian anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the USA being passed, with red states across the country seeing an armada of similar legislation.
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Some trans activists are now referring to the situation in the USA as an active anti-trans genocide.
Things have gotten so bad that Reed has created a regularly-updated ‘heat map’ of states with the worst anti-trans legislation, ranging from the blue ‘safest states with protections’ to the red and black ‘do not travel’.
Among the latter category is Oklahoma, Annie's home state.
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The mom, who goes by the handle @coyoteannie, gained a following on TikTok as a 'prepper' to help people prepare for emergencies, but has since switched to advising people on safe states for LGBTQ+ people and documenting her family’s journey as they plan to flee the state.
Speaking to UNILAD about why she made the heartbreaking decision to leave her home, Annie said: “Last year I made a video on TikTok where I said if Don’t Say Gay bill in Florida passes, we’re going to see that in every red state.”
The so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill (formally known as the ‘Parental Rights in Education’ bill), was signed into law by Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis on 28 March, 2022. The bill prohibits talking about sexuality and gender identity in the classroom, similar to the UK’s old Section 28 legislation.
For Annie, this bill was a red flag. She said: “That bill was the spark for all the other anti-trans legislation. Everything that starts in Florida eventually comes to my state."
Oklahoma is now currently seeing some 40 bills passing through its state senate specifically targeted towards the LGBTQ+ community. They include bills banning puberty blockers for minors, banning books about LGBTQ+ people from school libraries, and banning school staff from referring to a student with a name or pronoun other than what is on their birth certificate.
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One proposed bill, SB937 in Oklahoma, concerns students at school who want to ‘dispute’ their gender identity. If someone is questioning their identity then "sex may be established by presenting a signed statement by a licensed physician.” There is a clear implication that a medical examination would have to take place to obtain such a statement.
The bill also describes gender identity as a ‘faith-based construct' and sexual orientation as 'orthodoxy’. It says they are "predicated on naked assertions or emotional feelings, not self-evident objective fact”.
More divisive issues have been used to gain a foothold of support for anti-trans legislation, chief examples including trans people in sports and in public bathrooms.
Annie explained: “Oklahoma started with a trans sports ban, and that’s how a lot of these red states start. Then they passed a bathroom ban. At this point I’m starting to get nervous.”
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However, it was not anti-trans bills specifically that first became a red flag for Annie, but anti-abortion bills.
She said: “The very first draconian bill that they passed here was that they would charge doctors with felonies if they were caught providing any kind of abortion care unless the mother was ‘actively dying’. Now they’re trying to pass bills that do the same thing to doctors providing gender-affirming care.”
Things only got worse when Texas passed a law which would allow the state to take custody of children who may receive gender affirming care. Ultimately that legislation was blocked by a federal judge, but Annie still recognised the danger of it.
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“They were labelling providing any kind of gender affirming care as child abuse," she said. “As the mother of a transgender child, I knew that we were going to be targets.”
The final straw for Annie came with a bill in Florida called SB254. This bill allows the State of Florida to take emergency custody of a child who is believed to be at risk of being exposed to gender affirming care. This doesn’t have to be because that child is transgender; it could be because they have a trans parent or a trans sibling.
Even more alarmingly, gender affirming care doesn’t have to be actively happening or even imminent, there only needs to be a perceived risk of ‘exposure’. In a custody dispute one party can cite the ‘risk’ of gender affirming care and Florida can overturn any other custody orders and take jurisdiction over the custody dispute.
In practice, this means that an abusive parent could use this law to take custody of a child.
For Annie, this was the moment she knew she had to get out, as the bill has potential implications beyond the trans community.
She said: “I am a victim of domestic violence, my kids are victims of domestic violence. In our case that would be devastating to our family’s safety.
“Along with my son not being able to safely use the bathroom here, not being able to access his medication, the threat of having our children removed, it was just time to go.”
It’s not only her son, but Annie too is exposed to anti-LGBTQ+ legislation since she came out as a lesbian later in her life.
The emotional impact of fleeing has already taken its toll on Annie and her family, especially her son, but she noted that she is 'one of the lucky ones'.
"I’m extremely privileged that I have an ability to leave," she said. “Every day I feel like I have been living my life in fight or flight mode. I have lost 40 pounds in two months, I’m not sleeping. My 17-year-old trans son spoke about wanting to end his life. He was terrified every day, just having panic attacks."
The state that Annie is planning to move to - which UNILAD has chosen not to name for safety reasons - is one that Annie has only visited 'one time'.
"It’s an unknown land to us. We’re so thankful for it, but it’s scary," she said.
“We were forced to do this by the state that I was born in, by the state that I grew up in. These are lakes that I grew up swimming in, there are little towns that I visit all the time. There are festivals here that we participate in for indigenous cultures that mean a lot to us.
“My heart is in Oklahoma, this is my home. And Oklahoma is saying ‘you are not welcome here’.”
Despite leaving her home state, Annie said that she would still not consider leaving the US altogether.
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"I feel like there is a desire to flee the United States. All of us are feeling like that, however I do believe that is short sighted," she explained. "What happens in America tends to spread to other nations. In Australia the Prime minister repeated anti-trans talking points, in the UK there's the TERF movement, in Canada there's a growing white supremacist problem.
"America being the cultural powerhouse that it is, it's important that we try to fight it here at home. Hope isn't lost yet."
Annie is also using her TikTok platform to offer help to other LGBTQ+ families who are fleeing their home states. She is now doing a weekly fundraiser on her profile to support a different family each week. Annie remains incredibly stoic and defiant, and wanted to offer some hope.
She said: “Being 35-years-old, I grew up in a time when gay was still a slur and same sex marriage was illegal, and we won. In the 1970s when my mum grew up, that was the rise of the very first pride movement, that was Stonewall, and we won our rights.
"Our rights have never been given to us, we have had to demand them and we have always won. I do believe that while times are scary, that we will overcome this and we will win this.”
LGBTQ+ activists have already seen a small victory in Florida where a ban of gender-affirming care targeting trans youth was blocked by a judge. The judge highlighted that one legislator calling trans people 'demons, mutants, and imps' did little to support their argument that the bill did not unconstitutionally discriminate against a minority.
Even now, the fight is far from over.