I fled Kansas’ anti-LGBT discrimination. Now I’m banned from coming back to see my son | Commentary

My name is Shelly Jo, and I am a small town Kansas girl who is now a refugee living in New Hampshire.

I hope to offer some perspective about how the political climate of intolerance towards transgender people translates into very real consequences for ordinary people.

We are human beings with lives and families, and laws like this have the effect of adding more persecution to folks that already struggle.

I am in my early 40s, and like many from my generation, I hid who I was for decades out of internalized denial and self-loathing.

This was the product of living in a world where I simply was not accepted.

I started accepting myself about two years ago, and the life that I had built for myself shattered as a result.

It started with the end of my marriage, and then being outed publicly in court before I was ready to do so myself.

When I did come out as transgender a few months later, it spelled the end of a 14- year career.

Most of my family cut all contact with me, and even going to the grocery store was cause for me to face harassment from strangers.

I finally reached a point where living and working in Kansas was intolerable, and I began seeking asylum in jurisdictions less antagonistic to the LGBTQ community.

I found employment and an apartment in New Hampshire, and in August of last year I loaded up my cat and all of my worldly possessions into my car and started my new life here.

New Hampshire has been good to me.

I recently remarried and my wife, a lifelong native of Alabama, has joined me here.

There are laws at the state level that protect me from the daily discrimination and harassment that made my life in Kansas intolerable.

New Hampshire is the most conservative of the New England states and there have been attempts at anti-trans legislation here, but New Hampshire folks have little stomach for laws that trample individual rights.

The state motto “Live Free or Die” is a point of pride here.

Despite what I left behind, I am grateful to have been given an opportunity here.

I have a 14-year-old son who lives in Wichita with his mother.

For months, we have been planning a summer road trip back to Kansas to visit.

The recent passage of Senate Bill 180 has forced me to cancel these plans.

A road trip necessitates the use of public facilities, especially for two transgender women taking hormone regulating medications that have diuretic side effects.

Complying with this law would force me to publicly out myself in front of strangers by using the men’s restroom, and not complying with it would hold the prospect of being incarcerated in a men’s jail.

This law has permanently exiled me from my home and further separated my son from me.

It would be impossible for me to fully express how the passage of SB 180 makes me feel.

Despite everything, I love Kansas and I’ve always thought I would be coming home.

I was forced from my home by bigotry, and now I have been banned from returning permanently.

My heart breaks for all of the transgender Kansans back home still living there that must now face this new form of persecution, especially those who are the most young and vulnerable.

Even though it cost me heavily, getting out was an option for me. It simply isn’t an option for many others.

Please remember that we are human beings.

Folks like me don’t have an agenda beyond desiring the freedom to live our lives openly and without fear of harassment and discrimination.

We are part of your families. We are exactly who we are, and we shouldn’t have to hide or flee our homes.

Kansas is beautiful and big enough for all of us.