“My son’s safe because he’s off at college, but I don’t think a parent should have to choose between $60,000 to $75,000 a year for out-of-state tuition for their child’s safety,” she says.
Living so close to the Capitol means that Rodriguez travels to Austin frequently, estimating at least 30 trips during this year’s legislative sessions. Thankfully, her bosses allow her to work remotely. This helps because the Texas legislature often schedules hearings on controversial bills at the last minute and at inconvenient times, which advocacy groups say is designed to discourage opponents from speaking.
That kind of access is not afforded to other parents in the state, which can take up to 14 hours to drive across. For Bekah Bryant and her daughter, Sunny, visiting the Capitol means a long commute from Houston and the possibility of one or two nights in a hotel room just to have their chance to testify before lawmakers.
“You get to the Capitol at 7am and you might testify at 2am, and for a kid that has a 9pm bedtime, that’s a lot,” Bryant tells them.
Those long days take a lot out of an eight-year-old kid, but her daughter has remained defiant. In a now-viral piece of testimony, Sunny reminded lawmakers who their legislation is affecting by, illustrating the harm they were doing to kids like her. Her first trip to the Texas Legislature should have been a school field trip, she asserted, not a full-day committee hearing to fight for her right to exist.
“If I don’t show up, you won’t see the real stories, kids like me whose futures will be crushed, opportunities taken away even before I’m given a chance to try,” she said in the October address.
Bekah Bryant described her family as a normal, middle-class clan whose lives have been upended by the ruthless, unrelenting attacks on trans kids in Texas. Their family is surrounded by supportive friends, loved ones, and school administrators, but that hasn’t stopped the challenges they have faced. Family friends have been reported to Child Protective Services (CPS) just for being supportive of Sunny and her transition, according to Bryant.
