Today is May 11, the 131st day of 2025. In the last 131 days, 575 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills have been filed in 49 states—all of them attacking the community’s right to breathe, go to school, walk safely down the street, and not only live, but thrive.
Today is also Mother’s Day. For many of us, mothers are the world’s guiding lights, the fixers of all problems. The five mothers below reflect that: They are mothers standing up for their LGBTQIA+ children in a time when their very existence is being called into question.
Marcia Gay Harden, mother of three
“My children are the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about when I go to bed. All parents have preconceived ideas about who our children are. When they begin to define themselves differently, there may be some sort of mourning. But immediately after, hopefully, there’s a celebration of the fact that you gave them this place to feel comfortable to explore and be who they are going to be—and you get to receive that gift.
The Drag Isn’t Dangerous telethon was the first time I said out loud that all of my children identify with the LGBTQ+ community. And then the hate mail came rolling in. I think it came from very right-wing Republican groups with an organized hatred of the LGBTQIA, as you can see by the laws and politics that are currently rolling back all kinds of all kinds of rights, permissions, passports, and healthcare for the community. They should be more interested in insider trading and corruption than the signs on a bathroom. But then one of my kids said ‘Work it, Mom. If they’re mad, you must be doing something right.’
My coping mechanism is just to refocus and ask myself: Who is more important? My kids, or some extended family member, who is choosing to say something inappropriate? My kids, or the neighbors acting rudely? We’re talking about who my children are—this is not a political belief, it’s their being.
If your child’s identity is troubling you, reach out to another parent who has made peace with it. Then, figure out the issues: Whether your kid’s going to be bullied in school is the issue, your kid s safety. You want your children to be accepted in whatever environment they’re in. But the first step toward that is you accepting them and you making them safe.
My mother used to tell me, ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.’ But I always told her that I didn’t agree with that—that couldn’t be America, that couldn’t be us. If you find something wrong, you have to raise your voice. Now, the consequences of not speaking up are far more dangerous than the consequences of speaking up. Because it seems like losing your child is the worst of all the options out there.”
Zandra Geddis, mother of two
“My journey of motherhood started early. I was a teen parent and had my first child at 16 going on 17. Life was a navigation, to say the least. It was trial and error because I was growing up while he was growing up. But I’ve grown, shifted, and found my voice in ways I didn’t expect. I’ve learned that being a mother, especially to a queer child means both being soft and strong.
My oldest actually came out to my grandfather first when he was seven. He didn’t tell me anything until he was eight years old. I just started looking at things differently. I started doing research and trying to understand my child as their own person, and not just a piece of me that just was born out in the world.
When I realized the climate in Arkansas was going to be unfriendly to my family, we decided to move. He was about to start high school and I wanted him to have a good foundation, so we moved to D.C. after I spoke to a lot of queer and trans people about safe places to live. He’s flourishing now.
I grew up in an era where children were meant to be seen and not heard, which creates very insecure and questioning adults. But I’m stopping that culture. I’m listening more than speaking, and I’m trying to be his foundation of support. I want my kids to be seen. To be heard. I also want them to know I respect who they are and their decisions.”
Busy Philipps, mother of two
“I may have played Mrs. George in Mean Girls, but I definitely can say I don’t consider myself a cool mom. I try to be a self-aware mom. That, along with realizing that I don’t know everything and I don t have all the answers, has been key.
I think most of us go into motherhood with certain preconceived ideas or notions about the kind of parent we want to be. But nothing is ever by-the-book, and no two children are ever the same. You have to be willing to adjust your parenting and your expectations of what parenting is or could be, depending on your kid and their needs.
Statistically, we know that the best thing that we can do to help kids who are LGBTQIA+ is to support them and their journey. There is research behind it, studies by the American Medical Association, everyone is in agreement. Fundamentally it comes down to your first job when you become a parent, which is to keep your kid alive, period. I get very emotional and upset when I see people who are fighting against what we know keeps kids in the LGBTQIA+ community alive.
But not just alive. We should want more than that. Alive is the bare minimum, right? The rest of it is obviously what we are all striving for, which is, ‘I want to keep this child happy, interested, and content.’ But when we look at what is happening in the landscape of the country, it’s really shocking to me that people are missing the whole point of just the most basic level that we should want.
Obviously, I’m a very liberal person. I’ve always had friends who were trans and in the LGBTQIA+ community, but then, when it came to my own kid, I had this moment where I had to face that I was confused. But thankfully, I had a really great therapist, and there are really incredible resources; all of this helped me deal with my own thoughts and feelings without having to involve my child. That way, I could be nothing but supportive. This is a form of gender-affirming care. The public seems to get this message that gender-affirming care is this invasive thing, but it’s also just being supportive of your children while they explore their identity.”
Tyler Crone, mother of three
“I spent many decades in my career in the field of HIV and AIDS, and part of that broader movement for gender justice. People were fighting to live their lives out loud; this stuff was life or death.
When Luna was born, she came out rolling at almost 10 pounds. She’s always been full of force and full of life. Since about the age of three, she had been telling us that she wanted to be Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and that she wanted to grow up to be a girl. At that point in time, I said to her, ‘When you’re 18 and you’re an adult, you can have discussions about this.’ But one day, we were playing in the sprinklers and I said, ‘Here’s your big sister’s dress, wouldn’t it be funny if you put it on as a joke?’ Then she put on that dress, and we never looked back.
It took a lot of time, a lot of us falling down and not getting it right, to realize these structures and systems are not set up to protect these children. Now, I feel like it’s my obligation to be out there, loving my child, and visible so other parents can see. Part of that is also that our daughter is 19 and the US government can’t come and take our kid away from us anymore.
You have to understand that the personal is political. Luna transitioned and had her name changed during the first set of bathroom bills that were happening across the country. At this time, I realized that things were getting worse for Luna, rather than better. Families like ours were facing more barriers than before, and children were hurting.
In my daughter’s affidavit for Washington State’s litigation against the efforts to undermine access to gender-affirming care, she spoke about how she was suicidal and that our family’s choosing to believe and support our child, as well as seek care, was essential to her being alive and who she is today. And she’s not only alive—she s thriving. I think people need to understand that this is just about parents wanting to love and celebrate their child. Why would you want to take a position against that?”
Gabrielle Union-Wade, mother of four
“Zaya brought it up to me very casually as I was walking out the door to speak to her teachers. We had just moved from Miami to LA at the time. When I closed the door behind me, I had to take a minute to process the enormity of the information just given to me…but also, steel myself for whatever was going to come next. I wanted to be prepared for conversations, awkward or not, and prepared to fight in a way that I had never fought for anybody before, including myself. And also, prepare myself to be humble, to be humbled, and not assume I know every fucking thing. That’s the first step, and then I called the cast of Pose. Everybody advised me to just be her mom, her step-mom. Just be a consistent adult in her life.
We didn’t plan on being leaders in this space or doing anything other than make sure that our child—and by that, everyone else’s children—have access to the same kinds of freedoms, safety, opportunities as anyone else. For us, it’s more about protecting their peace, protecting their freedom, and offering protection. This goes for all of our children. It‘s not my job to lead, but it is my job to create a protected space where her world doesn’t shrink, but expands.
I’ve been doing this work for a while, but as the rhetoric increased and with all the newfangled rhetoric Trump is coming up with by the hour, we need to have an escape plan. We have to make sure that all of her school settings are not just welcoming, not just have representation, but are ready to put boots on the ground to actually protect these students.
If you’re not willing, like me and her dad are willing to lay down our lives and protect our kids, then that’s not the institution that our kids are going to be enrolled in. But just making sure that she is also prepared, and she has her own mental weapons to use in this fight, and that she’s prepared, like she is prepared to fight for her literal life.
This isn’t just talk. We have to be ready. A lot of people would rather sacrifice their trans children than prepare to fight for them. But to me, that’s what a great mother does is: You fight for your children. You fight to protect them, you fight for their peace, you fight for their freedom.”
