Holding Each Other Through the Storm: Community Care and Resilience for Trans Youth
By Debi Jackson
I often describe our journey into advocacy as something we never saw coming. Almost 15 years ago when our child came out as transgender at the age of four, we didn’t have a roadmap. We had love, a healthy dose of fear, but most importantly…a deep commitment to doing right by our child, even when we didn’t know what that would look like.
For the first two years, from the time our child was four to six, I didn’t know a single other family raising a transgender child of any age. It was an incredibly isolating time. I was fortunate to connect with a few trans adults who told me they had known who they were from a very young age and wished they’d had the kind of support we were giving our child. Many of them were just beginning their own transitions and were navigating their own healing. While their stories offered important affirmation, I still didn’t have anyone to talk to who was walking the same path as a parent.
That changed after I gave a speech that unexpectedly went viral. Suddenly, other parents began reaching out. For the first time, I had a conversation with someone who truly understood what it was like to raise and protect a trans child in a world that often refuses to see their humanity. From that moment on, we were pulled into a web of community care that carried us through some of the hardest moments of our lives.
That’s the thing about this work: it’s never really solitary. Even when we feel isolated — by politics, prejudice, or pain — we are still tethered to one another by our shared values and our hopes for the next generation.
Today, as someone who speaks and trains on these issues all over the world, I’m often asked how I stay hopeful in such difficult times. My answer is always the same: I find hope in people. In the families who show up for their kids with fierce love. In the educators who risk backlash to affirm their students. In the therapists and providers who create spaces of healing and safety. In the activists fighting for equality on every continent. In the young people themselves, who continue to shine, resist, and imagine futures where they are free.
But that hope doesn’t come automatically. It’s something we have to cultivate together. In a climate that increasingly targets trans youth and those who support them, community care is not just a nice idea. It’s a lifeline.
Community care looks like parents texting each other late at night after a school board meeting. It looks like local LGBTQ+ centers holding free name and gender marker clinics. It looks like a grandmother knitting pride scarves, a librarian curating inclusive books, a social worker staying late to help a teen in crisis.
And it looks like us — parents, advocates, educators, allies — choosing every day to show up in ways both big and small. Sometimes that means speaking out. Sometimes it means listening deeply. Sometimes it’s simply reminding someone: You are not alone.
One of the lessons I’ve learned over the past decade is that our power lies in connection. We may not always win the policy fights right away. We may feel outnumbered or outfunded. But we are never without influence. Every conversation, every act of care, every public stand — we’re planting seeds. And those seeds grow into change.
If you’re feeling discouraged right now, I see you. It’s a heavy time. But I promise you this: the work you’re doing matters. Whether you’re a parent, a therapist, a teacher, or a young person trying to find your way — you’re part of something bigger than the storm we’re in.
Let’s keep holding each other through it.
Debi Jackson is an internationally recognized advocate, speaker, and educator on transgender rights, especially for trans youth and their families. You can follow her writing on her Debi Downer Substack or learn more about her work at debi-jackson.com
