This is my dear friend Kane and their daughter Mackenzie. Mackenzie is 13 and awesome. She’s a talented manga artist, a self-proclaimed “quirky geek”, reads years above grade level, and wants to rescue abandoned pitbulls when she grows up. Kane is a graduate student, an
environmental justice advocate, genderqueer, and grew up working class
in a tiny Midwest town. Whenever they’re together, Kane and Mackenzie
love to hike, kayak, work on crafts projects, read, read, read, talk
about everything, and share an inexplicable fondness for tie-dye.
Mackenzie calls Kane “Dad” and patiently explains the use of “they” as a
gender-neutral pronoun to friends and family.
All of this,
despite the fact that in 2006 a court decided someone who “doesn’t even
know what gender they are” wasn’t fit to parent a child — and removed
then 5yo Mackenzie from the only parent she’d ever known, awarding
guardianship to disapproving elderly conservative Christian relatives
who have done as little as possible to support Kane and Mackenzie’s
reunification. Kane’s struggle to regain custody has been ongoing for
nearly 8 years now, with many twists and turns and hopes and
disappointments along the way.
The aging ex-military couple
assigned as Mackenzie’s guardians have strong opinions about
“appropriate parents.” Often, they have failed to honor agreed-upon
visitations and sometimes actively sabotaged Kane’s efforts to
communicate with their daughter. They routinely criticize, mock, and
misgender Mackenzie’s dad to her face — a major source of stress for a
sensitive young person who loves her parent and deeply respects their
life choices. They have been known to throw away clothing and gifts from
Kane, forbid Mackenzie from befriending other children with queer
parents, and heavily police Mackenzie’s own gender expression for fear
of her “turning out like her mother[sic].”
Nevertheless, Kane
and Mackenzie have managed to maintain a close, loving, respectful, and
supportive relationship through the years. Meanwhile, by working
numerous jobs and acquiring scholarships, grants, and loans, Kane has
put themself through graduate school and made a stable, supportive,
loving home for their daughter. Now that Mackenzie is 13 and has more
say about where she wants to live, and given increasingly concerning
information about her current living situation, Mackenzie and Kane have decided it’s time to push for full custody.
The
hope is that bigoted attitudes in the state will have shifted over the
past near-decade, but regaining custody will still be a difficult
battle. They need to raise a minimum of $5000 to cover legal fees and
relocation costs before they can move forward. They are very close to
reaching their first milestone of $2000, which will allow them to retain
the lawyer who has agreed to take the case.
But they need
more help to get Mackenzie home. If there’s anything you can offer to
help bring this incredible family back together, it would mean a great
deal. No donation is too small to make a difference. You can send donations
to Kane directly via Paypal at atransdad@gmail.com or contact this blog
privately for the link to the family’s GoFundMe page. (For the sake of
Mackenzie’s privacy, we decided not to share that link on Tumblr, since
it uses her legal name.)
If you can signalboost this post to your friends, that’s a great help, too. Thank you!
ETA: For those who have expressed concern, here’s some more info about donation options and our effort to keep the Tumblr side of things pseudonymous. Thank you so much for all your support. ♥