“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 L.A. 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.”