ABILENE, TX – “I do not like spending my free time asking adults to make good choices,” ten-year-old Kai Shappley told a roomful of Texas legislators on Monday. “It makes me sad that some politicians use trans kids like me to get votes from people who hate me just because I exist,” she told the Senate Committee on State Affairs. A video clip of her testimony promptly went viral.
The young trans activist and actor, who lived in Pearland before moving to Austin in 2018, was speaking out against two Senate bills, 1311 and 1646, that would prevent her from receiving gender-affirming health care by criminalizing it. SB 1311 aims to prohibit medical professionals from providing affirming or transition-related health care to those younger than eighteen. It would also prohibit a doctor’s liability insurance from covering gender-affirming treatment or transition-related procedures. Meanwhile, SB 1646 goes as far as defining a parent’s support for his or her trans child as “child abuse.” A parent who secures gender-affirming care for a child—which, for minors, can include puberty-delaying drugs—would now be classified as an abuser. The bill could potentially allow Child Protective Services to remove trans children from their parents’ custody.
The bills are only two examples from a handful of measures targeting trans youth. SB 29 would ban trans youth from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. The bill passed the Texas Senate on Thursday and now heads to the House. House Bill 1399, the companion to SB 1311 that would criminalize gender-affirming health care, has passed in the House Committee on Public Health.
On Monday, after a few hours of discussion and testimony, Kai was the first trans child to testify in front of the committee. Her statement was met with silence from the committee, whose members did not follow up with questions. “Seriously, none of you want to know more about me?” she asked before leaving the stand.
Later in the week, I asked Kai what she wished the senators had asked her. Without skipping a beat, she said: “What’s it like living in Texas as a trans kid?”
As soon as we meet via video call, Kai makes a silly face. She’s as bright and bubbly as the yellow blouse she wore as she testified. She already has professional acting experience under her belt, having appeared on an episode of Netflix’s The Baby-Sitters Club as Bailey, a trans child Mary Anne sticks up for at the hospital. But Kai is especially animated when she talks about her absolute favorite beings: her cats and Dolly Parton.
“One day Mom was playing [Dolly] and I was like, ‘Oh, who is this dramatic-sounding woman?’” Kai says about the country music legend. “I learned more about her and then I was like, she’s just a taller me. She’s nice and kind and has one sassy attitude.”
