Kai Shappley: A Trans Girl Growing Up In Texas | Emmy-Winning Documentary | them.

[Music] [Applause] so tell me more about school what about the people in your class are they nice i want to apologize for saying something awfully rude for no reason one evening when we were getting our backpacks to go and my teacher said girls get your backpacks um with girl and lucy she said no you're not a girl you're a butch man you're upset then another girl she just shouts out kind of on um and i say no now yell right back at her when i say it you did so the only bathroom that she's allowed to use at the school was locked again so she can't even use the nurses office it's gonna take too long to get there because it's all the way at the front yeah it's been a rough school year but your friends take up for you right that's good i'm glad you have friends now we wait do you think we need one more coat of this no that looks pretty good it's fine too well i could do another coat yeah no it's fine [Music] [Music] my earliest memories of kai from the very beginning was this child just acted very different than my other boys [Music] you know what the best thing i can do to cats is i'm not just a cat lover but i can make the cats love me [Music] the kind of baby that kai was was very similar to my daughter all the little pieces were there very early i just i didn't know what it was that i was looking at [Music] hey mama i'm going to buy a garden bowl for you when you wear it when you have it on your hair you water some um on it and it turned into a plate a plant bow and the gross flowers when you put water on it i wish i could have that bow by two and a half three years old everything was very feminine by three and a half kai was saying you know i'm a girl mommy you know i'm a girl [Music] the bible is for everyone to know to be kind and loving and caring isn't that my t-shirt yes i'm using it as a dress like myself well that's my t-shirt are you going to sleep hey mommy mommy come on okay let's get your hair done and get it okay [Music] they're so crazy can you pull your messy bun out you want to just wear them down you went down pigtails like this you know mama is a really good boy mom you deserve a way better girl mom [Laughter] and corey didn't ever want her hair fixed like this she wasn't as girly as you are well now she might be now she might be we just don't know we just don't know where's your bible i have it my pink bible i have two bibles i have three bibles isn't that amazing i have three bibles what's your favorite book in the bible her pretty necklace she became queen because of her story because she helped people and let's see that's basically it [Music] okay hi caleb who's praying it's not my turn good morning lord this is the day that you have made and we will rejoice and be glad in it yes we will we ask that you and pray for donald trump to be nice we always pray for donald trump and lord we do pray for our leaders we ask you remove the wrong people and you replace them with the right people in jesus name amen okay amen [Music] it's hard when people that i've known and served with in church for many years who know that i love the lord to suddenly because my daughter was born transgender they suddenly i think that i've you know allowed satan to take over my family um so i guess it's just being watchful to see which side of civil rights history my church is going to be on i think that that's something that i have to be mindful of as well [Music] when kai was born i was leading a ministry at lakewood church leading bible study every saturday night attending church and serving as a prayer partner every sunday i was a straight ticket republican a tea partier my beliefs about the lgbtq community were that you know we needed to help them see the truth to save them from going to hell i remember even thinking before kai was three that i think this kid might be gay and i thought that that could not happen and that would not happen we started praying fervently prayers turned into googling conversion therapy and how can we implement these techniques at home to make kai not be like this putting her in time out for acting like a girl putting her in time out for stealing girl toys spanking her really spanking her every time she would say you know i'm a girl no matter what the consequences she's persisting in the fact that you should already know she's a girl when kai was about four years old she prayed to go home and be with jesus and never come back father god jesus name help my friends and family be kind be good love each other and become and courage and love amen my kid was praying to die [Music] all of the information and data that i had read about transgender children having a 41 risk of attempting suicide came flooding back and i realized that i had a four-year-old that was begging the lord to let her die i had a four-year-old who would rather go be with jesus forever then stay here and have to live as a boy one more day [Music] i know you do but everybody does these orange things are fish eggs i don't know why i like them they're pretty good they're they're the best touch on it they aren't um [Music] um [Music] we'll really have to i don't know i don't think sleep rubbers are a good idea why not everybody understands what trans is let me think about it we'll talk to miss gladys when i get back we will talk about it okay literally my love is so strong for cats that make them love me so much that sometimes they even follow me i'm gonna raise thousands of cats fill up my whole house with kitty cats tell me about your school well they do do something mean to me sometimes the school so miss walker the principal um her boss says i cannot use a woman's bathroom so i have to use a bathroom that um just to make me feel good they put two girls to go with me and that still doesn't help because um i sometimes have accidents because um the door locks when it closes and people um they they just put a magnet to keep the door open that doesn't work people keep stealing magnets for their teachers and i'm like holy jesus and then they do nothing about it and so i have accidents a lot some of us that that happens to us um we have accidents and how do you feel when you have an accident i feel embarrassed this shouldn't happen and it wasn't my fault it was the principal's boss's fault not mine because other girls get to go to the woman the girl's bathroom and i don't get to and i'm a girl so i should go to the girls bathroom just minutes ago the texas house voted for a so-called bathroom bill the bill would require students to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate it's not a controversial bill and it doesn't impact our economy so we just want to get it right and it's just texas values you deserve your privacy you deserve your dignity you deserve your comfort and your safety when you go to the ladies room or the locker room or the girls bathroom in the beginning we were going to be stealth no one was going to need to ever know that kai was trans and it actually went pretty well at the school i felt confident and then the bathroom bill chatter started and then the superintendent notified kai school that that is not the way it would happen and then i got the phone call from the school saying kai will have to use the boys restroom we need a law that protects the privacy of our children in our public schools i need to know that i can have the same expectation of privacy no matter where i am in the state of texas it's just common sense and common decency we don't want men in women's ladies rooms this had nothing to do with equal rights i got the phone call from the school early in the morning on a thursday by the evening the same day i was sitting at fox news doing an interview by the next tuesday just a few days later i was speaking at a press conference in austin [Music] to the lgbtq community i want to say i'm sorry i'm sorry for every time that i plucked a bible verse out of context and i hurt you with it i was a hateful reflection of a loving god please forgive me this is the face of a transgender child in texas and i want you to look at this little girl my little girl do we as a state really want to force her into a men's bathroom kai is the strongest willed person i have ever known i don't think any one thing could have broken me if kai wasn't such a strong-willed little kid i would have broken her me being broken put me together better but if i had succeeded at breaking my daughter the statistics say that it wouldn't have turned out well for her when my mom let me start being a girl it was more than amazing it was gorgeous it was amazing it was the best thing that happened to me so far in my life [Music] b [Music] you

Channel: them

Views: 4,804,228

Keywords: lgbt, queer, trans, transgender, trans youth, transgirl, trans child, trans parent, religious lgbt, christian lgbt, lgbt youth, trans family, trans texas, aclu, daresha kyi, little by little films, trans documentary, aclu documentary, trans activisim, kai shappley, trans kids, trans kid, transgender children, growing up trans, transgender documentary, transgender girl, emmy award winner trans, trans in america kai shappley, trans children, emmy trans, trans kid documentary

Id: cuIkLNsRtas

Length: 18min 3sec (1083 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 10 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/DenikaMae]

That is an intense journey they are on. I wish them all the best.

Wow.

The Journey her mom had to go through to change the way she saw the world is crazy inspiring.

[u/FoundAtFour-Oh]

It is mind-boggling that any person with two brain cells to rub together could look at that child and honestly claim they see a public safety risk.

[u/[deleted]]

"I realized I had a 4 year old child that was praying to the lord to die, that she would rather be with jesus forever than stay one more day as a boy"

I'm not religious, but that's heartbreaking.