Ultimately she and Kris dismissed those theories, ungrounded in science, and listened to their daughter, who recalled the euphoria of wearing princess dresses at an early age. Flower cherished a Little Red Riding Hood cape and felt certain of her identity from the start.

“I remember that I really disliked my name,” Flower said of her birth name. “This is just like who I am. It’s all that I have a memory of.”

Conversations between Flower and her mother are often marked by uncommon candor, as when discussing early memories together at an Indianapolis park.

“Before I knew you and before I walked this journey with you,” Jennilyn told her, “I would not have thought that a kid would know they were trans or that a kid would just come out wired that way. I always thought that that was something adults figured out, and so there were times that it was really scary because I didn’t know how the world would accept you. I didn’t know how to keep you safe.”

Now, Jennilyn said, her worries have shifted to Flower’s spelling skills and how she’ll navigate crushes.

Flower, for her part, appreciates being heard. She said she and her parents make medical decisions together because, “of course, they can’t decide on a medicine for me to take.”

“At the same time, you can’t pick a medicine that we can’t afford to pay for or that, you know, might harm you,” Jennilyn responded.

“That’s what I really like about her,” Flower said, of her mother. “She leaves a lot of my life up to me.”

——- In Mississippi, a ban on gender-affirming care became law in the state on Feb. 28 — prompting a father and his trans son to leave the state at the end of July for Virginia. There, he can keep his health care and continue to see doctors.

“We are essentially escaping up north,” said Ray Walker, 17.

Ray Walker, 17, left, speaks about his acceptance of having to move out-of-state for continued gender-affirming care, while his mother Katie Rives, listens. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Walker lives with his mother, Katie Rives, in a suburb of Jackson, the state capital. His parents are divorced, but his father also lived in the area. Halfway through high school, Walker is an honors student with an interest in theater and cooking. He has a supportive group of friends.

When Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed the bill banning hormone therapy for anyone younger than 18, he accused “radical activists” of pushing a “sick and twisted ideology that seeks to convince our kids they’re in the wrong body.”

The state’s largest hospital halted hormone treatments for trans minors months before Reeves signed the ban. That hospital later closed its LGBTQ+ clinic.

After that clinic stopped offering its services, Walker and other teenagers received treatment at a smaller facility in another city, but those services ended once the ban took effect.

As access to gender-affirming dwindled and was later outlawed, Walker’s father, who declined to be interviewed, accepted a job in Virginia, where his son could keep his health care. Walker plans to move in with his father this month. Rives, however, is staying in Mississippi with her two younger children.

Walker’s memories of the anguished period when he started puberty at 12 still haunt him. “My body couldn’t handle what was happening to it,” he said.

After a yearslong process of evaluations, then puberty blockers and hormone injections, Walker said his self-image improved.

Then the broad effort in conservative states to restrict gender-affirming care set its sights on Mississippi. The path toward stability that Walker and his family forged had narrowed. It soon became impassable.

“I was born this way. It’s who I am. I can’t not exist this way,” Walker said. “We were under the impression that I still had two years left to live here. The law just ripped all of that up. They’re ripping our lives apart.”

The family sees no alternative.

“Mississippi is my home, but there are a lot of conflicting feelings when your home is actively telling you that it doesn’t want you in it,” Walker said.

As Walker’s moving date approaches, Rives savors the moments the family shares together. She braces for the physical distance that will soon be between them. Her two younger sons will lose Ray’s brotherly presence in their daily lives.

She still feels lucky.

“We know that’s an incredibly privileged position to be in,” Rives said of her son moving to Virginia. “Most people in Mississippi cannot afford to just move to another state or even go to another state for care.”

——

Flower, initially dispirited by the debates at the Indiana Statehouse, brightened after her parents took her to her first Pride march on June 10 in Indianapolis.

She tied a transgender pride flag around her shoulders and covered her pink shirt in every rainbow heart-shaped sticker she could find. She gripped a sign that read: “She belongs.”

Her favorite activities are often less inflected with politics than her status as a soon-to-be teenager. She’s a Girl Scout who enjoys catching Pokemon with her brother. Before the trip, she zipped around an Indianapolis park on a pink scooter, her hair tangled by the wind.

Prior to entering Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, Flower used a women’s bathroom. At a diner in the city, she ordered a mint chocolate chip milkshake and a vegan grilled cheese. Jennilyn created an itinerary to make their experience as joyful and uncomplicated as possible.

“First of all, we’re going be able to chill at the hotel in the morning,” Flower said. “Second of all, there’s a park nearby that we can have a lot of fun in. Third of all, we might have a backup plan, which is really exciting. And fourth of all: Candy store!”

The doctor’s appointment the following day, initially intimidating, soon gave them another reason to celebrate: If care was not available in Indiana, they could get it in Chicago.

“Indiana could do whatever the hell they’re going to do,” Jennilyn said, “and we can just come here.”

Arleigh Rodgers reported from Chicago and Indianapolis. Michael Goldberg reported from Jackson. Rodgers and Goldberg are a corps members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.