• Mississippi Republican governor signed a bill banning hormone therapy for anyone younger than 18.
• Ray Walker had been receiving gender-affirming care in the state where he lives, and now can’t.
• Walker and his dad are moving to Virginia, away from the 17-year-old’s mother and two brothers.

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

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

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.

At least 20 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for trans minors, though several are embroiled in legal challenges. For more than a decade prior, such treatments were available to children and teens across the US and have been endorsed by major medical associations.

Opponents of gender-affirming care say there’s no solid proof of purported benefits, cite widely discredited research and say children shouldn’t make life-altering decisions they might regret. Advocates and families impacted by the recent laws say such care is vital for trans kids.

‘They’re ripping our lives apart’

As access to gender-affirming care dwindled and was later outlawed, Walker’s father, who declined to be interviewed, accepted a job in Virginia, where his son could keep his healthcare.

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.”

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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.