Across the United States, the debate over transgender rights has intensified, reaching into the most personal of territories: the right to one’s own name, family, and sense of self. As legislative sessions wrap up in 2025, a flurry of bills and policies have emerged that restrict transgender individuals’ ability to use their chosen names, while public discourse—on television, in print, and online—has become increasingly polarized.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, recent months have seen a dramatic rise in state-level bills making it harder for transgender people to go by their preferred names. Some proposed laws would even allow public employees to refuse to use someone’s chosen name, while others require schools to inform parents if a student uses a name different from their legal one. In Mississippi, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that a trans teenager could not change his name until he turned 21—three years past the age of legal adulthood. These moves, the Chronicle notes, threaten not just the LGBTQ community, but a broader liberty that Americans have long cherished: the right to cultivate their own public personas and identities.
“Names are not just words: They are some of the most powerful tools of recognition, belonging and identity we have,” wrote Elek Lane, a philosopher and post-doctoral researcher at the University of Vienna, in a November 26, 2025, opinion piece for the Chronicle. Lane drew parallels to other moments in American history when name changes marked important personal and cultural transformations—such as Muhammad Ali’s rejection of his birth name, Cassius Clay, in 1964, as part of his conversion to the Nation of Islam and involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. For Lane, the current wave of anti-trans bills represents a creeping state control over personal liberty, with implications far beyond the trans community.
Yet for many transgender Americans, the struggle for recognition and acceptance doesn’t end with paperwork or legal hurdles. When biological families fail to provide support, many turn to chosen families—networks of friends and community members who step in to offer shelter, affirmation, and love. On November 25, 2025, Pride Source published a feature highlighting the stories of local trans individuals like Juno, Elliot, Audré, and Car Cat. Their experiences paint a picture of resilience and mutual aid in the face of rejection and adversity.
Juno, for example, recounted the pain of leaving home at 19 after enduring years of verbal abuse. “I just picked a direction to drive… [and] realized, ‘I don’t have anywhere to go, do I?’” she told Pride Source. Fortunately, she found refuge on the couch of someone she’d met in a queer student group at Eastern Michigan University. Similarly, Car Cat, after leaving her ex-wife with no job or place to stay, was taken in by a near-stranger she met at a local event. That person helped her address her alcoholism and find employment, and in return, Car Cat pitched in with chores and support.
“It’s kind of a cycle,” Juno said. “People in my life who are willing to just let me sleep on their couch every once in a while will look at me and say, ‘Yeah, that seems like an OK roommate.’” For many, these chosen families become the foundation for survival and growth. Audré described how her wife’s family had always stepped up to help friends in need, offering a safe haven to those facing hardship or abuse. Elliot’s parents, too, routinely welcomed friends who needed a place to stay, creating a sense of normalcy and belonging. “We had a pretty good conversation, and my best friend kept thanking me and saying... they [felt] a sense of normalcy again, being able to hang out with our family,” Elliot recalled.
In some cases, these bonds run so deep that friends begin to consider each other’s families as their own. “I have friends now who consider having my parents walk them down the aisle, or will come to family dinners because our lives have been intertwined,” Audré said. But the pain of rejection from biological relatives can cut all the deeper for those who have known them the longest. “When we come into ourselves, they show that the history we share means less to them than their preconceptions,” the Pride Source article reflected.
Car Cat has since become a leader in the local trans community, organizing word-of-mouth events, moderating online spaces, and helping strangers with everything from finding housing to dealing with depression. “When people are afraid to exist, when they’re so disenfranchised, a lot of people who are far into their transitional journey still carry internalized transphobia, and it’s sometimes difficult to eliminate that ultimately. But [we try] aggressive positivity, aggressively trying to include people, bring them to things, help them out when they’re feeling down. The thing to do [when you’re depressed] is not to just sit there and lay down and rot and die. It is to keep moving,” she said.
As these community bonds grow stronger, the national conversation grows sharper. On November 26, 2025, Townhall published an opinion piece by Tim Graham, sharply criticizing PBS for what he called its “radical leftist” approach to transgender issues. Graham pointed to a 2023 study indicating that 90% of PBS News Hour’s airtime on transgender topics went to left-leaning voices, with dissenting views rarely featured. He singled out a November 24, 2025, PBS interview with Alejandra Caraballo, a trans woman and Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic staffer, who has made controversial statements on social media. Graham cited a June 18, 2025, post in which Caraballo wrote, “I honestly don’t care anymore if this country destroys itself and burns down to the ground. The current form of the United States is incompatible with democracy or human rights. It no longer has any legitimacy to govern and I’ll dance on its grave. Let something better rise from the ashes.”
During the PBS interview, Caraballo addressed the role of social media in shaping public debate, saying, “I think about this a lot in terms of the incentives of social media and how it can incentivize a certain style of engagement. But I think, in general, one of the things I have always tried to say and repeat, the quote is, ‘be brutal to systems, kind to people.’” Graham, however, argued that such activists “don’t believe in democracy” and accused PBS of failing to provide a balanced platform for debate.
Meanwhile, the legislative push against transgender rights continues to gather steam. Lane’s Chronicle piece noted that after the 2024 elections, which saw the Republican Party regain power in part due to opposition to expanding trans rights, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14168, purportedly to “restore biological truth to the federal government.” Lane critiqued the order as an overreach, arguing that “truths aren’t established by decree, especially when it comes to something as socially and historically inflected as our categories of gender.” For Lane, and many others, the right to control one’s name and identity is a fundamental human liberty that government should not regulate.
As winter approaches and the holiday season brings both joy and reminders of loss, the stories of chosen family and community resilience offer hope to those facing rejection and adversity. “There’s absolutely nothing more affirming,” Car Cat said, “for a trans person than being around other trans people and seeing that it’s OK for us to exist. It’s OK for us to act however we are. It’s OK for us to be neurodivergent and different. There are other people like us, and we are never alone.”
In a country wrestling with its identity and the limits of personal freedom, the struggle for recognition, belonging, and the right to one’s own name continues—inside families, in statehouses, and on the national stage.
