Living Among Lions: When the Law Abandons Our Children
Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that some lions are acceptable predators. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the Court upheld Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, effectively declaring that the suffering of these children is constitutionally permissible. Twenty-six other states have passed similar laws, and today's ruling could embolden more to follow.
The documentary "A Lion in the House" takes its title from an Isak Dinesen quote, where director Linda Reichert intended the "lion" to represent cancer and to show how "incredibly alert and fiercely protective" parents become when their child faces a life-threatening disease. The film follows several families as they navigate pediatric cancer treatment, including Timothy Woods and his family.
Medicaid in America is made to protect the poor. And yet we see its weakness, its failure, highlighting the decisions it can make between who lives and dies. Timothy Woods died because Medicaid would not cover the drug that could have saved his life. His death stands as a stark reminder of what happens when systems designed to protect children instead abandon them to bureaucratic calculations about cost and coverage.
In a guest opinion published yesterday in The New York Times, the mother of L.W., one of the transgender children at the center of this Supreme Court case, wrote about the heartbreak of yesterday’s decision by the court Her daughter came out as transgender at nearly 13; four and a half years later, she is thriving after receiving evidence-based healthcare. But when Tennessee banned that care, this family began a pilgrimage no parent should have to make—ttrying to locate legal healthcare for their child.
When she read Trump's proclamation calling gender-affirming care "one of the most prevalent forms of child abuse facing our country today," the fear was immediate and visceral: "Could they really take away our child? Our children? Does this mean jail?"For weeks after that announcement, she lived in terror so acute it manifested physically—chest pain so severe she thought she was having a heart attack. She booked consultations with a financial adviser, a family-law attorney, and a global relocation specialist. She stayed up late researching countries they could flee to, developing detailed escape plans. And then came the moment of clarity: "I realized, this is exactly what our state legislature wanted. Fear. Spectacle. Submission."
As a social worker, I recognize this tactic. I have seen how systems weaponize fear to control families, how bureaucracies manufacture crises to justify their own existence. When legislators ignore testimony from actual parents and medical experts, when they choose to target vulnerable children instead of addressing gun violence or poverty, they reveal their priorities. This isn't governance; it's performance art designed to terrorize families into silence.
Yesterday’s ruling creates the same deadly arithmetic for transgender children that killed Timothy Woods—not through insurance denials, but through legal prohibitions that make lifesaving care a crime. We use medical interventions to block the attack of cancer cells when they threaten a child's wellbeing. We use medical interventions to block unwanted puberty when it threatens a transgender child's wellbeing. The use of medication to block unwanted changes in a body are identical; the love that drives parents to seek the best care possible is identical; only the political acceptability of the child’s diagnosis differs.
For families with transgender children, the lions are not just the challenges of growing up knowing there is a mismatch between the gender they were born with and the gender their child knows they are. They are the lawmakers, the courts, ignorant, hateful people, religious doctrines and the systems that actively deny care. These parents, too, become incredibly alert and fiercely protective.
I have stood in similar places, though my child's challenges wore different faces. When your child needs care and systems deny it, you face impossible choices. Some families have the resources to drive across state lines, to research specialists, to navigate complex bureaucracies. Others do not. Some can afford to take time off work for appointments; others cannot risk losing their jobs. Some live in states where care remains accessible; others watch helplessly as their options disappear. Yesterday's ruling makes these disparities even starker, shining another bright light on the fact that we live in a country where your child's access to healthcare depends not on medical need, but on your zip code, your bank account, and your ability to relocate your entire life. Now, for transgender children, the law itself has become another lion prowling between families and the care their children need.
This administration seems intent on devouring our young—those who are not straight, not white, not Christian. But the lions will fight back, because their children's lives are not worth less than any other child's life.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing in dissent, understood what the majority chose to ignore: "The court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims." She took the unusual step of reading her dissent from the bench, her voice carrying the weight of what this decision means for families across America. "In sadness, I dissent," she concluded, and in those four words, she captured the heartbreak of a moment when the law turns its back on the most vulnerable among us.
Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about the particular vulnerability of bodies that America has decided don't matter—bodies that exist outside the circle of protection this country draws around some of its children but not others. Today's ruling expands that circle of abandonment, adding transgender children to the list of young people whose suffering is deemed acceptable collateral damage in someone else's political project. Their bodies, like the black bodies Coates writes about, become sites of contested meaning rather than vessels of beloved children deserving care. The parallel is stark: how America treats different children's bodies as disposable, or worthy of protection reveals everything about who we consider fully human.
The Supreme Court's majority displayed the dangerous certainty of those who have never had to fight for their child's life, never stayed up late researching escape routes, never felt their chest tighten with the fear that their government might criminalize their love. They confused their own comfort with constitutional law, their own unfamiliarity with medical necessity. They failed to understand that when you legislate against a family's right to seek care for their child, you are not preserving tradition—you are weaponizing terror.
L.W.'s mother knows this. Every parent of a transgender child knows this. And despite today's ruling, despite the political winds that blow against these families, we all know it. We will continue to fight. Because that's what you do when you're living among lions: you protect what matters most, even when—especially when—the law will not.
In memory of Timothy Woods, in solidarity with L.W. and her family, and with all parents fighting lions for their children.
Hello. Excellent blog article. It’s tragic. I too, with sadness, dissent.
Also, FYI A lion in the house producer was Julia Reichert (not Linda, as was written in the post. She was an amazing human. And a warm friend.