Archibald: He loves Alabama, but for his child he must leave

If Alabama took the time to sit down with Sim Butler, it would surely find a connection.

The kind he talks about when he describes why he loves this state so much, how you can walk into any small town and meet a local, and all of sudden the both of you are trying to find commonalities and kinships, customs and cousins and links that make you see one another as something more than strangers.

Sim’s the guy ever in search of fresh outdoor air and water and swamps. He tried to live in another state for a brief time, but he longed for springtime and easy roads to the woods. He missed the way the country is a hop and a skip away from any Alabama city, and how he could find such places, in all their biodiverse Bama forms, most any day he needed to restore his soul.

Sim is an educated man, a college professor with a good job. He’s a family man – wife Rachel built a physical therapy business and his pride for her flows right out of him. He loves his children like oxygen – or in his case maybe swamp water. Completely, immersibly, comfortably, even when that might make some uncomfortable.

Which is why he and Rachel believe they must leave Alabama, that she must shutter her business and they both must trust in a future they can’t see past their own headlights.

Because they have a transgender child, a 13-year-old, who came to find herself after a troubled start, who blossomed when she was accepted as a girl, who found a school that embraced her and doctors who cared for her without judgment or fear.

Sim and Rachel followed the recommendations of physicians, and of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which says youth who identify as transgender “should have access to comprehensive, gender-affirming, and developmentally appropriate health care that is provided in a safe and inclusive clinical space.”

But Sim, in a recent letter to relatives and friends, explained that he and Rachel and the kids must move from Alabama because of the way lawmakers have put children like his, families like his in the crosshairs. There are the bathroom regulations, and transgender sports bans, but most frightening to him is the new law that could make felons of doctors and medical professionals and parents who try to follow the pediatric guidelines.

“We are absolutely devastated,” he wrote. “Alabama has always felt like home, and we have worked so hard to ensure excellent schools, healthcare, and support for both our daughters here. This law, and the political spillover around it, undoes those pieces, and we have to leave at some point in the near future.”

He and Rachel were readying to move within the next three months, to sleep on friends’ couches in trans-friendlier states, if necessary, to make sure their child continued to receive the treatments that have made her more comfortable with herself and the world around her.

They got a bit of a reprieve Friday when U.S. District Judge Liles Burke, a Donald Trump nominee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the state law the judge said is likely unconstitutional.

Higher courts have made clear, Burke wrote, that:

1. Parents have a fundamental right to direct the medical care of their children.
2. Discrimination based on gender-nonconformity equates to sex discrimination.

Butler was elated by the ruling, but it doesn’t change his mind about moving. The governor and the attorney general have vowed to appeal Burke’s ruling, to continue the fight against trans kids and the demonization of their families. The major candidates for Alabama’s highest office scramble over one another to carry the torches and pitchforks, and Butler knows such an environment puts his child in physical and emotional danger.

“You know, I’ve always been a proponent for this place,” he said. “I’ve always been like, ‘We can make it better, we’re good people here.’ I’ve always truly believed that. But it’s really hard to make that case now.”

Which is tragic. Because in a rush to politicize things, to vilify vulnerable children and parents trying to understand how to best care for them, to pass harsh laws sponsored by a Realtor while ignoring testimony from medical experts, we lose the sense of community Butler talked about at the start.

“We thought we had hit the jackpot,” Butler said. “We had family and a supportive church and amazing schools for our kids. We had good healthcare and careers. It feels like the option is to (give that up and) choose safety or keep all that stuff and live in a world of total unsafety. We feel like we are scrambling to get out of the line of fire.”

I asked Butler if he was prepared to leave, and his answer was an emphatic “no.”

“Prepared is the wrong word,” he said. “It’s not prepared. It’s being sucked out of the escape hatch in the middle of space. We are so afraid that we could be arrested and thrown in jail for doing what’s best for our kid that we have to. We feel like we are fleeing.”

Perhaps that is the goal of laws like this, to force the different to flee, so that Alabama is devoid of dissent. Perhaps the goal is to make life so tough for those who don’t fit a politically popular mold that they find it necessary to find a friendlier place to live. I hope not. The thought of that breaks my heart.

Because different is what makes life rich, and vibrant, and interesting. It is a blessing. Like the Alabama landscape itself. Like all of its children.

John Archibald is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for AL.com.