Copyright AL.com
This is an opinion column. Sim Butler’s the kind of Alabamian I know best. The kind, that is, the world knows least. Smart, but not pretentious about it, despite the All-American debate cred at UA, the PhD and the new book. Capable of losing his Southern drawl for the outside world, but certain to drift South as the conversation progresses, to drop in a “God willin’ and the creek don’t rise,” to remind everybody where his heart is. Butler can talk football or fishing, or how we belong to the land more than the land could ever belong to us. He is Alabama in his roots, to his core. But not in his address. Not anymore. The state Butler loved did not love him back. Worse, it did not love his child. So he did what so many people tell those with whom they disagree to do. He left to find a safer place for his family. “We were kind of the first wave out, I think, over these particular issues,” he said. You might remember Butler. He appeared in this space in 2022, beneath the same bearded photo you see above, with a big smile, holding a bass any Bama boy would be proud of. “He loves Alabama, but for his child he must leave,” the headline read. It went sorta viral. Sim and his wife, Rachel, took their teenagers and left shortly after that. Shortly after legislators sided with fearmongers. They claimed children were rushing to have their genitals altered even as medical experts testified that those surgeries simply don’t happen in Alabama. The state he loved made demons of people like his transgender daughter and felons of the doctors who had given her a happiness and hope she had never known. So the Butlers left. “The weight of living in Alabama, of living in fight or flight every day, was something I didn’t realize I was carrying until I got out of there,” he said last week. “It was like backpacking with too heavy a pack. You’re walking. You realize you’ve got something on your back. You just don’t know how heavy it is until you take it off.” Which is both the horror and the point of Alabama’s attacks on those it belittles. Love it our way or leave it. Self deport before we come for you. Butler has since written a book – “And the Dragons Do Come: Raising a Transgender Kid in Rural America.” It published last week. “Dragons were a manifestation of those dangerous, scary parts of life that make you feel helpless,” he said. “For us, that was fighting the state of Alabama around health care.” It is a loving book, a painful one that tells of the moment the daughter Butler calls Kate told her mom and dad, with resolve, what they already sensed. It tells of finding the kind of expert care recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the care that made Kate happier and healthier. It tells of a family that clung together as many people refused even to try to understand. And it tells of kindnesses, such as one in a Birmingham Baptist church, that change lives. The book is not a how-to manual for those with a transgender child. Butler argues it may well be a how-not-to manual, but don’t believe him. He has loved his family and tried to protect it even as the place he called home broke his heart both figuratively and physically. It is a book about how this family met the moment. “I want people who aren’t in a similar situation to know that trans folks can be from anywhere, but they need to be safe everywhere,” he said. “And then for families with similar situations, I just want them to know that they’re not alone.” Even when the dragons come. “Whether you’re the parent of a trans kid or not, you want to raise your kids to be able to face down dragons someday, to be strong and resilient and brave,” he said. “You hope the dragons never come. But for trans kids, they do.” The dragon comes for a lot of people these days. Trans kids and gay kids and immigrant kids and people whose culture or religion or way of life is different or scary to those who, quite frankly, have nothing else to be scared of. We all ought to be scared, though, when people like Sim Butler fear their own state, their own government. Because that dragon is us. .
