I spent time with Brandon and Candace and their children in Denver as they prepared for a life-changing move to New Zealand.
Their 9-year-old daughter, Chase, is transgender. Her parents had decided to leave the United States because they feared the effects of the Trump administration's policies and what they described as an increasingly hostile climate for trans people in the country. They were preparing to spend tens of thousands of dollars to move their family, including their children and pets, halfway around the world.
Just 13 days into Trump's second term, Chase's medical team at Children's Hospital Colorado told the family it could no longer provide transition-related medical care to anyone under 19 because of an executive order. Colorado had been considered a place where they were supposed to be protected.
“Our reaction was we were supposed to be safe here until we left,” Candace told NBC News. “And immediately, we weren’t.”
I photographed the family as they prepared to leave: Chase in her bedroom, surrounded by the things she loves; her family looking at a map of their future home in Queenstown; the quiet moments between parents and children; and the belongings they would take with them.
They expected to arrive in New Zealand with only their “clothing, sentimental items and ski gear.”
For Chase, the move carried both happiness and sadness. She didn't want to leave her friends, but she was excited about trying somewhere new. At nine years old, she told NBC News that she was “very aware” of what was happening to people like her and that she believed “everybody deserves to have that care.”
Photographing this story reminded me again that migration is rarely just about moving from one place to another. It is about safety, identity, family, belonging, and the difficult decisions people make when the place they call home no longer feels like the place where they can imagine their future.
Photographed in Denver, Colorado, for NBC News.
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