Eleven-year-old Kai Shappley has had a tough time just being a kid. For practically her whole life, the state of Texas, where she lives, has been policing what bathrooms she can use, what name she can go by, and myriad other basic personal freedoms afforded to kids who are not transgender, like Kai.
Her family’s been supporting her through it all, even moving to the liberal state capital of Austin to keep her safer. But now, after Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive saying that gender-affirming care provided to minors is tantamount to child abuse, Kai is in danger of being taken from her family.
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Over the past six years, VICE News correspondent Gianna Toboni has spent several stints in Texas with Kai and her mother, Kimberly Shappley, documenting the family as they’ve weaved in and out of the state’s crosshairs. Toboni first met the family in the conservative town of Pearland, where Kai was not allowed to use the girls’ bathroom or afforded the same rights as her non-transgender classmates. Hostility from the school increased until Kimberly decided that, for the safety of her family, she would move to Austin.
VICE News’ first story with the Shappley family aired in 2016. Toboni and her team—producers Nicole Bozorgmir and Hendrik Hinzel—returned in 2018, and then again earlier this year, after the governor’s directive came down.
On this episode of VICE News Reports, Toboni presents six years of tape with Kai and Kimberly—much of it never before heard—giving an intimate portrait of a family trying to stay together in a state determined to tear them apart.
