Has star ‘trans kid’ Avery Jackson detransitioned?
The “National Geographic” cover girl remains a study in change
In 2017, a transgender child from Missouri appeared on the national scene. Avery Jackson seemed proof that some kids just know they’re the opposite sex.
It was an iconic cover of National Geographic. It’s a strange story? Less a transgender one, apparently, than a story of continuing change.
The Jackson family was Southern Baptist.
The religious details interested me. “I’m a conservative Southern Baptist Republican from Alabama,” as Debi, Avery’s mother, would say.
They were conservative Christians and had to buck their religion in order to save the life of their transgender daughter. That was the story.
In a Southern Baptist context, this would be a story of a boy who was relinquishing the divine masculinity and entering the disfavored category of ‘female’—and a barren female.
But how religious were the Jacksons?
As I look over what they’ve posted online, I’m puzzled to not see a church and a pastor. I can’t seem to find so much as mention of a family church, past or present.
Debi talks about consulting experts. In 2017, she told People:
“We knew we had to trust the process, and trust the doctors and therapists that changing clothes, hair and pronouns never caused anyone permanent damage,” she says.
For Southern Baptists, a pastor would be the first authority.
Avery was very into cosmetics.
With pink hair and “a fascination with wearing jewelry” and “wanting her fingernails and toenails painted,” as Debi said, it was a very unusual Southern Baptist story.
This is just not how daughters, transgender or otherwise, are displayed.
As Avery came out as trans, Debi got less Southern Baptist.
That was her story. Debi would talk later about having to leave the religion in the light of her daughter’s transition. She adds in the People profile:
“The Southern Baptist Church condemns the support of trans identities. We didn’t know and couldn’t find any other families with trans kids near us. We lost most of our friends.”
Her Twitter account filled with Bible commentary:
“Can someone remind me which Bible verse God uses to tell us that our reproductive structures are what we have to use when determining our self-concept of male or female…because I somehow always seem to miss it.”
Debi comes to her own view of God creating people as ‘individuals’, genderless spirits in gendered bodies. In 2020, she tweets:
“God created us as individuals. I’m not sure you read the Bible. God knows us before we are in the womb. He knows our spirit. That is not the same as our physical, temporary body.”
As of 2020, Debi wasn’t even Evangelical.
At the same time, Avery appears to have stopped being a transgender activist. Debi explains it happening owing to the Donald Trump presidency.
That’s the suggestion of a 2020 Pop Sugar profile, where Avery seems not to want to be interviewed, and the most recent photos don’t seem so ‘feminine’ anymore. Debi explains:
“Of course, I think it was really the negativity of the current administration. They have been actively pulling back protections. We tried to shield her from it, but LGBTQ+ advocacy is my work now.”
The story is that Avery became less trans because of Donald Trump.
It’s a story I don’t really understand.
Then Avery was changing gender status again?
A profile in April at Yahoo! informs that Avery continues to not want to do interviews and does not self-identify as a trans activist. Then a startling bit of news, slipped into a news story and filtered through Debi’s concerns:
“Now, all these years later, Avery’s response to the photo and its impact — specifically to being doxxed, targeted by hate and being cut off by extended family — has become more complex. It even made Avery worried about adopting they/them pronouns about a year ago, in the midst of ‘course correcting’ and figuring out their identity is nonbinary.
Debi recalls them worrying, ‘Is that going to hurt other trans kids? Because people are not going to want to believe them?’ but she assured them that such openness could only help.”
Avery did make a public appearance at the White House on June 10, 2023 for a Pride event. “Non-binary” seemed to be the idea.
In fourteen years of young life, Avery had gone from “he/him” to “she/her” to “they/them.”
Starting out Southern Baptist, Avery became not Baptist—or Southern? A GoFundMe was set up to help the Jacksons move. They’re said to be at war with their local community. Debi, as always, is in some seige mentality.
The appeal for money comes with a photo of Avery as a child in female styling. Avery is called “trans” but no pronouns are used. 🔶
