This is my dear friend Kane and their daughter Mackenzie. Mackenzie is 13 and awesome. She’s a talented manga artist, a self-proclaimed “quirky geek”, reads years above grade level, and wants to rescue abandoned pitbulls when she grows up. Kane is a graduate student, an environmental justice advocate, genderqueer, and grew up working class in a tiny Midwest town. Whenever they’re together, Kane and Mackenzie love to hike, kayak, work on crafts projects, read, read, read, talk about everything, and share an inexplicable fondness for tie-dye. Mackenzie calls Kane “Dad” and patiently explains the use of “they” as a gender-neutral pronoun to friends and family.
All of this, despite the fact that in 2006 a court decided someone who “doesn’t even know what gender they are” wasn’t fit to parent a child — and removed then 5yo Mackenzie from the only parent she’d ever known, awarding guardianship to disapproving elderly conservative Christian relatives who have done as little as possible to support Kane and Mackenzie’s reunification. Kane’s struggle to regain custody has been ongoing for nearly 8 years now, with many twists and turns and hopes and disappointments along the way.
The aging ex-military couple assigned as Mackenzie’s guardians have strong opinions about “appropriate parents.” Often, they have failed to honor agreed-upon visitations and sometimes actively sabotaged Kane’s efforts to communicate with their daughter. They routinely criticize, mock, and misgender Mackenzie’s dad to her face — a major source of stress for a sensitive young person who loves her parent and deeply respects their life choices. They have been known to throw away clothing and gifts from Kane, forbid Mackenzie from befriending other children with queer parents, and heavily police Mackenzie’s own gender expression for fear of her “turning out like her mother[sic].”
Nevertheless, Kane and Mackenzie have managed to maintain a close, loving, respectful, and supportive relationship through the years. Meanwhile, by working numerous jobs and acquiring scholarships, grants, and loans, Kane has put themself through graduate school and made a stable, supportive, loving home for their daughter. Now that Mackenzie is 13 and has more say about where she wants to live, and given increasingly concerning information about her current living situation, Mackenzie and Kane have decided it’s time to push for full custody.
The hope is that bigoted attitudes in the state will have shifted over the past near-decade, but regaining custody will still be a difficult battle. They need to raise a minimum of $5000 to cover legal fees and relocation costs before they can move forward. They are very close to reaching their first milestone of $2000, which will allow them to retain the lawyer who has agreed to take the case.
But they need more help to get Mackenzie home. If there’s anything you can offer to help bring this incredible family back together, it would mean a great deal. No donation is too small to make a difference. You can send donations to Kane directly via Paypal at [email protected] or contact this blog privately for the link to the family’s GoFundMe page. (For the sake of Mackenzie’s privacy, we decided not to share that link on Tumblr, since it uses her legal name.)
If you can signalboost this post to your friends, that’s a great help, too. Thank you!
ETA: For those who have expressed concern, here’s some more info about donation options and our effort to keep the Tumblr side of things pseudonymous. Thank you so much for all your support. ♥
