Our Journalist Spoke to Four Trans Foster Kids Who All Attempted Suicide. Why? [WATCH]
Uncloseted journalist Sam Donndelinger talks about her findings from a months-long investigation into America’s foster care system where she uncovered why trans kids regularly face abuse and neglect.
“UNCLOSETED, with Spencer Macnaughton” is a new podcast by Uncloseted Media, an investigative LGBTQ-focused nonprofit news publication. Follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. YouTube // Spotify // Apple
LGBTQ kids make up a third of the American foster care system and transgender kids enter it at five times the rate of the general population. But in 2026, there are few legal protections for LGBTQ youth in the system.
Uncloseted Media’s Sam Donndelinger spoke with case workers, advocates and survivors of the foster care system and uncovered why it’s failing trans kids. In this episode of “UNCLOSETED, with Spencer Macnaughton,” Spencer sits down with Sam and breaks down the story’s key findings.
Watch the video or read the full transcript below.
Spencer Macnaughton: Hi everyone! Welcome back to Uncloseted with me, Spencer Macnaughton. Today I’m here with our very own Sam Donndelinger, who just wrapped up a fantastic months-long investigation into how the American foster care system is failing trans youth. In her reporting, Sam found that queer youth often face instability and abuse, and new Trump rollbacks are making it even harder for LGBTQ youth in foster care to feel safe. Sam, thanks so much for coming on the pod and speaking with me today.
Sam Donndelinger: Hey, Spencer! Thank you for having me.
SM: Yeah, so you spent months working on what became a really powerful investigation into America’s foster care system and how it is, you say, failing trans kids. And in the headline you say you spoke to one kid who went through 150 foster homes in 10 years. That’s a heartbreaking headline. Tell us about their story.
SD: Yeah, so I met Hayden, Hayden Dawson. Now they’re 20 years old and they recounted their story, their journey throughout foster care, and they were placed in foster care at 8 years old, and essentially cycled through 150 different homes, and that was confirmed by two people close to them. And they explained their first home to me as just being very rejecting of their nonbinary identity. And essentially whenever they would try to express things that weren’t gender-conforming, like wanting to play with toys meant for boys or wear more masculine clothing, they’d be punished in different ways. And sometimes that looked like doing wall sits for hours and sometimes that would look like having to eat outside with the dogs and be so hungry that they had to eat sunflowers in the garden.
SM: Wow, so they would be forced to sit outside and eat with the dogs?
SD: Yeah.
SM: I repeat that to you. I’ve read it already in the investigation, but I remember when I was editing it, it was just so troubling to read that. And we know that Hayden is not alone. As you reported, LGBTQ kids make up a third of all children in America’s foster system and trans youth enter the system at five times the rate of the general population. So for people who might be surprised to hear this, why are there so many more LGBTQ kids in the foster system?
SD: Yeah, so we know that transgender youth experience homelessness at disproportionate rates, so they’re over 120% more likely to experience homelessness than their non-LGBTQ+ peers. And 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. So there’s a lot of rejection from parents, from guardians, toward transgender and nonbinary youth, which ultimately places people in the foster care system. And then on top of that, we know that folks who are more religious are more likely to foster. And not that that inherently means you’re going to be rejecting, but there is a lot of tension between religious foster parents and LGBTQ youth. And so what ends up happening is trans folks will be placed in a home, they’ll be unaccepting, they’ll have problems and then the case worker will have to re-place them essentially. So there’s a lot of cycling through and a lot of instability, which prevents kids from getting adopted and essentially stay in the system.
SM: No, and that probably explains why people like Hayden go through such a high number of homes in such a short period of time.
SD: Exactly. Yeah, because if you think about it, they were in foster care for 10 years. So that’s 15 homes a year, which isn’t unheard of. That is, I mean, you’re jumping homes.
SM: Sounds crazy, though.
SD: Yeah, if you think about [how] that’s your home that you’re having to change 15 times on average a year? That’s so destabilizing.
SM: And I want to ask you more about the connection between foster care and LGBTQ kids and religion. But first, there’s a mental health epidemic brewing among LGBTQ kids in foster care. A Trevor Project brief from 2021, that found that LGBTQ youth in foster are three times more likely to attempt suicide than LGBTQ youth who are not. And 45% of fostered trans and nonbinary youth have attempted suicide. Almost half have attempted. Those numbers are so troubling and inexcusable. What’s fueling this?
SD: When you say LGBTQ youth are three times more likely if they’re in foster care, we know queer youth are already more likely to struggle with suicide ideation and to attempt suicide. So to add three times more likely to that equation, that’s so much pain that these queer youth are going through. But it makes sense. When I was speaking with the sources for the story, it was honestly some of the hardest interviews I’ve ever done because you hear these kids just talking about how they have no one there for them, they feel so unloved, so unaccepted. If they’re raised in an area that also doesn’t have affirming schools or affirming people in their circles, they really have no one and so they don’t have any tools also to process their anxiety, their depression, they don’t have mental health resources. And so it’s a very isolating and demoralizing experience for these kids. And also they’re children! They don’t know what these feelings are. They don’t know that they deserve acceptance and love in the outside world. And so they really have no reference for what it means to be accepted in their identity.
SM: And I’m assuming that a lot of the kids in the foster care system to begin with are coming from origin stories that were rife with trauma. Is that a fair thing to assume?
SD: Exactly. A lot of trauma, a lot of abuse, a lot of folks that I spoke to ended up in the system because they didn’t have parents that were accepting of their queer identities. And so it’s very retriggering to then be in a system where maybe your caseworkers don’t understand, they’re not using your pronouns, they’re not using your chosen name, and then you’re placed in homes where, again, the same cycle is repeated. So the parents, the foster parents, aren’t accepting and sometimes using physical or psychological abuse to try to basically convert you to a straight cis identity.
SM: And that’s interesting that you say that about the caseworkers, too. Because I think a lot of people would assume, “oh, the case workers are gonna be there for these kids and affirming.” Not necessarily?
SD: Not necessarily, and a lot of the caseworkers I spoke to for the story, they were lovely and they were affirming and they were trying their best, and I do think that also the system isn’t very supportive for caseworkers either. A lot of them are overworked, they have way too many cases and it’s very hard to connect individually with the youth and figure out their needs. So I don’t think there’s malintent, I think a lot of the time they really are doing their best. But that said, a lot of agencies don’t have proper policy in place. So private agencies, they’re not subjected to the same discrimination laws as public agencies, because they’re getting money from the government. And then as far as public agencies go, it pretty much varies state by state what the protections are and what the rules are. So sometimes caseworkers don’t even know what they’re supposed to do and which rule they’re supposed to follow. So the whole system really just isn’t set up to support the youth in the way that it should be.
SM: Well, I remember editing your story and it was dizzying trying to understand how fragmented this industry is. At the state level, there is a lack of explicit protections for LGBTQ kids, and your report found that 16 states have no child welfare nondiscrimination protections for gender and sexuality and only 11 states require specific training for caseworkers for LGBTQ youth. And then, like you say, you add the public versus private agencies into the mix and it’s a smorgasbord. What does this mean as a bottom line for the kids and for trans kids?
SD: It’s confusing. It’s super confusing. And I do want to say, so the 14th Amendment on the federal level, the constitutional level, does guarantee that youth in state custody be treated equally and kept safe from harm. So essentially, once a child is placed into foster care, they’re now in state custody and the 14th Amendment automatically applies to them. That said, when a caseworker brings a kid in and they’re very stressed out and emotional and going through a big transition, the Constitution isn’t always the top of mind for these caseworkers. And so they’re not thinking, “okay, how can I guarantee equal and safe placement for this child?” And so that’s when I think the state policies and the specific agency policies are really important because the caseworker is going to know those, be familiar with those and implement them a little bit more locally.
SM: And just to be clear for people who are like “what the heck is a nondiscrimination protections,” but 16 states don’t have them. So is it fair to say if you have a, let’s say, an evangelical Christian foster care parent who says “I think trans people are akin to the devil,” they can project those belief systems onto a kid like Hayden and they would have nothing protecting them because there’s nothing set in stone if they’re in one of those states? Is that accurate in how I’m interpreting that?
SD: Yeah, so in 2024, the Biden administration tried to make a rule to basically amend that at the federal level, which essentially would have required state and tribal agencies to make affirming placements available to children, so kids who requested affirming placements would essentially have to have them. But in response to the rule, the Texas attorney general filed a complaint in federal court saying that it’s outside the statute of what the authority of HHS holds.
SM: So Biden tries to implement an affirming law that would protect trans and LGBTQ kids. Then the Texas attorney general gets in the mix. And then Trump gets in mix. So tell us what happens when Trump starts to weigh in on this.
SD: Yeah, and so in March of this year, 2026, the rule is now being rescinded officially, even though it was never in place, but it’s officially being struck down basically under the claims of the Texas attorney general. And in November of 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled—I’ll just read you the title—“Fostering the Future for American Children and Families,” which says that parents should be allowed to foster even if they report that religious beliefs would prevent them from caring for an LGBTQ child. So basically the very few federal protections that we have in place, now Trump is saying “okay, but these shouldn’t apply to religious families. We should be able to say that we’re not going to be affirming under religious beliefs and we should still be allowed to be in the foster care system as parents.” So the few protections that we do have are now being unraveled.
SM: And I think people could read that and say, “oh, it has nothing to do with LGBTQ,” because it’s talking about religious protections. But what did you find is happening on the ground with foster kids, with caseworkers, now that this federal policy has been implemented by the Trump administration?
SD: Well, to be honest, I think that before, there were still a lot of religious parents fostering who were not affirming and will never be affirming. And when I spoke to Hayden, they said that 80% of their homes were transphobic and not affirming.
SM: 80%?
SD: 80%, yeah. So quite a lot were not affirming and outright rejecting, but when they would encounter Hayden’s caseworkers, they would switch to using their proper pronouns and using their proper name and they would be a little bit more performative.
SM: They put on a show.
SD: They would put on a show for the caseworker. And now, I think what this executive order and the designated placement rule being rescinded, the effects that it will have is now families won’t have to pretend and they just can outright be discriminatory towards kids and say that it’s because of their religious beliefs and say that that should take precedent over a child’s identity.
SM: Wow. And we know that Christian parents are way more likely to foster kids, right? So there are a ton of Christian parents who might think this way, believe this way. Believe that trans and gay kids are going to hell and they’re now legally allowed to put these belief systems onto kids. Is that all correct? Am I missing something?
SD: No, that’s correct. And it’s unfortunate because you can see that some foster agencies are trying to do better for queer kids. And so they’ll put in their application, “we have LGBTQ kids in our system. Would you be comfortable supporting a child in this way? Would you take them to appointments if they wanted gender-affirming care?” And people who have checked no have also then went on to sue the agency and say, “well, this is discriminatory against my religious beliefs. I should be able to say no, I’m not going to do this under my beliefs, and you should still allow me to be in the system.” So you can see that foster agencies are trying to remedy this, and they’re getting a lot of pushback legally. And unfortunately, the people who are suing, the courts are siding with them and saying that religious exemption should take precedent.
SM: Wow. That’s all really interesting. And you had a bunch of really salient points in this article. But one quote stuck out to me from Mary Kelly Persyn, who’s the founder and attorney at Persyn Law & Policy. She said to you, “if we have a bunch of Muslim faith kids and we need to place them, are we going to say no if your religion tells you? Would we allow that in the case of all black kids? Would we allowed that in case of the children of immigrants? Is there any other social category that the law recognizes where we would allow that?” And I just thought that was a really salient point. There is this get out of jail free card with so many issues in the U.S, but foster care is so serious because these are kids who are coming from traumatic livelihoods and backgrounds who are now being potentially subjected to more abuse because of their identity, just if the parents are interpreting Christianity in a specific way. It’s wild to me. Is there anything else you learned about how this affects the kids you spoke with? What were some of the themes that came to you from all of this?
SD: Yeah, no, and Mary Kelly was so helpful to the article and I think she explained really well that it really comes down to the SOGI identity not being protected as a class.
SM: The SOGI identity being sexual orientation and gender identity?
SD: Exactly. Yeah, it’s not seen across the board as a valid thing. And the effects are devastating. The children I spoke with, now they’re young adults, and you can see that they’re working so hard to put their lives back together and to be functioning adults in society. But frankly, they never received the love and support and the care that they should have as children and it’s really hard to deal with those mental health struggles. A lot of them have depression and anxiety. A lot of them, well, all of the kids I spoke with had attempted suicide and had to deal also with those repercussions and the trauma from that.
SM: I just want to stop you there and underscore what you just said. All of the kids you spoke with had attempted suicide.
SD: Mm-hmm.
SM: Wow. I just wanna make sure the listeners don’t scrub by that. I mean, it’s so infuriating, if I can be honest.
SD: It is, and honestly what broke my heart is the kids I spoke with were so, so kind and so resilient. They really wanted to speak with me for this article because they wanted other kids to not go through the experience that they went through. And their hearts were so open telling me their stories and they answered every question I had and really you could tell that they were trying to advocate for other queer youth in the system. But yeah, the kids I spoke with, they are still dealing with the mental health and the repercussions of, frankly, not being accepted their entire childhood and trying to find community as adults now.
SM: One thing that I found striking with your investigation was that there’s these massive Christian legal groups in America. Perhaps the biggest is Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). They’re a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group, and they just effectively were the lawyers who overturned Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy. I wasn’t expecting in your bingo card of reporting to see ADF in foster care. But they were, they turned up. So explain how foster care is connected to ADF.
SD: Yeah, I also was surprised to see their name. I feel like they have a finger in every pie these days. But they represented essentially a foster mom who was trying to adopt and, again, put in an application “I would not be affirming if I were to receive a queer child.” And they’ve represented quite a few families who are pushing back under religious exemption laws.
SM: And again, for people who think, “oh, is has just focused on religion and it’s not about LGBTQ,” this is the same group who has pushed to overturn gay marriage, overturn conversion therapy bans, they’re in the Caribbean and in South America lobbying to overturn LGBTQ policies. And they were co-founded by somebody who wrote a book called “The Homosexual Agenda.” So this is not a group that is not ideological as it relates to LGBTQ issues.1 And I think that translates into them being able to effectively impact policy at the legal level, too, as it relates to foster care, eh?
SD: Yeah, they’re not unbiased. And how I view it in my mind is foster care will take a couple steps toward being more progressive and safer for LGBTQ kids. And then ADF will be like, “okay, we’re pushing you back again.” It’s this push and pull, and it’s right now balanced between religious freedom exemption laws and protections for queer youth.
SM: And there is a silver-ish lining. There are affirming families out there. How can more trans and queer kids get to these affirming families? What needs to change?
SD: Well right now it’s hard because I really wanted to speak with some affirming group homes for the article and every group home I spoke with, they were like “can we please be off record because we don’t want our funding to disappear, we don’t want anyone to come after us and we also don’t wanna out our kids.” So it was really hard to find homes that wanted to speak on record or be included in the piece for that reason. But that said, what really turned around Hayden and their mental health was being placed in an LGBTQ-affirming home and having respect, and the group home was able to help them get on testosterone and help them figure out what they wanted for their future and little things too, like giving them an allowance for grocery shopping rather than just buying groceries for the house, like teaching them how to be an adult and how to function in the world.
SM: Parenting.
SD: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And another trans man I spoke to, Benjerman Xander, he had been in and out of foster care the majority of his life as well. And he said what really helped him is he finally got a caseworker in his late teens that actually gave him choices for which foster parents seemed like they might be a good fit for him. And so the caseworker would show him photos, give him a little bit of a description. And Benjerman actually got placed with a couple queer families, which just totally changed his perspective. And he was like, “wow, I didn’t know that this was possible to be queer and be happy and live a full life.” And so he said that part of it was having the choice and a little bit more autonomy of, “okay, I actually have a little bit of say in my life and my decisions,” and then also just the affirmation of being with affirming parents and parents who knew something about the LGBTQ community and could help support him.
SM: And that’s a really good example of what caseworkers can do. So what else did you learn caseworkers could do more to better serve this population?
SD: I think listening, so many of the kids I spoke with really just wanted a caseworker who asked them questions and listened and heard their identity. The system that Hayden was in, in Kansas, they didn’t even have a question about sexual orientation on their intake form. They had a comments section that you could add extra things if you wanted, but they didn’t explicitly ask, “what’s your sexual orientation? Are you part of the community?” I think something as small as that would be really affirming for kids who are queer and who want to talk about that with their caseworker. And then I feel like that would just set everyone up for more success if then they knew that and could go find an affirming home. Because there are plenty of affirming homes out there. They’re just not being coordinated with the queer kids who need them.
SM: Any of the big stories I’ve done through reporting as a journalist, I have takeaways. You spent a lot of time on this story. Do you have any major takeaways that you haven’t said yet here that you’ve really reflected on after the story has gone out to the world?
SD: I just still think about the interviews that I did for the piece and just how caring and still sensitive and kind the kids I spoke with are and how big their hearts are even though they’ve just suffered so much abuse and neglect their whole life. So that still sticks with me how they’re able to have capacity for such love and care. And also just how confusing the system is and I understand why kids are falling through the cracks because it’s set up in this patchwork way that makes it really hard for people to know even what they should do. And also, I think it is baffling that a third of foster care youth are LGBTQ. That’s just heartbreaking to me. So I think the more we can implement acceptance and care and love in parents toward their biological queer children and the more we can prevent people from even having to go into the system, obviously that’s the goal.
SM: No, that’s amazing. Last question, I’m sure a lot of people will want to know, and you mentioned it earlier, but any other updates on how Hayden is doing today?
SD: Yeah, so they live with their partner in Texas. They live in a trailer together and they have lots of pets which just cracked me up. We’d be on the interview and they’d be like, “my frog just jumped out. I have to go take care of this.” So they have lots of pets and they’re very connected with nature and they seem really safe with their partner, Grayson. I feel like they really found solace together and Grayson has also been through the system and had a similar experience. So I think that they understand each other really well and just having that acceptance and that love provided a safe space for Hayden. So they’re doing well now.
SM: That’s good to hear. It’s nice to hear a little bit of a silver lining, but also still think listeners, viewers should leave this understanding that this investigation has exposed a really, really big problem and that has only cracked the surface. Sam, thank you so much for your reporting and for coming on the pod to talk about it.
SD: Thank you so much for having me, Spencer. It was a really great conversation.
SM: And you can read Sam’s full investigation at unclosetedmedia.com. And to get our podcast episode every Wednesday morning, subscribe to YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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