Nonbinary journalist and author Nico Lang has spent years reporting on transgender youth and their families across the United States. On Saturday, April 11, Lang will bring those stories to Estes Park for a public event centered on their book “American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era.”
The event, scheduled for 7 p.m. at Estes Park United Methodist Church, will include a reading from the book, a discussion, and an audience question-and-answer session. The evening is open to the public and is co-sponsored by PFLAG Fort Collins.
“At a time when conversations about gender identity can often become polarized, this event offers an opportunity to listen, learn, and engage with compassion,” said Rev. Ann Lantz, pastor of Estes Park United Methodist Church. “As a Reconciling Ministries congregation, we are committed to being a place of welcome and belonging for all people, and that includes creating space for meaningful dialogue around issues that impact LGBTQIA+ youth.”
Lang, an award-winning journalist who has reported on LGBTQ issues for years, said the book grew out of a long period of reporting on transgender youth and the political debates surrounding their lives.
“I’ve been working with families of trans kids since about 2016,” Lang said in an exclusive phone interview. “When we saw record levels of anti-trans legislation being passed across the country, I realized that deeper storytelling was required.”
As a journalist, Lang said much of the existing coverage focused on policy battles rather than the people affected by those decisions.
“I am usually telling the story of pieces of legislation and what they would do,” Lang said. “The real stories of trans and nonbinary people living on the ground end up being incidental or almost in service to that other story.”
With “American Teenager,” Lang set out to reverse that dynamic by placing young people’s voices at the center of the narrative.
“I wanted those stories to be in service of trans people, trans kids getting to talk about their own lives,” Lang said. “Who they are, what they want, what they view as their purpose in this world, and the same philosophical stuff that cis kids have gotten to talk about forever.”
The book follows eight transgender, nonbinary and gender-fluid teenagers and their families across the country, exploring their daily lives, challenges and hopes for the future. Lang said that after spending hundreds of hours interviewing young people and their families, one realization stood out clearly.
“It’s really hard to be a teenager,” Lang said. “Not just a trans teenager, a teenager in general.”
Adolescence already brings pressures from school, friendships, and relationships, Lang said. For many transgender youth, those challenges are compounded by legal battles and political debates over their rights.
“To deal with all of these things and to deal with your government trying to eradicate you on top of it is just a really big burden,” Lang said. “It’s a really big burden that’s been put on these kids. I think they handle it with such grace and such poise that they just shouldn’t have to. Their rights should be inalienable.”
During the reporting process, Lang traveled across the country to document a wide range of experiences, from conservative regions in the South to more progressive communities on the coasts. One of the most important patterns Lang observed, they said, was not necessarily political geography but access to support networks.
“To me, the real divide is places that have resources and places that don’t,” Lang said.
Some young people live in states or communities where legal protections and support systems are firmly established. Others rely on grassroots organizations, churches or local advocacy groups to fill gaps left by government policies.
“Even if those kids might not be getting the help that they need from lawmakers, they’re able to rely on community to pick up the slack,” Lang said.
Although the book includes stories from multiple regions, Lang said there was not enough time to document every state, including Colorado.
“I would have liked to do a chapter in every single state,” Lang said. “That would have been really cool, because it shows people that this isn’t some far-off issue. It’s not just something that’s affecting coastal elites or whatever. There are trans kids in just about every neighborhood in this entire country.”
Lang said the goal of the book is not to present one experience as universal but to show the diversity of families and communities with transgender youth.
“I tried in an organic way to encompass as many intersections as I possibly could,” Lang said. “Black families, white families, Muslim families, Christian families and Jewish families. There’s no one kind of person who has a trans kid.”
Since the book’s release, Lang has traveled extensively to discuss the stories in person. By the time of the Estes Park event, Lang will have visited 212 communities across the country. Lang said the response has often been particularly meaningful in smaller towns.
“In a place like Estes Park, there are fewer opportunities for this sort of conversation,” Lang said. “It just means more to people to see it.”
Lang said the events are designed to create space for discussion rather than confrontation.
“I try to be there to share these kids’ perspectives, but also to listen to where people are coming from,” Lang said. “Every once in a while, we’ve had the chance to reach across the aisle, but for the most part, it’s the people who are already somewhat on board with this. It’s people who are allies or aspiring allies who want to learn more in that way, but I’m happy to talk to people who have different perspectives.”
The structure of the evening is simple. Lang will read from the book, discuss the reporting process and then invite audience members to ask questions before signing books afterward. Ultimately, Lang said the goal of the project is to expand public understanding through storytelling.
“Only about a quarter of Americans know a trans person, or know that they know a trans person,” Lang said. “With that kind of knowledge gap, simply introducing people to folks’ stories can really do a lot of good.”
Lang said the book is intended as a starting point rather than a final word on the subject.
“Telling eight kids’ stories is only eight kids’ stories,” Lang said. “There are so many more stories out there that need to be told. In a perfect world, I would take all these kids and just drive them around every house in the country and introduce them to people and sort of break down those barriers that way, but I just feel like storytelling is the next best thing.”
Despite moments of discouragement, Lang said continuing to tell those stories remains essential.
“We can win if we keep fighting, and I just have to keep focused on that,” Lang said. “I don’t always feel hope. I don’t have control over whether I feel hope or not. I do have control over whether I show up and do the work anyway. So on good days and on bad days, I’m just going to keep showing up, keep fighting, and just hope for the best.”
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