Arizona moms are leading in activist efforts to defend the gender transitioning of their children and others.
These moms showed up in full force on Wednesday outside the U.S. Supreme Court as it heard United States v. Skrmetti, challenging the ability of states to ban child gender transitions. The moms had their gender-swapped or “genderless” children and (sometimes) husbands in tow. The moms had their children miss school to march the frigid D.C. streets.
Three Arizona moms sat down for an interview with CNN amid the protests: Michelle Callahan-DuMont, Hazel Heinzer, and Lizette Trujillo. Callahan-DuMont’s son identifies as a girl, Heinzer’s two children identify as nonbinary, and Trujillo’s daughter identifies as a boy.
In a viral moment captured by CNN, DuMont’s 10-year-old son, “Violet,” told the outlet he was worried he would be “murdered” while out in public for what his parents had done to him.
“That one I’m going to be walking down the street and somebody’s going to come up and, like, shoot me or something,” said Violet.
DuMont’s parents, Michelle Callahan-DuMont and Andrew “Andy” DuMont, told The Daily Signal in an interview while protesting in front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday that they began raising their son as their daughter at around one year old.
Andy DuMont is the communications director at the University of Arizona, where he received a PhD in American Literature. Several decades ago, he was a lead coordinator for the AIDS Foundation of Houston.
Callahan-DuMont claimed that their son was the one who told them that he was actually a girl when he first began speaking. With legislation in the works to ban the gender modification of minors, Callahan-DuMont says they may have to move.
“We’ve discussed having to move, which we don’t want to do, but Violet comes first, her medical care and her medical needs come first,” said Callahan-DuMont.
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Callahan-DuMont teaches at Rincon High School within the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), and has taught 8th to 12th-grade students for over a decade. Callahan-DuMont has also been an advocate for advancing transgender and other LGBTQ+ ideologies among minors in schools.
In 2020, Callahan-DuMont led the charge on a petition for TUSD to allow children to change their legal names to their preferred transgender names without parental permission in online learning platforms. The TUSD board conceded to the activist push unanimously.
Callahan-DuMont was one of over 17,000 educators who signed a letter to President Joe Biden in 2021 advocating for gender transitions for minors.
Heinzer brought along one of two of her “nonbinary” children, “Dylan,” to Wednesday’s protest and CNN interview. Heinzer is a Tucson-based marriage and family therapist with La Frontera Center. Heinzer has also served as a board chair for the Tucson nonprofit, Our Family Services.
Heinzer’s husband, Christoph, is a director for TeraHive, a Taiwanese optoelectronic semiconductor and power management company dedicated to sustainability.
Trujillo’s daughter, 16-year-old “Daniel,” also spoke to the crowd of protesters on Wednesday outside the Supreme Court. Trujillo runs an art studio and volunteers with the Human Rights Campaign and Southern Arizona Gender Alliance; her husband, Jose, is an artist.
Trujillo has advocated for including LGBTQ+ ideology within public school curriculum. She also launched a lawsuit in 2020 against Arizona law requiring sex changes in order to change one’s gender on their birth certificates. In August, a federal court overturned that Arizona law.