There is a moment in this story that stopped me. Chase, who turns 11 in July, came out to a small group of friends, all of them close enough to walk to, all of them playing netball together. And their response was: "We don't care what gender you are. You're Chase, that's all that matters to us." Her mum, Candace, had to step away and shed a tear. She called it pure. She was right.

That is what this family crossed the world for. Not a policy outcome, not a legal definition, not a parliamentary vote. They wanted their daughter to be able to just be Chase. And in a suburban street in New Zealand, surrounded by kids with a ball and no interest whatsoever in the culture wars, that is exactly what happened.

Candace moved her family from Colorado to New Zealand last July. The decision came from a place of genuine fear: the rhetoric and policy direction coming out of the Trump administration had made her feel that her daughter was not safe, that the political ground beneath them was shifting in a way she could not wait out. So they went. They found a new school. They adopted a dog named Bonnie, after their favourite ice cream spot in Denver. They put down roots.

And then, about ten months in, New Zealand's parliament had its first reading of a bill that would legally define "woman" as "an adult human biological female" and "man" as "an adult human biological male." Candace recognised the language immediately. "It just feels very similar to that fear mongering," she said. "It's a global hot button issue. Why not try to tap into that same rhetoric that they're seeing in America or in the UK?"

She is not wrong about that. The same phrases, the same scaffolding, the same framing recycled across borders. It is not a coincidence. There are networks of people who have decided that trans children are the political opportunity of the moment, and they are exporting the playbook as fast as they can write it. New Zealand First's bill reads like something drafted in a Washington think tank, because the ideas feeding it almost certainly were.

But here is what Candace also said, and I think it matters just as much: "That genuine fear in our gut is not there this time." People she trusts, people who know New Zealand's political system, do not expect this bill to pass. It has not yet gone to a final vote. The public can submit feedback until 1 July. Candace plans to do exactly that.

I keep thinking about what it takes to pack up your life and move your family to the other side of the world so that your child can exist without fear. The logistics alone are enormous. The grief of leaving friends, familiar streets, your favourite ice cream shop, is real. Candace and her family did all of that, and they have no regrets. "We've been able to just live," she said, "which was the whole point."

That sentence deserves to sit for a moment. Just live. It should not be a hard-won luxury. It should be the baseline. But for too many trans children and their families right now, the right to simply live as yourself, in peace, without legislation designed to remind you that the state considers your existence up for debate, feels like something you have to go looking for.

What Candace is also doing, alongside all of this, is staying visible. She is talking to families in the United States through social media and support groups. She has chosen to speak out, she says, so that other families do not feel so alone. That is solidarity in its most direct form: not a hashtag, not a statement, but a person who found a way through, turning round to make sure others can see the path.

The anti-trans rhetoric is global. The response to it needs to be global too. Country-hopping can buy safety for the families lucky enough to have that option, and I would never diminish what that means for Chase and her family. But the only thing that actually stops the bill from moving country to country is people, in every country, refusing to let it pass unchallenged. Candace is doing that. From inside New Zealand, in the new community she has built, she is submitting her feedback and she is speaking.

Chase is playing netball with friends who think the only thing that matters is that she is Chase. Bonnie the dog is presumably being walked. And somewhere in the gap between a frightened family leaving Denver and a child being welcomed exactly as she is by her new friends, there is the whole argument for why this matters.

If there is a news story you would like me to cover then just let Sammy know.

Dr Helen Webberley is a gender specialist, medical educator, and advocate, and the founder of GenderGP. She writes about gender diversity, trans healthcare, and the lives of trans people and their families.