By Caitlin Gibson, Photo: Contributed Family Photo, The Washington Post, March 17, 2022
The sticky note left on Amber Briggle’s desk was scrawled with a name, a phone number and the words urgent and private.
When Briggle, a mother of two and a small-business owner in Texas, arrived at her office on Feb. 28, she felt sure she knew what the note meant: Another parent of a transgender child — perhaps one who was under investigation by the state’s protective services agency — was calling for guidance; Briggle has long been a prominent advocate for the rights of transgender children and their families. Briggle dialed the number, prepared to hear about a family in trouble. Then an investigator from Child Protective Services (CPS) answered, and she realized the family in trouble was her own.
What followed, Briggle said, was a sickening, surreal blur: She ran down the hallway, collapsed in the arms of a co-worker, and tried to explain through sobs: It’s happening. CPS has opened an investigation on my family. I’m so scared they’re going to take my kids away. She sank to the floor and felt like she was still falling. The investigator was already on the way to see her, and Briggle had half an hour to summon her husband to her office, to hire an attorney, and to prepare for the moment she had dreaded for years.
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