Police entered Wynn’s room, searched it, took the door off the hinges, and mocked her, according to Motherboard. Wynn is now in foster care.
In late April, police officers entered the bedroom of a 16-year-old trans girl in Tennessee while she was streaming Minecraft on Twitch—and the confrontation was caught on camera.
In an email to Motherboard, the streamer, a girl named Wynn who goes by the Twitch handle VioWynn, said she was pressured to do online school rather than attend in person, and that she refused and was thus labeled “truant.”
Wynn says in a recording of the stream that it will likely be her last because they are attempting to persuade her to commit suicide or enter foster care. Rather than simply providing her with an education. She stated flatly that all she wants to do is go to school. However, they refuse to allow her to attend school because she is transgender and is overly stressed.
She goes on to say that authorities are attempting to place her in foster care, but that she has already been adopted and does not require further adoption. She simply needs to be able to attend school, but she is afraid of being abused.
Wynn told Motherboard that she believes they were checking on her health, but that she is being pushed into foster care by authorities.
According to Wynn, she had a court date on April 27th to find out if she had to go into foster care; she claimed she was being denied an education because her school forced her to take classes online with fewer resources than in-person students because she overheard her parents discussing it, Wynn told Motherboard she expected the cops to show up that day.
She had been playing Minecraft for about 17 minutes when a police officer opened the door behind her and several more entered. They see her streaming live, and she reacts in a very unassuming manner. The police then told her father to turn off the power, which is when the stream stopped, she told Motherboard.
Later that day, they returned to watch her get into her caseworker’s car and be driven to foster care, she said.
Tennessee is one of the most anti-transgender states in the country. Last year, Gov. Bill Lee signed legislation making it illegal for doctors to provide gender-confirming hormone treatment to prepubescent minors, and he made history by becoming the first state to require public restrooms to display signs indicating whether trans people are allowed to use bathrooms according to their gender. Lee also signed H.B. last month. S.B. / 1895 1861, legislation to defund school districts that allow trans students to participate in sports.
The Human Rights Campaign, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association, among others, have condemned trans-affirming care bans and advocated for gender-affirming care for trans children. The attack on trans rights in Tennessee has been dubbed a mental health crisis by children’s health advocates.
Wynn told Motherboard that she is doing better now, despite being in foster care.
