California Moms for Liberty Chair Beth Bourne encounters a drag queen, spergs out in Hawaiian hotel lobby

What drives a person to act like this in public? The Sacramento Bee gives us some backstory on Beth:

Lily is Beth's 18-year-old child, her eldest of two, who came out as trans five years ago, and now identifies as nonbinary.

Lily moved out at the end of their junior year of high school, after years of clashing with their mom about their gender identity.

In the years since, Beth has become one of the most vocal and adamant anti-trans activists in the state, as chair of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, and a regular fixture at the California Capitol, school board meetings and protests for parents' rights.

The tense relationship between mother and child represents a deepening tension not just in American households, but in its classrooms, legislatures and courtrooms, where conversations about gender, and the rights of trans youth, have fractured communities like Davis.

The name "Lily" comes out of Beth's mouth slightly strained — it's not a name Beth has ever called her child to their face. It's not the name Beth gave them when they were born, nor is it Ian, the name Beth called her child when they identified as a boy in adolescence. By the time Ian transitioned to Jude, and began to identify as nonbinary, using they/them pronouns, they had moved out of Beth's home and in with their dad and stepmom. They adopted the name Lily after high school.

Conflict between parents and their adolescent children is normal, if not expected. But for Lily, the constant fighting and denial of their person-hood went deeper than everyday bickering – they were sharing a roof with a mother who actively, publicly, opposed the person they were becoming.

"I was ready to come out to everybody because I had been holding it in for a really long time," Lily said. "From my coming out to my moving out, her views that she expressed to me started to get more aggressive and more extreme."

Lily stopped communicating with Beth at the end of their junior year of high school; in the years since, Beth, encouraged by a therapist, has sent gifts on holidays or birthdays, and the occasional email.

"I don't know if she opens them," Beth said. "But they don't bounce back."

Flourishing now at a small university in the Pacific Northwest, Lily owns their identity and said they feel like they have a fuller version of self than they ever have.

"Going off to college has allowed me to just be a person," Lily said. "Just be a musician, just be a student. And not have to have everything be about my identity. Because that's just such a small part of me.

"I only think about my gender when I have to," they added.

After Lily moved out, Beth's politics became more extreme, her presence in the public eye more common.