When Larry Jones arrived at the Wisconsin State Capitol on March 12, he didn’t know what he was getting into — let alone that he would be a viral internet sensation the next day. 

The 85-year-old self-described conservative had been invited by his grandson to a public hearing on a Republican-authored bill that would ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth in the state. He decided to make the short drive from his home in Milwaukee. 

“I thought, ‘OK, I’ll go up there and listen to a couple people moaning about some kind of problems and be there for a couple hours and be long gone,’” Jones told Wisconsin Watch. “I got into something that I really didn’t know a heck of a lot about.” 

The hearing was packed with speakers there to testify either for or against the bill. Most people were limited to two minutes, but the hearing lasted more than eight hours. Jones was there in support of the bill, but wasn’t intending to get up and speak. But after listening to nearly seven hours of testimony, he put his name down. 

“I have very little knowledge of gay people and things like that there, so when I came here, my eyes were opened,” he told the state Assembly’s Health, Aging and Long-Term Care Committee just after 9 p.m. “I was one of the critics that sat on the side and made the decision there was only two genders, so I got an education that was unbelievable. And I don’t know just exactly how to say this, but my perspective for people has changed. … I’d like to apologize for being here, and I learned a very lot about this group of people.”

After he spoke, several attendees applauded.

Shortly after, his grandkids told him about a video of his testimony going viral online — as of Sunday the video had nearly 1 million views on YouTube. They called him a hero.

“Thank you for the compliment, but what the heck are you talking about?” he recalled responding. 

Jones told Wisconsin Watch he doesn’t think he did anything out of the ordinary and spoke because he felt like he owed it to the people there protesting the bill. He never thought a few sentences would garner such attention. 

“After a day or two, my 15 minutes of fame were long gone, and I went back to who I am, just plain old Larry,” Jones told Wisconsin Watch. 

Others saw an act of courage.

“Listening to his testimony was incredible,” one user commented under the viral video of Jones on Instagram. “It is powerful and brave to admit that you were wrong and have learned. I wish many of our legislators had that same strength.”

The bill

Republican politicians in recent years have frequently targeted transgender rights. One of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders the day he took office disregarded biological nuance in declaring there are only two sexes, male and female, which can’t be changed, and that gender identity “does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.” A later order declared the country wouldn’t fund transition of youth from one sex to another or medical institutions that provide such health care.

Wisconsin Assembly Bill 104 would ban gender-affirming health care, including puberty-blocking drugs, hormone replacement therapy or surgery, for those under the age of 18. Under the bill, medical providers found to be providing this care could have their licenses revoked. The legislation faces a certain veto by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has vetoed a similar bill before. 

The authors of the bill — Sen. Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, and Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha — say it would “protect minors from making life-altering, irreversible decisions that cause mental and bodily harm.”

“They’re not voting on this bill as a person, they’re voting Republican party lines,” Jones told Wisconsin Watch. “That shouldn’t be that way. … Party line is a bunch of garbage.” 

It was just one of four bills raised in the Legislature in recent weeks targeting transgender youth in Wisconsin. Two others are aimed at banning transgender girls and women from participating in high school and collegiate women’s sports. Another would prohibit school employees from using a student’s preferred name and pronouns without parental consent. 

For hours, Jones listened to the stories of kids who wanted to transition and said it seemed like “their brain was tearing them apart.” He now believes the decision to receive gender-affirming care should involve a child, a qualified doctor and a parent — not lawmakers. He likened the issue to lawmakers banning doctors from providing abortions.

Just the introduction of such bills can have negative effects on LGBTQ+ kids, research shows. The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that works to end LGBTQ+ youth suicide, found in a 2024 national survey that 90% of LGBTQ+ young people said their well-being was negatively impacted due to recent politics. Research also shows that transgender youth who are called by their preferred names and pronouns are happier and healthier.

Jones said a 14-year-old transgender teen — one of the youngest speakers who advocated for their right to go on hormones — helped to change his perspective at the hearing. In their testimony, they shared that they had recently contemplated suicide.

“I started to listen to this kid, and it wasn’t some kind of whim or something like that. This kid was actually suffering,” Jones said. “And I thought to myself, nobody has to do that. You’re only a kid.”

The GOP-controlled committee voted to advance the bill. Republican lawmakers in the Assembly passed it last week. 

“Children are not allowed to get tattoos, sign contracts, get married, or smoke — so why would we allow them to physically change their gender?” Rep. Tyler August, R-Walworth, said in a statement. 

Jones had a different take. 

“All of these kids, they deserve a chance to see where they belong,” he said. 

Who is Larry?

Jones grew up in a small, rural unincorporated town in northern Michigan before moving to Milwaukee when he was 19 years old. 

“When I moved to the city, it was like I was a kid in a candy store. I discovered books, and once I discovered books, I discovered the world,” he said. 

For most of his life, he worked in the maintenance department at the Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center  — a prison formerly known as the House of Corrections. There, he encountered gay men and women, but said he had never met someone who was transgender. 

“If there’s something you don’t understand or don’t know anything about, it kind of frightens you a little bit,” Jones said. 

When he was younger, he said LGBTQ+ people were “hidden.” 

“In the area where I grew up … men were men,” Jones said. “I was taught by men who had their own visions of what gay people were like. They were called ‘queers’ and ‘fairies’ and off-the-wall, ungodly names back in the day. As I grew older … the whole world changed.” 

Jones calls himself conservative, but said he’s willing to look at both sides of an issue. He mostly tunes into Fox News and local TV stations. He said he still has a lot to learn about the transgender community, and he’s made that his mission for the next six months or so. 

Prior to the hearing, he said he believed that someone who was transgender was “play acting” and simply changed their name and clothes along with a few other cosmetic things. 

“It’s through no fault of their own. I don’t think there’s a medical problem. I think these kids were born this way,” Jones said. “I looked at it through a different perspective, from a different set of eyes, and I promised myself that I would look into this with a clearer sense of understanding.”

After his testimony, a young woman handed him a note that read, “Thank you for being open to hearing all this and being open to changing your mind. That’s brave.” Jones kept it. 

His advice to others? “Don’t wear a pair of blinders and walk down the road. Keep an open mind.”

Wisconsin Watch reporter Jack Kelly contributed to this report.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

‘Just plain old Larry’: A Wisconsin man’s testimony about gender-affirming care went viral. Here’s his story. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Gender Health Clinic at Children’s Wisconsin hospital in Milwaukee canceled a transgender teenager’s appointment — the first reported case of a Wisconsin hospital pausing gender-affirming care after President Donald Trump signed an executive order blocking funding for hospitals that provide such treatment.

UPDATE (9:47 a.m. Feb. 7, 2025): On Friday, after Wisconsin Watch published this story, the teen’s parent received a call from Children’s informing her that the appointment would be rescheduled for Friday afternoon.

A group of families and doctors have sued the Trump administration in federal court over that order and another, saying they are discriminatory and the health care order unlawfully withholds funds.

Children’s Wisconsin did not respond to multiple emails and calls, including three pages sent to the spokesperson on duty. Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, said he contacted Children’s on behalf of a constituent Wednesday and has also not received any response, which he characterized as unusual.

Clinics in several states across the country have reportedly suspended care for transgender youth in response to the order, which sought to end gender-affirming care for patients under 19 years old at any facility receiving federal funding.

On Wednesday, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and 14 other attorneys general denounced Trump’s order as “wrong on the science and the law.” In a joint statement, they noted that a recent court order affirmed the Trump administration cannot halt funding through administrative memos or executive orders. 

“This means that federal funding to institutions that provide gender-affirming care continues to be available, irrespective of President Trump’s recent Executive Order,” the statement said. “We will challenge any unlawful effort by the Trump Administration to restrict access to it (gender-affirming care) in our jurisdictions.”

But the Milwaukee clinic — one of only two dedicated pediatric gender clinics in Wisconsin, along with one at UW Health in Madison — had already canceled an appointment, Wisconsin Watch has learned.

On New Year’s Eve, Milwaukee-area mom Sarah Moskonas received a long-awaited message: The clinic had approved her 13-year-old daughter for hormone therapy.

The family felt ecstatic. The approval was almost a decade in the making. Her daughter has seen a therapist specializing in gender identity since she was five or six and has been a patient in Children’s gender clinic for four-and-a-half years. She has been on puberty blockers for about three years. Starting hormone therapy was the culmination of numerous conversations, therapy sessions, doctor’s appointments and blood tests on the lifelong journey of helping Moskonas’ daughter live as her true self. 

“She’s very aware of what her therapy looks like and what the implications could be long term and what are the upsides and what are the possible drawbacks,” Moskonas said.

After receiving approval from the clinic to move forward, they scheduled a “consent appointment” for Feb. 3, when both parents would provide informed consent on behalf of their daughter to take the next step in treatment.

But on Jan. 28, Trump issued the executive order, one of several that have targeted transgender people with demeaning, inaccurate language.

Moskonas said she received a call Jan. 31 from her daughter’s clinician informing her that Children’s Wisconsin could not provide her daughter with hormone therapy. The discussion turned to whether it was because of Trump’s order.

“Essentially … the answer was yes, this was because of the executive order,” she said.

Moskonas provided electronic health care records showing the appointment was scheduled before Trump’s inauguration and canceled after the executive order.

New York Attorney General Letitia James warned hospitals that ceasing treatment for transgender youth would violate the state’s anti-discrimination law. 

Moskonas wants Kaul to take a similar stand and provide clear direction for Wisconsin hospitals.

The state Department of Justice referred Wisconsin Watch to Kaul’s joint statement and did not respond to a follow-up request.

Sarah Coyne, an attorney specializing in health care regulation at Quarles in Madison, said that hospitals are likely pausing care “as a risk management strategy” and it’s “not clear how all of this will play out in the long run.”

Craig Konnoth, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said that federal court rulings applying to Wisconsin have held that transgender discrimination is a prohibited form of sex discrimination and that it is illegal to turn away transgender patients under the Affordable Care Act.

After Children’s gender clinic canceled the appointment, Moskonas contacted elected officials, including Clancy. She called clinics in Madison and Chicago to see if they would provide care.

A spokesperson for UW Health’s clinic told Wisconsin Watch it was evaluating the order.

As Wisconsin Watch has previously documented, gender-affirming care like the kind Moskonas’ daughter has received is considered the only evidence-based care for children and adults with gender dysphoria, and it is endorsed by every major medical association in the country. Research has consistently shown that it improves mental health outcomes for trans youth.

Sarah said her daughter “knows who she is better than most adults I know.” Gender-affirming care has allowed her to live authentically as herself and flourish emotionally.

“My wife and I have assured her that we are not giving up,” Sarah said. “We are not accepting no for an answer.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Children’s Wisconsin hospital reinstates gender-affirming care for trans teen after canceling in wake of Trump’s executive order is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.