Did the trans child featured on a National Geographic cover later claim that "transgender activists" ruined their life? No, that's not true: There's no evidence that Avery Jackson ever said anything about transgender activists ruining their life. However, their mother has said that the cover story sparked mixed reactions and heated national rhetoric, some of which were unpleasant.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on November 10, 2024. The post's caption said:
This young boy has been permanently chemically castrated and was used by National Geographic as their poster child for transgenderism. He is now 17 and has decided that he doesn't want to be a girl anymore and states the transgender activists ruined his life. Disturbing. Dr Phil recently did a show about him and many others in the same boat...
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Nov 15 16:31:04 2024 UTC)
The post didn't give any proof to back up its assertion.
The social media post doesn't mention their name, but the person on the January 2017 National Geographic "Gender Revolution" cover is Avery Jackson, who was 9 years old at the time, assigned male at birth and identified as trans female. Avery is known for this quote from the story:
The best thing about being a girl is, now I don't have to pretend to be a boy.
In an April 5, 2023, Yahoo! article (archived here), Avery's mother, Debi Jackson, said Avery, then 15, was no longer a trans female and now identified as nonbinary, not exclusively male or female.
Debi Jackson explained in the article that their decision to adopt they/them pronouns had nothing to do with "transgender activists" but was instead Avery's process of "'course correcting' and figuring out their identity." The story continues:
Debi recalls them [Avery] worrying, 'Is that going to hurt other trans kids? Because people are not going to want to believe them?' but she assured them that such openness could only help.
Still, the years of 'hateful backlash' after the magazine cover 'caused them to be kind of angry at the exposure and what had happened. They were filled with all kinds stress and anxiety over that,' Debi says.
The vicious sentiments, she believes, have led to what she refers to as 'faux outrage,' noting that when the cover photo was so recently shared, 'people who were not paying attention even two years ago have now been primed to be angry and full of hate ... But the sun has still risen and set every single day. The world has been going along just fine until this amplification of rage and hate and rhetoric.'
Because of that, and the unending stream of anti-trans legislation around the country, including right in Missouri [where the family lives], Avery has taken a step back from public life ...
Nowhere in the article are transgender activists blamed for ruining Avery's life.
Google News search
A Google News search (archived here) showed no stories about transgender activists ruining Avery Jackson's life.
Read more
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims concerning transgender people and issues are here.
