This post originally appeared on The 19th.
The family of four rolled up to their new home, exhausted but relieved after hours of travel. They had never seen the house in person, but it didn’t matter: This was a fresh start.
It wasn’t even 24 hours before something strange happened.
Sixteen-year-old Avery was the first to spot it, although other family members were also present. They were all sitting in one of the ranch’s four bedrooms when the light turned off.
“And not in a sense of like . . . just the bulb flickered,” Avery said. “No, the switch flipped.”
The family sat confused. Yes, it was weird and unexplainable. But mom, Debi, is a skeptic when it comes to the supernatural. The family had scarier things to contend with than a mysterious electrical issue.
Last October, the Jacksons fled their Kansas City, Missouri, home in search of a safe community for trans kids like Avery. The 19th is not disclosing the family’s new location because they have been subjected to threats and harassment.
The Jacksons never wanted to leave Missouri, said Debi. For most of their time there, they enjoyed a supportive community.
“We had gender therapists,” she said. “We had a big LGBT community, lots of chosen family, friends, safe spaces to go.”
Avery and their brother were homeschooled, and they escaped the hallway bullying that many trans kids and their siblings face. But the outside world was a different story.
In 2016, Avery made history as the first trans kid featured on the cover of National Geographic. The story, “Gender Revolution,” represented a watershed moment for transgender youth. But for Avery and their family it also ushered in a new era of harassment and threats of violence.
Debi, who has consulted for LGBTQ+ rights organization the Human Rights Campaign, worked hard to shield Avery and their brother from the blowback. But as anti-trans bills flooded their state, hateful rhetoric heated up. Protecting Avery and their brother from the trolling got harder.
“It was just so many things all at once,” she said.
In May 2022, the family watched the news in horror after an 18-year-old walked into his former elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 19 students and two teachers in the worst school shooting in the state’s history. Missouri is a concealed carry state. Debi remembers going out to dinner as a family after learning about Uvalde.
“We were sitting there eating, thinking the person at that table could be packing, and if they heard what we’re talking about, or realized that one of our kids is trans, sitting here, they have a gun,” she said. “It’s a very uncomfortable place to be.”
The following June, Missouri passed a law that made it illegal for transgender youth to get gender-affirming health care. The law only restricted kids who had not received that care before, meaning that Avery could continue to see their doctors.
But other anti-trans legislation was still making its way through the statehouse. The family continued to get threats as Missouri and other states debated the rights of trans kids. Worse, Avery’s magazine cover made them a target internationally as nations debated the rights of transgender kids and scoured the internet seeking examples of young people to use in their arguments.
Debi recalled seeing Avery on anti-trans ads in France and Brazil.
“This is the first time I’m learning about that,” Avery, now 17, told their mom during an interview with The 19th.
“Because I try to keep things on mute, babe,” she replied.
“I know,” Avery said. They added that they appreciate being protected. “I know they’re hateful people, but using pictures of a child to try and push your rhetoric is just really bizarre.”
Eight years have passed since that cover story. A lot has changed. Avery identified as a girl at the time. Now, “nonbinary” feels like it fits best. And the family is careful about keeping Avery’s face, now that of a teen, out of the media. It’s one of the reasons they moved. And the reason why they don’t want anyone to know where they moved to.
But, unfortunately, the Jacksons stumbled into something else chilling. The overactive light switch on night one was not a one-off. The lights in the house continue to turn on and off — in the presence of all the family members — the switch flipping up and down on its own. Doors and cabinets open and close by themselves, without the presence of a draft. There is knocking throughout the house in places that no one in the family can reach.
Once, Avery’s brother texted them around 2 a.m. wanting to know why their cat was making so many scratching noises. It had been a persistent sound issue.
“I sent him a picture of my cat sleeping on my bed, and he’s like, ‘WTF?!’” Avery said.
A few weeks ago, Avery woke up at 4 a.m. hungry and went to the kitchen for a snack.
“The light was on, and I heard footsteps coming up the hallway, and then the light turned off,” Avery said. “I went and turned on the light, and I looked in the hallway. No one was there.”
Over the course of the last year, the family has come to the obvious conclusion that they are rooming with a ghost.
If all of this sounds a little far-fetched, know that Debi also counts herself among the non-believers.
“I’m always the person who is like, I want to be there to see it myself, because, sure, there’s always this logical explanation for something,” she said. “And yet, I’ve been sitting in the room when the light switch goes off. So how do you explain that?”
In October 2006, NPR’s “This American Life” aired an episode about a family who moved into a rambling house in 1921 that they were convinced was haunted — until they figured out that their furnace was poisoning them with carbon monoxide. Albert Donnay, an environmental health engineer who read the story, said those fumes could have accounted for all of the ghostly hallucinations the family experienced.
In the case of the Jacksons, the home has already been checked for carbon monoxide leaks, however.
“Where we live, the city inspector comes by every year to check gas lines and do argon and other safety tests,” said Debi. “It was all good three months ago.”
If the house is haunted, Avery is at peace with it.
“I feel like living in Missouri is probably way scarier,” they said.
They have started to call the ghost “Dave.” They think of Dave like they do trans kids, someone who is stuck in a place, not trying to bother anyone, just trying to be. In Avery’s mind, Dave is a friend. Dave doesn’t care if Avery is trans or not.
“This is a lot nicer, having a ghost pal,” Avery said, “as opposed to fear of literal death and murder by someone who is somehow even less human than a dead person.”
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