Motus Theater Debuts What Love Requires, Sharing Stories from Parents of Trans Adults

For more than a decade, Boulder’s Motus Theater has helped people on the front lines of political and social harm craft deeply personal, autobiographical monologues about their lives. Its previous projects have featured DACA recipients, people affected by incarceration and transgender leaders, who have used live performance, film and podcasts to shift public narratives through firsthand testimony. This winter, Motus is turning its focus to the people who have walked alongside those leaders: eight parents of trans and nonbinary adults.

“Parental rights are really important in our country,” says Motus Theater artistic executive director Kirsten Wilson. “People who don’t understand what it’s like to be trans or to have a trans child want to weigh in on these issues, but do you really think you know better than a parent who’s trying to make the best decisions possible about how to support their child? It’s very difficult for any parent to raise children in the culture right now. There’s social media, AI and a lot of fear of the future. Parents are struggling, so we thought, ‘Let’s work with parents.’ Hearing a parent’s perspective on how important gender-affirming care and athletics are to their child’s thriving may be eye-opening for those who have preconceived notions about gender-affirming care or girls’ sports.”

The resulting project, What Love Requires: Stories from Parents of Trans & Nonbinary Adults, premieres on December 6 in Boulder and features parents’ stories alongside improvised violin underscoring by Anthony Salvo. Although the debut event has already sold out, the performance marks only the beginning of a larger effort to bring these stories to civic spaces, state legislators and national audiences.

“The demand for this piece is outrageous because people are so hungry for these stories,” Wilson says. “Everyone either is a parent or is the child of a parent, so there’s a lot of desire and need to listen to what parenting requires. The piece is called What Love Requires, and again, that is really a motto of all parenting. Like, what does love require? So we expect this to be very popular across all political spectrums because people are speaking beautifully about loving fearlessly.”

Developed through a condensed twelve-week writing and reflection process, the monologues illuminate what it means to parent well in a climate where gender-affirming care and the rights of trans youth are frequent political flashpoints. “It’s been so humbling and beautiful,” says Wilson of her collaboration with the eight parent monologists. “Parenting is very challenging anyway you look at it, but when you have children who are on the front lines of aggressive attacks, figuring out how to negotiate your own fear as a parent so your fear doesn’t get in the way of loving your child into the life that will allow them to blossom is profound.”

In developing the monologues, Wilson says she watched parents articulate truths they often navigated alone while raising their now-adult children in an era with fewer resources and far less public understanding. The most striking commonality, she notes, was the “camaraderie about just the challenge” of sending a beloved child into a world that may not see them with the same clarity and love they experience at home. Many of the parents’ stories include moments of crisis, fear, or suicidal ideation, followed by scenes of joy.

“One parent tells a very powerful story about suicidality and a therapist saying to her, ‘The best thing you can do is imagine your daughter’s bright future,’ and how hard it was to imagine when her daughter was struggling to stay on the planet,” Wilson says. “But a decade later, she’s married to the love of her life and had a church wedding with hundreds of people cheering and singing. It’s lovely when you have parents who have negotiated what we most fear around: will my child make it? And now to watch how many of these children are thriving because they had loving parents.”

The structure of the project itself reflects Motus’s long-term vision. Motus typically spends 21 to 24 weeks developing monologues, but the twelve-week timeline for this project was due to limited funding and the fact that many of these parents had already started their own trauma-processing journeys. Wilson co-facilitated What Love Requires alongside therapist David Breña, who works with trans youth and their families and helped shape the conversations that surfaced in the room.

Although the December 6 performance is closed to additional audience members, What Love Requires is only beginning its public life. The next showing will take place on Transgender Day of Visibility, March 31, at the Colorado State House, in collaboration with Representative Brianna Titone, the state’s first openly transgender state legislator.

“Now is a critical time to be sharing these stories,” Wilson says. “There are two anti-trans ballot measures coming up in Colorado. One is trying to limit gender-affirming care, and it’s going to confuse people into thinking it’s about surgeries. It is not. It is really about controlling gender-affirming care, and there’s another one about preventing young trans athletes in sports. Both of these ballot measures are actually confusing, and, well, I’m not going to say we don’t want people to sign them, but I think it’s a really important time to lift uplifting stories like the ones in What Love Requires strategically.”

Beyond that, Motus is expanding its reach through filmed monologues, radio broadcasts produced by Maeve Conran across Western states and partnerships that can bring these stories to broader regional and national audiences. “We’ve got these powerful stories, and they need to be heard far and wide,” Wilson said. Film and radio also offer safety and sustainability.

“It’s really, really necessary right now, and it also provides safety in that momentum,” Wilson says. “It’s safer to present your monologue on film and radio than it is in person, so it’s great because we can reach more people with less threat.”

But for Wilson, the impact of the work remains rooted in the visceral experience of storytelling. She describes the upcoming debut as a “medicinal and liberative land,” a room where truth will clear out the residue of harmful narratives and create space for everyone present to become “more of themselves.”

As one parent puts it in the show, answering a question they’ve heard many times: “What kind of parent raises a trans child? A great parent. One that supports their child to be their true self, fights with them for their right to be themselves, and who helps them feel safe.”

What Love Requires: Stories from Parents of Trans & Nonbinary Adults debut performance in Boulder on December 6 is sold out. The next showing will take place on Transgender Day of Visibility, March 31, at the Colorado State House. For more information on upcoming performances and events, email info@motustheater.org or visit motustheater.org.