Writing — Ali Moss | Writer & Documentary Filmmaker

Slate
December 2025
I never imagined I’d become a felon. But when gender-affirming care is outlawed, only outlaws will get the care they or their children need. As government persecution of trans people intensifies, it’s going to be harder and harder for those of us with the most at stake to be the loud ones. So, to the rest of you: It’s time to step up.
The New York Times | Tiny Love Stories
December 2025
My daughter and I sprinted for the train, but she paused beyond the turnstile. At 9, she knows not to board without me, though she’d manage fine. “Today’s a special day,” I told her, as we rode to school. “We honor trans people who’ve been killed or died by suicide.” Her brother just turned 12; he transitioned in 4th grade. Our family worries society might make his life unlivable. He’s not immune — to the dread or the statistics — but most days he radiates unadulterated joy. “I’m glad that’s not him,” she said with weary cynicism. “Me too, lovey. Me too.”
amNY | Opinion
November 2025
I resigned this spring as a Democratic district leader in Westchester. I had to, since my husband and I made the unusual decision to return to the city long before our kids fled the nest — the local schools weren’t safe for our trans 11-year-old. But, more importantly, I resigned because I am as disappointed in the Democratic Party as I am disillusioned by our experience in a solidly blue suburb.
The New York Times | Tiny Love Stories
September 2025
A decade after Dad died, I’d domesticated my grief into an item on my to-do list: Pack backpacks; supervise homework; acknowledge his gnawing absence. “If I had a time machine,” my 7-year-old said on Father’s Day, “I’d tell Steve not to kill himself. He never would have decided to die if he knew we’d exist.” “Of course not,” I replied, a rare lie. We discuss Dad’s suicide without secrecy or shame, but I can’t yet reveal its complexity. “You said he would’ve wanted us to call him Abuelo,” my son said. “Abuelo Steve, I wish I’d gotten to meet you.”
Huff Post
August 2025
None of these murderers were trans, but the false accusations still bounce around the far-right echo chamber. In 2023, when a trans man actually was responsible for a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, they seized the opportunity to support their baseless theory.
So I was far from surprised to see the MAGA-sphere pounce again this week.
Electric Literature
July 2025
As fertile as I’ve found this foray into existential dread, I have to put it back on the shelf. Parenting in the present vs. the past requires that separation from the theoretical. The day-to-day takes place on a more physical and practical plane, and my children demand every ounce of functionality I can muster.
Still, beyond meeting their needs on the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy, it’s incumbent on me to make sure they have the space to imagine a life for themselves. A life that’s authentic and right to them—no matter the extent to which it exceeds my own imagination.
Huff Post
March 2025
It’s not an exaggeration to say that President Trump is running plays straight out of Hitler’s playbook. And it’s not just the hypervigilance I inherited that makes me take note. Trans kids like E. are canaries in the coal mine. If we don’t stand up for them and stop Trump in his tracks, history makes patently clear where this path leads. You may not bear the brunt of this persecution yourself. Your children might be fine. But, as M. Gessin argues with ferocious eloquence , “The reason you should care about this is not that it could happen to you but that it is already happening to others.”

That should be enough.
Buzzfeed
February 2025
We are all one millimeter away from losing our most fundamental civil rights: E. and other trans youth are the canaries in the coal mine. As the granddaughter of a Jewish refugee who fled Germany in 1931, I feel unshakable echoes of the Nazi rise to power. Pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem "First They Came," is cited so often it’s a cliché, but his admonition has never rung truer in my lifetime.
Business Insider
June 2024
By the end of the school year, we're all more than ready for a month apart. And by the end of camp, we're thrilled to reunite. When we do, we bring with us what we've learned on our respective summer vacations: how to be in the world as individuals. That's something they're experiencing for the first time — and something we need to do again and again as parents to make sure we don't lose ourselves in our love for them.
Kveller
September 2022
I squeezed his fingers in my tiny fist. He was 70 and I was 5, but as our hands completed a circuit a current of love flowed from me to him. I didn’t let go until we survived the Kaddish, when the room erupted into the joyous refrains of Adon Olam, and we sang along through our tears.
My grandma had died a few weeks earlier. April 17, 1988…