"A father who fled Alabama, because he loves his kids" --- wait, what?... oh

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Sim Butler’s the kind of Alabamian I know best. The kind, that is, the world knows least.

Smart, but not pretentious about it, despite the All-American debate cred at UA, the PhD and the new book. Capable of losing his Southern drawl for the outside world, but certain to drift South as the conversation progresses, to drop in a “God willin’ and the creek don’t rise,” to remind everybody where his heart is.

Butler can talk football or fishing, or how we belong to the land more than the land could ever belong to us. He is Alabama in his roots, to his core.

But not in his address. Not anymore.

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The state he loved made demons of people like his transgender daughter and felons of the doctors who had given her a happiness and hope she had never known.

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So the Butlers left.

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Butler has since written a book – “And the Dragons Do Come: Raising a Transgender Kid in Rural America.” It published last week.

“Dragons were a manifestation of those dangerous, scary parts of life that make you feel helpless,” he said. “For us, that was fighting the state of Alabama around health care.”

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