For transgender Americans, Trump's victory is terrifying

Avery Poznanski was excited for a new chapter.

The non-binary transgender UCLA student had decided last month, after years of personal discovery and long discussions with her family and doctors, to begin testosterone therapy. The first few weeks were exciting and satisfying.

Then Donald Trump, after waging a vitriolic campaign against transgender people, won the presidential election on Tuesday, which was “really scary” and “heartbreaking,” Poznanski said.

“I'm still a little stunned by how important trans expression and rights were to Trump, and how intensely they campaigned on it,” the 21-year-old Murrietta native said Wednesday. “Honestly, I feel scared.”

Across the United States, transgender and other queer people are grappling with the fact that large numbers of Americans voted for a candidate who openly ridiculed them during the election campaign, and for a political party that spent millions on anti-attack ads. -LGBTQ+.

For many, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' loss to Trump is not only disturbing but deeply threatening. They are looking for reasons to be optimistic, such as the election of Sarah McBride in Delaware, which will make her the first transgender member of Congress. But most simply feel devastated, in part because they believe Trump will make good on his promises to disenfranchise them.

“It's a scary time to be a trans person, and to hear so much surprising and really unfounded rhetoric from that side, and to think that that can be included in actual legislation,” Poznanski said.

Trump's election follows years of growing political hostility toward transgender people and a wave of state laws aimed at restricting the rights of this small subset of the American population. But it also marked a new escalation.

Trump denigrated transgender people from the start of the race. In one of her first campaign videos, part of her political platform “Agenda 47,” she said that “the gender madness of the left [was] being pressured on our children” and amounted to “child abuse.”

He said that upon taking office he would sign an executive order “instructing all federal agencies to end all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age”; blocking federal funding to hospitals that provide gender-affirming care; ensure “severe consequences” for teachers who recognize transgender children; and encourage schools to “promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers, and celebrate rather than erase the things that make men and women different and unique.”

Trump also routinely disparaged transgender people during the election campaign. He portrayed them as a threat to women and girls, even in sports, and told absurd lies to generate additional fear, including his claim that they were taking American boys out of schools to undergo genital surgeries without their parents' consent. .

In September, the Trump campaign began running an attack ad criticizing Harris for a policy of providing gender-affirming health care to federal inmates, using the phrase: “Kamala is for them. President Trump is for you.” And when that seemed to resonate with voters, the campaign doubled down, airing anti-transgender ads during sports games and in every swing state. A recent estimate puts Republican spending on anti-transgender ads on network television alone at $215 million.

Trans rights supporters protested at the Indiana House of Representatives last year before a ban on gender-affirming treatment for minors was passed.

(Darron Cummings/Associated Press)

LGBTQ+ rights organizations have disputed the notion that voters found Trump's anti-transgender message appealing, and polls have shown that many Americans support transgender rights. Still, the fact that that message was so central to Trump's winning campaign says something about the American electorate, according to transgender people and their families.

“I think he was very popular with his base and with the people who were throwing money at him,” said Amber Easley, a San Bernardino County mother whose 17-year-old son, Milo, is transgender. “He was a direct contributor to [Trump’s] success, which is devastating.”

Jaymes Black, executive director of the Trevor Project, which operates phone, text and chat lines for queer youth experiencing suicidal thoughts or needing to talk, said the group's services had seen an increase in demand of about 125% since the Election Day through Wednesday morning, compared to normal days.

“The Trevor Project wants LGBTQ+ youth to know that we are here for them, no matter the outcome of any election, and we will continue to fight for every LGBTQ+ youth to have access to safe, affirming spaces, especially during difficult times. ” Black said. “LGBTQ+ youth: your life matters and you were born to live it.”

Erin Reed, a transgender activist and freelance journalist who has written extensively about the trans community, said there is “a lot of desperation” among queer people.

Journalist and trans rights activist Erin Reed (right) and her fiancee, Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, in 2023.

(Jacquelyn Martín / Associated Press)

“I'm not going to sugarcoat it: I had to talk three or four people out of committing suicide,” Reed said of the conversations he had on election night. “That's the reality that people are facing right now.”

Many transgender people are already “very unsafe” living in Republican-controlled states that have passed sweeping anti-trans measures in recent years, Reed said, including bans on gender-affirming health care, bans on transgender people using bathrooms that match their identities, queer-affirming books, and about processes that allow transgender people to update state documents like driver's licenses.

Now, Reed said, transgender people across the country – even in blue states – are wondering whether Trump and his newly empowered Republican colleagues in the next Congress will be able to pass similar measures at the federal level.

Members of the trans community are also concerned that Democrats will abandon them now based on the perception that defending them is too politically costly, Reed said; They ask themselves, “How do we manage to not get caught under the bus?”

Many Democrats have expressed solidarity with the queer community, and queer leaders and organizations are doing outreach to make sure queer people are okay and to reject Republican narratives that dehumanize transgender people, which is vital, but not Enough, said Honey Mahogany. Executive Director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives.

“I would like to see solidarity from other communities, assurances that we are all in this together and then collective organizing,” he said.

Both she and Reed said transgender voices are too often left out of the discussion about transgender lives, and they said that must end.

Redlands High School senior Milo Easley agrees. She wants more people to talk about transgender issues, but not like Trump does, with “so much negativity” and “a lot of scaremongering.”

Milo Easley, a transgender high school student, at his Redlands home last year.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Milo said he finds some comfort living in California, which has laws protecting transgender people and gender-affirming care, but he is still scared by Trump's victory and worried about gay friends in other states.

“They are already dealing with anti-trans policies, and the risk of having more under Trump is a serious concern,” Milo said. “Many of them tell me they fear for the future with Trump in office.”

He is trying to maintain a positive attitude, even about the future, where he sees “a lot of room for improvement,” but it is difficult.

Poznanski also feels lucky to live in California and receive gender-affirming health care, but she worries about young people in less friendly states who don't have access to that treatment.

But Poznanski is also hopeful and determined to live.

“Our existence is politicized,” they said. “But simply living is an act of resistance.”