‘We Have Seen a Lot More Hate’: Trans People Are Already Terrified

Just before the presidential election last November, Carolyn Fisher was in her living room in Birmingham, Alabama, when her nonbinary child walked in and said that he, along with four other transgender kids, were planning on dying by suicide if Donald Trump won the upcoming election. But Trump still won, and during the president’s inauguration speech on January 20, the Fishers heard him say that their child effectively doesn’t exist when he signed a sweeping executive order that, among other things, calls for the ending of trans care, requires housing trans women in male prisons, and allows only male or female markers on official documents like passports and not the “X” that was introduced in 2021 for people who identify as nonbinary, intersex, or gender nonconforming. When a bishop at the National Cathedral service for the inauguration this week asked Trump to protect “gay, lesbian, and transgender children” the president dismissed her pleas in a Truth Social post and called her “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” The executive order contains provisions that require further federal action to become law, and this document should be viewed as a roadmap the Trump administration has drafted to signal what new rules they are planning on implementing. There needs to be an active resistance to these things.” The Rainbow Youth Project, an organization focused on helping young LGBTQ+ people, received over 6,000 calls in just the first couple of days after Trump’s November election win.