A place to ask transgender people questions and get answers about the trans experience.
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We have gone through this before, whether its women, gay folks, black people, native americans. Were the most acceptable minority to target right now, and its gonna get worse before it gets better. But knowing how we have made it before, we will prevail
Keep your chin up, they want you to feel hopeless
and to be honest, it was much worse in the US merely decades ago - people are alive now who remember a time when transitioning was much more unthinkable and trans oppression was much worse
compared to the rest of the world, the US is still a much better place to transition, and trans people here have far more rights now than in the 1970s, or even the 1990s
my advice in general to trans folks is to focus on improving your life - move to a safe state, update your documents, get access to care, etc. Protect your peace, take care of yourself, and be happy - live your life.
if the political situation is bothering you severely and you have the excess time, money, and energy to give - then engage in activism and help create the changes you want to see
If you can't afford that right now, then I don't think there is much value in dooming about the situation right now. Protecting your mental health is more important than spiraling.
We need to be practical about how we spend our energy, including our fear and anxiety - if the anxiety isn't helping motivate you to make necessary changes, then work on letting it go and replacing it with more useful feelings.
Well it's working. I feel very hopeless
Were here for you. Trans folks will pull through like everyone before us, all included 🩷🖤🩷
The 4th Circuit just ruled that states have a duty to ban gender affirming care to help people "accept their birth sex"
So I sincerely doubt it.
I honestly think this ends horribly for all of us..
There's just no way to get the general public jazzed up about our rights. We're too few and too "strange"
Listen, you gotta quit the doomscrolling and focus on your local community once you get an understanding of the news for the day/week. I thought the same way as you until I did that, constantly downing hate-click news stories does exactly what they aim to do: get your ad revenue and make you feel hopeless.
Most people dont give a fuck that trans people exist, and will step up to bat if someone they know is being discriminated against. I live in bumfuck nowhere-ville in the USA, and I know most of the folks in town would be upset if something happened to my gf and I because of our identities, were all people at the end of the day. Knowing your neighbors and being respectful goes a very long way, especially in the isolated world we live in these days.
Those in power think they can "solve the trans ""issue"". just like they tried to solve the black "issue" or the gay "issue", and we know how that went.
We will persist, we have existed since the idea of gender was constructed. Its a safer time than ever in modern human history to be trans, and the people who dont like that are using us being able to get the care we need to line their pockets and feed the war machine.
We will prevail, even if things get worse before they get better.
There is immense hope - in less than two years, living in one of the most oppressive & anti-trans states in the US, I managed to fully transition, I had reasonable access to care including surgeries, I updated most of my documents, and then I fled to a safer state where I managed to update even more of my documents, and I now live life as my gender full-time without issue.
Day-to-day, there is no real immediate threat to my life or safety (any more than a cis woman would experience), and even though the news can be overwhelming at times, I am mostly focused on living my life and improving what I can within my life.
Even in the worst moments, the struggles of being a visibly trans person in a hostile state were still preferable to life pre-transition (not that I could have known this before).
Every day I feel more or less happy and excited to be alive, and I can thank transitioning for that. I feel mostly hopeful about the future, even with the uncertainty. So far, things are far better than I thought they would be by this point. Some things (like hospital closures) have happened as I expected, but other things (like full criminalization of trans adults in the most anti-trans states) have not happened.
some advice (feel free to ignore if that's not what you're here for)
My suggestion is to care more about your mental health and be more practical with how you relate to the news. Even though it's probably not safe or responsible to completely check out, I've had to find ways to contextualize the news and not let the drama of this administration ruin your life with run-away fears and anticipation of a future that may never come. Learn to differentiate the political theater from the material situation.
There is a middle ground where you can take a practical approach to the news as a means of informing how to prepare for and make the changes you need to make to keep yourself safe, without letting it run your life.
Regarding context: if your mental health can handle it, go read about what it was like for trans folks in the 1970s and appreciate the fact that trans people enjoy much greater care and rights now than ever before.
Guard your experiences - be picky about what doctors & other providers you go to. Get connected within your local community and figure out who is safe through the community. Cultivate safety through who you choose to be around and what spaces you are or aren't willing to be in.
And in the worst case, when the fear has gripped me, I find it is helpful to take agency - taking steps to leave an anti-trans state and seek refuge in a state with strong trans rights was a way to feel hopeful and to undermine that sense of complete victimization. Do what you can, each day, to create that sense of autonomy and choice, even if that day it's as simple as making sure you are eating healthy, hydrating, exercising, and getting enough sleep.
Sadly I think criminalization of trans adults is a when not if. In New York they tried to pass a "Walking While Trans" bill. Didn't work thankfully.
And there are states wih bans on drag in public that are worded so vaguely that a AMAB person wearing a skirt counts as an "Overtly Sexual Display", especially if a kid sees that...
Edit: Not even a day later and West Virginia banned Gender Affirming Care for adults with the permission of the 4th Circuit.
And there are states wih bans on drag in public that are worded so vaguely that a AMAB person wearing a skirt counts as an “Overtly Sexual Display”, especially if a kid sees that…
I lived in one of those states, and that interpretation of the law is incorrect, the courts have a rather high standard and narrow interpretation of what is considered "harm to children"
as the ACLU clarifies:
The legal definition for “harmful to minors” is very narrow and only covers extreme sexual or violent content with no literary, artistic, or political value for minors.
These drag bans absolutely do not apply to trans people walking down the street, and these laws have been in place for years without any enforcement like you are describing. So far they mostly use the law's ambiguity to threaten legal action to shut down drag performances at pride parades, etc.
One of the fears I had as a trans person living in those states is that overnight I would wake up and the police could just try to the law as an excuse to go ahead and arrest trans people anyway, and then let the mess play out in the courts where conservative judges could find creative ways to ignore or work around the restraints on the law, but this is very unlikely and more just my fear talking than anything like an actual path forward for successful criminalization.
That said, I do think the most extreme anti-trans elements of the GOP are trying to push full criminalization as they can, but have mostly failed to get support even from their own party in the most anti-trans states. In 2025 Texas had a state bill proposed that would criminalize all trans people for "gender identity fraud" and they weren't even able to get it to a vote.
So, I'm not as confident as you that it's as certain as "when, not if", even if I do agree that we might see full criminalization happen in some states. (That's actually why I left my home and moved to a blue state, I anticipated under the Trump administration that the most anti-trans states will be more motivated to push for full criminalization.)
That said, my anticipation of quick criminalization has not yet come to fruition, and now I wonder why some of those states like Florida haven't even attempted it.
Florida makes it so that if you're trans and in jail, they forcibly try to detransition you.
That was adopted by the Federal Prison System and made stricter. Trump also signed an order to bring back mental asylums.
I would be really surprised to learn that the plan WASN'T to have RFK Jr. announce a "pandemic of transness" to have anyone gender queer sent to these asylums.
I am in NC. I wanna try to move to Virginia if the chance presents itself.
While I don't think Gender Identity Fraud will become a crime in itself (Even Trump's supreme court would declare it a violation of the First Amendment). I know they're gonna try to make transition all but impossible.
I think they'll either claim its "Too sexual for the public" (Kinda like how they made being gay in public a crime by labeling public displays of affection a crime and selectively enforcing it) or have it declared a mental health epidemic.
I am amazed every Purple Or Red state hasn't jumped to copy Kansas. (Though many have stopped allowing people to update their IDs. And Indiana seems to be trying to revert them back to birth sex)
I really hope Gavin Newsom isn't the Democratic Nominee. While I think he can beat Vance, I can see him being to the right of Trump on trans issues.
Well TIL about V-coding too. JFC...fucking horrific. I am not trans. I don't normally comment in these communities because it's not my place. But just know that there are those here like me who love and support you and come here to watch, learn, and share in your experiences. I understand how learning how horrible the human race can be drags us down psychologically and makes it seem like things will never get better. The fight is not a zero sum game that can be "won" but it's still very much worth fighting. Please don't give up fighting. Don't give up hope. Do what you can. Rest when you need to and stay as safe as you can. That's all any of us can do.
we need to understand v-coding is a long-standing practice, it's not new, it's not a result of the current anti-trans movement or the current administration (even if they will weaponize and support it)
furthermore, we need to understand that trans people even in "progressive" states like California are put in the wrong prisons even against the laws of that state - so these are struggles that 1. pre-date the current administration, and 2. are being fought even in Democratic strongholds.
The fight is not a zero sum game that can be “won” but it’s still very much worth fighting. Please don’t give up fighting. Don’t give up hope. Do what you can. Rest when you need to and stay as safe as you can. That’s all any of us can do.
+1 to this, we need to realize this is a very long-term struggle that in the US has extended over decades and centuries. None of this is particularly new, and if anything I feel more hope for trans futures now than just a couple decades ago.
Fuck. I just looked up what it is and at this point I think if there's a possibility of going to prison I might just have to fight to the death to avoid it. I think I would rather do pretty much anything than get raped every day in prison. It reminds me of the stories coming out about what Israel is doing to imprisoned Palestinians. I'd rather die than live through that...
I don't think it's like a guarantee or anything, not ever prison practices v-coding, but ... the stats are not good, even without v-coding, sexual assault of trans women in prisons (even by the guards) is very common, like one study found it was >50%.
So yeah, staying out of federal and state prisons (and probably jails, tbh) should be a priority for all trans people.