Pressure On The Transgender Community In The United States

Under President Donald Trump, transgender people are preparing for significant policy changes.

On his first day in office, Trump has pledged to implement a number of policies that target transgender people, such as a new federal definition of sex that is binary and assigned at birth.

A parent of a trans teen and nearly a dozen transgender Americans say they are getting ready for a second Trump administration.

Some of them are even hurrying to update their passport’s gender marker and legally change their name. Others are committed to supporting immigrants and individuals with disabilities.

Among other things, Trump had pledged to limit their access to transition-related medical care, identity document modifications, military enlistment, and sports team participation.

Although transgender people have differing opinions about the promises made by President Donald Trump during his campaign, almost everyone them arrived at one message.

Trump warned:

“They are better prepared than they were eight years ago”.

“They felt “clear-eyed” the day after the election, whereas in 2016 they were crying and felt devastated by the election results and the effect that Trump’s policies would have on marginalized communities, including trans people”, Heron Greenesmith, the deputy director of policy at the Transgender Law Center, said.

“We provided safety for ourselves and mutual aid, we defended ourselves from criminalization and got ourselves out of jail when we needed to — and provided health care for folks who needed it.” said Greenesmith.

According to AdImpact, a company that monitors political ad spending, between September 19 and November 1, Trump and his supporters spent almost $60 million on eight anti-trans network-TV advertisements, one of which was in Spanish.

Less than 1% of American adults are transgender, and he has backed several policies that target them.

At summer campaign rallies, he pledged to do at least two things for thetrans community on his first day in office: revoke Title IX protections from theBiden administration that permitted trans students to use gender-neutral restrooms and stop federal funding for schools that “push critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto the lives of our children.”

Additionally, Trump pledged to implement a new policy that forbids transition-related care for minors across the country and to reinstate a policy that was implemented during his first term that prohibited transgender individuals from joining the military.

He would declare that any hospital or clinician who treats transgender minors would “no longer meet federal health and safety standards for Medicaid and Medicare — and will be terminated from the program immediately,” according to the agenda on his website.

In order to make it more difficult for transgender people to modify the gender markers on federal documents like passports, Trump’s agenda also calls for federal agencies to define sex as the sex assigned at birth.

The State Department began offering the gender-neutral “X” marker on passports, in addition to the standard “M” or “F,” in April 2022, but a new federal definition of sex could end that policy, legal experts say.

The majority of transgender people may not be able to change their passport’s gender marker if the Trump administration continues to permit such changes and requires proof of gender-reassignment surgery.

According to legal advocacy groups, it is unclear what will happen to people who currently hold passports with the “X” gender marker if the Trump administration stops issuing new “X” passports.

Transgender people are currently updating any necessary identity documents.

The average processing time for a U.S. passport is four to six weeks, and the expedited processing time, which is $60 more, is two to three weeks.

Advocates claim that LGBTQ youth in particular are already feeling the effects of the election. In the 24 hours following the election, the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, saw a 700% increase in crisis contacts compared to the weeks before.

Gay And Transgender Students Are Not Allowed Here!

According to a spokesperson, over 40% of the contacts were trans or nonbinary youth, and roughly one-third (30%) identified as LGBTQ youth who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color.

It’s interesting to note that transgender people now see it as an opportunity to contribute more money to the growing need.

“We know that things will escalate in the four years of the administration.” one of them said in an interview.

The fund’s first round of grants went to organizations like the Unspoken Treasure Society, a Black, trans-led organization in Jacksonville, Florida; Transgender Advocates Knowledgeable Empowering, or TAKE, which offers services to trans people of color in Birmingham, Alabama; and House of Tulip, which houses trans people of color in Louisiana.