Under the Republican president’s leadership, trans rights in the US are at a standstill at best, backsliding at worst. Though the trans community has a history of resilience, the struggle is hindered by state-sponsored oppression.
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“A customer once came in wearing a sweater that said the only genders are male and female, and everything else is just a mental illness,” college student Toby recounts. A 25-year-old from Somerville, Massachusetts, he works part-time at a movie theater. He is also a trans man.
The past year has been marked by a generalization of outspoken, harsh transphobia among the American public.
This was enhanced by US President Donald Trump’s mission to uphold a so-called “biological reality of sex” - effectively signaling a U-turn on protection of trans people - which he sacralized in an Executive Order just hours after his inauguration last year.
Scholars concluded earlier in January that trans people were at risk of facing genocide in the United States, even suggesting that we were already witnessing the early stages of mass atrocity.
“We're in a standstill when it comes to progress”
Transphobia has always been rampant in the US, Toby says. But before Trump’s 2024 reelection, “people were more ashamed to publicly denounce trans people,” recalls Christina, a 24-year-old trans woman from Boston, Massachusetts.
Since Trump returned to office, “everybody is way more in your face about their hatred of you,” Toby laments.
Now, “It feels like we're in a standstill when it comes to progress,” he adds.
Yet, in Trump’s America, a standstill is the best-case scenario. Both Toby and Christina live in a Democrat-ruled state which they call “progressive.” “I recognize my privilege,” admits Christina.
Elsewhere, trans rights have backslid. More than a thousand anti-trans bills were introduced in 49 state legislatures in 2025, of which over 100 have passed, TruthOut reports. Oppression against trans people was further validated by a Supreme Court ruling in June that Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care was constitutional, paving the way for similar legislation in 26 other states - more than half of the US’s 50.
Targeted as “domestic terrorists”
Such a ban at the federal level is still unlikely, as it would require Congress’s greenlight, says social scientist Harry Barbee, who specializes in health among queer populations.
They nevertheless point out that “federal policy can still be highly consequential through funding levers and participation conditions,” citing healthcare programs as an example for a “well-established pathway to population-level harm.”
Many, if not all of the administration’s measures have had a negative impact on trans people. Anti-immigration force ICE has particularly targeted trans people of color, subjecting them to forced labor and systemic sexual assault by ICE agents in Lousiana, according to reports that are nonetheless scarce as ICE refuses to communicate data on trans people in custody.
Trans people recently became an identified target for the government. In December, Attorney General Pam Bondi instructed the FBI to start offering cash bounties in exchange for information that would help arrest trans activists.
Bondi described them as “domestic terrorists.”
Meanwhile, authorities have followed a strategy - known as “V-coding” - to put more trans people in custody, and diminish their safety in prison by deliberately placing trans women in violent male inmates’ cells. Trans inmates are exposed to daily sexual abuse, and ultimately pushed to suicide.
“I wish we could cause riots everywhere”
As trans people struggle to find ways to combat state-sponsored transphobia, reporter Erin Reed reminds that the trans community “come from a lineage of resilience.”
But Toby says resistance comes a long way. “When I realized I was trans, accepting it meant learning to accept that someone could murder me simply because I wanted to be myself.”
“I do attend rallies,” he adds, recognizing that he “should do more.” For now, he tries “to just keep my head down as much as possible.”
“I wish we could, as bad as this may sound, cause riots everywhere and not stop until we get the rights we deserve. I know that is extremely unrealistic, unfortunately.”
Meanwhile, several armed queer groups have emerged across the U.S., such as the Armed Queers SLC in Salt Lake City, Utah or the Doll Squad in Eugene, Oregon. Though the right to bear firearms in the US is mostly promoted by far-right voices, those groups chose to use second amendment rights as they were originally intended: to protect themselves and their communities from oppression.
“Y’all can get AR15s like us so we could build capable anarchist collectives, able to defend against organized fascist attacks,” said Doll Squad member Mia in an interview with French media ahead of the 2024 election.
“I'm no longer opposed to leaving the country”
“If that's what they feel like they need to do, that's pretty valid,” Christina concedes, though she argues that “that is insane, that this is the type of world that we live in.”
She rather calls on fellow trans people to “act your best in public, show people that we're normal people who do very normal things.”
Barely existing as a trans person has however become impossible in some states, reaching a point where exodus has emerged as the most favored option. Since Trump’s reelection, nearly half of trans people surveyed by the Williams Institute have left their home place or have considered it, preferring safer US states. They cite an “increasingly hostile landscape” for them.
But as the backsliding of trans rights spreads from coast to coast, some opt for leaving the country altogether and moving to Europe.
“I'm no longer opposed to leaving the country unfortunately, which is not something I would have expected to be able to say because growing up, it seemed like people were growing open to the queer community,” Toby regrets.
