Now, following Trump’s comments and actions on the first day of his presidency, the group’s crisis hotline is once again receiving a flood of calls. Sixty-two percent of incoming calls this week, the group told WIRED, came from transgender and gender non-conforming youth ages 14 to 17.
Callers express varying degrees of emotional and mental distress and often express feelings of hopelessness and fear. One of the most commonly shared sentiments is: “My country doesn’t want me to exist.”
While the Trump administration’s actions cause great suffering to the trans community and their families, there is already a significant increase in attacks, both online and offline, from Trump supporters who feel emboldened.
“We’ve already seen an increase in hate towards us,” Fisher said. “We had someone come to our house just last Tuesday and put a note in our mailbox that said, ‘He’s your daddy now, he’s your president.’ You people will no longer exist.’ So yeah, they’re definitely encouraged.”
A trans pride flag they hung on their porch was stolen twice in a week. At her local Piggly Wiggly supermarket, she overheard people at a nearby table talking about how glad they were that Trump had “got rid” of transgender people.
“He didn’t get rid of them, they will always exist – but he damn well targeted them, especially my teenage son,” Fisher said.
And the attacks are also directed at the groups trying to help the LGBTQ+ community.
“We’ve seen a lot more hate,” Lance Preston, executive director of the Rainbow Youth Project, tells WIRED. “We got a lot of messages, crazy shit, like ‘Trump is your president, now you all have to go.’ We don’t want you here.’ We receive contact forms every day and the number has increased exponentially since the election. It’s really sad.”
Some activists also fear that those who have always stood with the LGBTQ+ community may be too afraid to speak out under Trump’s new administration.
“Every time something like this happens, we notice supporters giving in and just becoming quiet,” Chris Sederburg, who helps trans and gender non-conforming people through the Rainbow Youth Project, tells WIRED. “Not everyone, but many do it because they are afraid of what will happen. They are afraid of what might happen to them, otherwise they might feel hatred for it.”
Sederburg, a trans man who works as a trucker, communicates with young trans people on social media and says the community’s reaction this week has been “intense, immediate fear.”
For Jamie Anderson, a 40-year-old teacher from Texas, her biggest fear is that the Trump administration will force her 15-year-old daughter Dawn, who came out as transgender last year, to make a traumatic decision.
“My biggest concern is that she’ll have to live a lie again, like she’s not who she should be,” Anderson says. “She’s happy now, she’s much happier than she was right before she came out. She was super depressed. We had no idea what was going on. And finally she comes out and she’s this whole new, amazing, loving child.”
