LGBTQ+ People Are Preparing for the Worst

When Elizabeth came home from work on Election Day in New York last week, her 10-year-old daughter wanted to tell her something: “‘Mama, I have some bad news. Donald Trump won,’” Elizabeth recalled her saying. “I said, ‘Oh yeah, I heard that today. But you know, it’s okay. We’ll be okay.”

What Elizabeth’s daughter doesn’t know is just how worried her mom is that Trump’s victory puts a fresh target on trans kids like her. Elizabeth has never told her daughter that the president-elect wants to stop her from obtaining gender-affirming medical treatment, from playing sports with other girls, or from ever having a teacher use the pronouns of her choice. She didn’t tell her that he’s vowed to ensure she can never be recognized as a woman by the federal government — not even when she’s an adult. All Elizabeth told her was that Trump “is not a good guy.”

“I’ve kind of shielded her from that, to be honest,” said Elizabeth, who asked that she only be referred to by her middle name and that her daughter not be named at all (others in this story are referred to by their first names). “We feel really safe and lucky to live in New York City. We’ve been pretty untouched by it, but I think that’s what makes it especially alarming: That sense of safety no longer exists.”

Across social media — X, TikTok, Reddit, and Bluesky — the LGBTQ+ community is sharing tips on what legal steps to take to try to protect their lives under Trump 2.0. Trans and nonbinary people are rushing to update or obtain documents like passports and state IDs to reflect their name and gender marker before the inauguration in case the new administration rolls back their ability to do so. Same-sex couples are bringing forward the dates of their marriages or looking at what legal documents they need to complete to serve as a fail-safe should the worst happen. And queer parents are speaking with lawyers about finally completing adoption paperwork for the children they’ve been raising together.

“People are definitely scared,” said Amira Hasenbush, a California-based attorney who co-runs a practice with Alana Chazan that focuses on family law for the LGBTQ+ community. “I woke up Wednesday morning [after Election Day], and the first thing I did was send a text message to our staff, being like, ‘Be ready. We’re about to get very, very, very busy.’”

Indeed, when Hasenbush and Chazan decided to open up last-minute to meet with clients on Veterans Day, appointments quickly filled up. “Previous to last week, the busiest day I had ever seen was the day after Trump was elected in 2016,” Chazan said, “and I would say there’s actually far more anxiety this time.”

Across the country, the story is the same. In Minneapolis, Aaron Zimmerman, executive director of the PFund Foundation, which serves the LGBTQ+ community in five states in the Upper Midwest, said his organization has seen an uptick in calls and web traffic. Some reaching out live in southern states like Texas or Alabama and are seeking help with moving to Minnesota, a self-declared “Trans Refuge” state. “They’re looking for resources to relocate — to get in the car and get here as quickly as possible, knowing that once inauguration hits and things happen, it could potentially result in some really intense, quick laws changing,” Zimmerman said.

Two years ago, the State Department began offering people the choice to select X, F, or M as their gender marker on passports, and changing the gender marker does not require a physician’s certification. But Trump campaigned on “establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth.” Hasenbush and Chazan, the California attorneys, both advised people to prioritize updating their federal documents, rather than their state ones, before any laws might change, and Advocates for Trans Equality offers a state-by-state online guide for those seeking to do so.

“I’m not sure how quickly the Trump administration wants to do things, but I’d imagine they’re gonna go full throttle,” said Dylan, a 19-year-old trans man in Pennsylvania. “So I’m hoping I receive my passport just in time before January 20.”

“I’m definitely getting my documents changed sooner because of the results of the election,” said Percy, a trans man in Washington. Although they feel relieved to be getting the process underway, Percy said part of them also fears they might eventually “end up on a list” somewhere. “States like Texas are already compiling lists of trans people who have changed their documents, so it seems plausible that they’d try to do that on a federal level as well,” Percy said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

The fear of the unknown is also haunting same-sex couples who worry about Trump’s Supreme Court potentially eventually overturning the right to marriage equality established in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) — something Justice Clarence Thomas has expressly called for. In 2022, President Joe Biden signed a law intended to act as a fail-safe should the Court wind back the right to same-sex marriage (the law ensures the federal government will recognize marriages in states where they have been legally performed, and requires states that outlaw marriage equality to recognize marriages of same-sex couples performed elsewhere). But this hasn’t stopped many same-sex couples from deciding now is the moment to back that up by drafting wills, powers of attorney, advanced health-care directives — all things same-sex couples used to do in the pre-Obergefell world as a workaround for being unable to get married.

For married same-sex parents, like Jess in Oklahoma, the specter of a life without Obergefell means she and her wife this week began seeking legal advice for each of them to formally adopt the child they did not give birth to. “There’s many what-ifs that would have to happen for it to be an issue for us, but we’re still looking into it just to be sure,” Jess said.

Elsewhere, in the D.C., Matthew and his fiancé are considering moving their wedding scheduled for next year somewhere else because they don’t trust a Republican Congress not to mess with same-sex marriages in the district. While in Texas, Shane and Jon have discussed getting a quick marriage performed when they visit family in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. “We’ve talked about getting married several times over the years but just haven’t gotten around to it,” Shane said. “Now, things do feel different.”

At the national level, the ACLU has vowed to serve as a legal firewall in order to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination under federal law, while GLAD Law has also pledged to fight “on every front,” from the courts to state houses, in order to protect queer rights. Sarah Warbelow, vice-president of legal for the Human Rights Campaign, said her staff had been preparing for months for different scenarios, gearing up for litigation and legal fights on everything from health-care discrimination to trans people potentially being barred once more from the military. Now, those battles may be getting closer. “It’s perfectly understandable to have incredible anxiety about the Trump 2.0 administration,” Warbelow said. “There’s no choice but to fight.”

But as the fight kicks into gear, not everyone in the LGBTQ+ community is confident that Democrats will have their backs, especially when it comes to transgender rights. “It’s been clear over the past week that the Democrats have decided it was identity politics that lost the national election somehow,” said Matt, a gay man in Washington State worried about his upcoming nuptials. “So I don’t have a lot of faith that social issues will be prioritized at all over the next four years.”

For Elizabeth, the mom to the trans daughter in New York, the past week has been one of fear for her and those like her. Someone in the support group she’s in for other families with trans kids suggested they move their communications to the encrypted app Signal, fearing potential surveillance. To busy herself, she’s been working through a long list of administrative tasks. She’s filed a motion in state court, petitioning for a name and gender change for her child. Also on the list: changing her daughter’s gender on her birth certificate, her Social Security card, their health insurance, and obtaining a passport for her — just in case they’re forced to go to Canada in order to obtain puberty blockers.

“Late last week, I just swung into action mode and was able to channel my distress into doing research and filling out paperwork and going to the courthouse, and today is really the first day that I’ve had to just think about it and sit with it. And it’s just so scary,” Elizabeth said in an interview on Monday.

“This is my child. She’s just not going to understand. I’ve never exposed her to the hatred that Trump and his allies engender,” Elizabeth said. “I just want to protect her from it for as long as I can.”