We need to talk about the full-scale assault happening right now. If you're trans like me, you already feel it in your bones—that creeping dread that comes with watching your very existence being legislated away. I wake up every day and my Bingo Card for this presidential term has another spot taken up. And its fucking getting worse. And if you're not trans, you damn well need to understand what's happening to your neighbors, friends, and family members under Trump's second term.
Let's be brutally honest: Trump is methodically erasing transgender Americans from public life, and he's doing it with the precision of someone who's been planning this shit for years. The man who once promised to protect LGBTQ+ Americans is now the architect of our erasure, and the evidence is piling up faster than we can process it.
The Monument Desecration
Remember when Trump claimed to be an ally? That facade has crumbled completely with his latest move to strip transgender references from the Stonewall Inn National Monument website. This isn't just rewriting a damn webpage—it's rewriting history itself.
The Stonewall uprising was led by trans women of color like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. Removing trans references from Stonewall is like removing Black Americans from civil rights history—it's a fucking lie, plain and simple.
This erasure isn't accidental. It's calculated to make us invisible, to pretend we never existed at the very site that commemorates our resistance. When you erase a group from history, it becomes easier to deny them a future.
Sports Ban: The Public Humiliation Strategy
Trump's executive order banning transgender athletes from sports might seem like a narrow issue to some, but it's part of a broader strategy of public humiliation and exclusion.
Let's be clear: this has never been about "fairness in women's sports." If it were, we'd see equal concern for funding disparities and sexual harassment in women's athletics. This is about telling trans people—especially trans kids—that they don't deserve to participate in normal childhood activities.
The psychological impact is devastating. Imagine being a trans teenager, already navigating the hellish landscape of adolescence, and then being told by your government that you're too dangerous, too different, too fucking wrong to play a game with your peers. This isn't protection—it's persecution.
Medical Prohibition: Control Through Suffering
The prohibition of gender-affirming procedures might be the most vicious attack yet. Gender-affirming care is life-saving care, full stop. The research is clear on this. Yet Trump has decided that enforcing his narrow view of gender is more important than preventing suicides.
This isn't hyperbole. Studies consistently show that access to gender-affirming care reduces suicidal ideation and attempts among transgender people. By prohibiting these procedures, Trump isn't just making a political statement—he's condemning people to suffer.
And let's be honest about what this means: cisgender people get to have medical autonomy. They can get nose jobs, breast augmentations, testosterone supplements, and any other procedure that aligns their bodies with their sense of self. But trans people? We're told our similar needs are "experimental" or "ideological." It's bullshit, and it's killing us.
Binary Documentation: Bureaucratic Erasure
The mandate that government documents recognize only two genders might seem like bureaucratic minutiae to some, but it's another deliberate step in erasing non-binary and transgender identities from public life.
This isn't just about a letter on a passport or driver's license. This is about the government telling you that your lived reality doesn't exist—that you must contort yourself into categories that were designed without you in mind.
For non-binary people, this is particularly cruel. It forces them to lie about who they are on every official document, to misrepresent themselves to access basic services. And for binary trans people, it creates new barriers to having their gender recognized legitimately.
Healthcare Funding Cuts: Economic Warfare
Stopping federal funding for transgender healthcare is economic warfare against an already marginalized group. Trans people face higher rates of unemployment, poverty, and homelessness than the general population—and now Trump wants to ensure that even those with jobs can't access necessary care.
This move doesn't save money; it just shifts costs. Trans people denied care don't just disappear—they end up in emergency rooms for crisis intervention, which costs taxpayers more in the long run. Or worse, they die preventable deaths.
The cruelty is the point. This isn't fiscal responsibility; it's punishment for existing outside Trump's narrow vision of acceptability.
Prison Policy: Institutionalized Violence
Perhaps the most nakedly brutal of Trump's actions is ordering transgender women to be housed in male facilities. This isn't just discriminatory—it's a death sentence for many.
Transgender women in male prisons face astronomical rates of sexual assault and violence. A study from the University of California found that transgender inmates are 13 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than their cisgender counterparts.
Trump knows this. His advisors know this. And they're doing it anyway. This isn't governance; it's state-sanctioned violence against one of America's most vulnerable populations.
A Pattern of Betrayal
None of this is new. During his first term, Trump:
Banned transgender people from military service, despite no evidence that their service impacted military readiness
Reversed Obama-era protections for transgender students, exposing them to increased harassment and discrimination
Dismantled prison policies protecting transgender inmates, setting the stage for the more extreme measures we're seeing now
The pattern is clear: Trump sees transgender Americans as acceptable casualties in his culture war. He promised protection in 2016, then spent four years attacking us. Now, with a second term, he's accelerating these attacks with no restraint.
Where We Go From Here
I won't sugarcoat this: we're in for a hard four years. But we've survived hard times before. The same resilience that helped previous generations of trans people survive in the shadows will help us weather this storm.
But survival isn't enough. We need to fight back through every available channel:
Support legal challenges to these executive orders
Protect each other through community mutual aid
Document every harm these policies cause
Build coalitions with other targeted groups
Prepare for the next election cycle
Trans existence is not a debate, a theory, or a "lifestyle choice." We are human beings with the same needs, dreams, and rights as anyone else. And no presidential decree can erase that fundamental truth.
To my trans family: I see you. I fight alongside you. We will outlast this.
To our allies: This is the moment to prove your allyship isn't just a rainbow profile picture during Pride month. Stand with us, loudly and consistently.
And to Trump and his enablers: History will remember your cruelty, and it will not judge you kindly.
References
James, S. E., Herman, J. L., Rankin, S., Keisling, M., Mottet, L., & Anafi, M. (2016). The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality.
Turban, J. L., King, D., Carswell, J. M., & Keuroghlian, A. S. (2020). Pubertal Suppression for Transgender Youth and Risk of Suicidal Ideation. Pediatrics, 145(2).
Hughto, J. M. W., Reisner, S. L., & Pachankis, J. E. (2015). Transgender stigma and health: A critical review of stigma determinants, mechanisms, and interventions. Social Science & Medicine, 147, 222-231.
Jenness, V., Sexton, L., & Sumner, J. (2019). Sexual Victimization Against Transgender Women in Prison: Consent and Coercion in Context. Criminology, 57(4), 603-631.
Movement Advancement Project. (2023). Equality Maps: Identity Document Laws and Policies. https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/identity_document_laws
National Center for Transgender Equality. (2023). The Discrimination Administration: Trump's Record of Action Against Transgender People.
Lambda Legal. (2022). Transgender Incarcerated People in Crisis. https://www.lambdalegal.org/know-your-rights/article/trans-incarcerated-people
Wendy, you know I'm in your corner! And the corner of two very close family members who are transgender. I would like to see the whole goddamned cabinet and the pseudoking taken out by a meteor or something. The Democratic party in general is completely cowardly and useless.
This cruel fpotus wants to erase everyone with dark skin tone, people who are LGBTQ, and all the non-brainwashed women. He targets trans people because he believes they are easy marks to demean, denigrate, abuse, and ban. He has no concept of the diversity of human selves. He believes that whatever he says is the law. And he truly does want to erase trans persons' existence, as a first step to ban other demographic groups; he uses health and sports and public places bans as a flamethrower to excite the rabid bigots. He would gladly install Third Reich era solutions as well, if he could.