Supporters of transgender rights hold signs as they rally outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., as arguments begin in a case regarding a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.
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Afraid. Disappointed. Frustrated.
This is how Giovanni Santiago is feeling after former President Donald Trump’s reelection victory.
“What I do believe is that LGBTQ people, specifically trans people, are a target for him, and are a target for his fan base,” Santiago, who is trans, says about the president-elect.
The 38-year-old lives in Ohio, where state law has banned gender-affirming care for youths and participation of transgender girls and women on girls and women’s sports teams. He is seeing and feeling the impacts of the political fight over rights for transgender people every day.
Nationally, the issue of gender-affirming care for minors was before the Supreme Court this week, after families challenged Tennessee’s ban.
Santiago, a local activist in Cleveland, isn’t alone in how he feels.
Giovanni Santiago, a transgender rights advocate who lives in Ohio, is preparing for a tough four years under a second Trump administration.
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“Many in our community, particularly trans people and their families, are filled with anxiety and fear about what a second Trump presidency could bring,” says Ash Lazarus Orr, with Advocates for Trans Equality. The group works to strengthen and protect the rights of transgender people through policy advocacy, political work and legal support.
Restricting access to gender-affirming care for minors and barring trans women from women’s sports teams covered by Title IX are just some of the policies that Trump’s campaign has said will be under consideration once he is in office.
Local advocates, trans people and their families, as well as national LGBTQ organizations are preparing for these potential Trump administration actions.
“We know that the next four years [are] going to be a grind,” Santiago says.
That means the work — on both policy and personal levels — is just beginning, Santiago and others tell NPR.
Trans-rights activists protest outside the House chamber at the Oklahoma Capitol in Oklahoma City before the 2023 State of the State address.
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The political climate ushering in Trump
Republicans ramped up anti-trans messaging in the 2024 campaign. According to a report by AdImpact shared with NPR, the Republican Party spent $222 million on anti-trans ads during the campaign; overall ad spending by the party totaled $993 million.
Topics like gender-affirming care and trans women in sports have galvanized many American voters, says Andrew Proctor, an assistant instructional professor of political science who teaches courses on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender politics at the University of Chicago.
Recent polling shows that 76% of Americans say they support nondiscrimination laws for LGBTQ communities.
And, yet, on the issue of transgender athletes, polling also indicates that a large majority of Americans, around 70%, say they should be allowed to compete only on teams that match their sex assigned at birth.
Trump returns to the White House at a time when half of all U.S. states ban transgender people under 18 from receiving gender-affirming health care. And 26 states have restrictions on transgender students participating in sports consistent with their gender identity, according to Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that tracks LGBTQ-related laws.
The new Trump administration will likely look at what states have accomplished and use that as a playbook for what could be achieved legislatively at the federal level, Proctor says.
But the big question for Proctor is how high of a priority trans issues will be on the Trump agenda.
“They’re polarizing issues, and they do galvanize particular bases of the Republican Party,” he says.
That also was the case for anti-abortion policies, Proctor says, and yet Republicans were unable to pass legislation when they had control of the federal government under former President George W. Bush and for a time during Trump’s first term. “So it’s not clear if this issue will pan out any differently,” he says.
Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion, was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.
Since the presidential election, one Republican, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, has introduced legislation that appears to single out newly elected Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first transgender lawmaker to serve in the U.S. Congress.
If passed, the bill would ban transgender women from using bathrooms and locker rooms on federal property that do not correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Prepping for policies under Trump
Demonstrators gather near the steps to the Texas Capitol to speak against transgender-related legislation bills being considered in the Texas Senate and House in 2021, in Austin, Texas.
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Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Transgender Law Center and others are gearing up to combat Trump policies on trans Americans in the courts.
It’s a battle they’re familiar with.
During his first term, Trump attempted to ban transgender Americans from serving in the military and from receiving gender-affirming health care through the military. This effort faced legal challenges and was eventually overturned by President Biden’s administration.
When asked about the possibility of a ban on transgender people serving in the military during a second Trump administration, Trump-Vance transition team spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told NPR that “no decisions” have been made on the issue. The transition team did not respond to other questions from NPR, including those about gender-affirming care for trans youths.
Another proposal during Trump’s first term — which intended to strip “sex discrimination” protections for trans people from health care laws — was challenged in court by a coalition of LGBTQ clinics and organizations. That was successfully blocked in court.
And at least 17 states are facing lawsuits challenging their laws and policies limiting youth access to gender-affirming care.
“Litigation will be essential, but it will not be enough,” Sruti Swaminathan, a staff attorney with the ACLU, said during a recent GLAAD media call. “We will engage on every advocacy front, including mobilizing and organizing our network of millions of ACLU members and activists in every state to work to protect LGBTQ people from the dangerous policies of a second Trump administration.”
Winning hearts and minds
Proctor says the electoral success of anti-trans messaging will embolden certain factions of the Republican Party. “We should expect that the anti-trans rhetoric is going to intensify,” he says.
Activists like Santiago and another Ohio resident, Rick Colby, say a major part of their work for the next four years will be pushing back against that anti-trans rhetoric.
Colby, 64, describes himself as a conservative Republican. He also has a son named Ashton who is trans. Colby, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, is in an unusual position: He voted for Trump, but plans to spend the next four years working with his 32-year-old son to fight anti-trans policies. He says he is happy the Republican Party will be in control of the federal government, but also very concerned about the party’s stance on trans issues, which he says “is awful.”
Rick Colby of Columbus, Ohio, right, and his son Ashton work as advocates on trans issues across the nation. Colby says their work will continue during the Trump administration.
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“Talking is where the education comes in,” Santiago says during a separate conversation with NPR. He is the founder of META Center Inc., a group that offers direct support to transgender and gender-nonconforming people online and in person.
Over the next few months, he says he will be partnering with several organizations to provide training and plans to participate in panel discussions about the state of being transgender in America — and Ohio specifically.
He plans to meet people “where they are” — in libraries, in town halls or over email — to share information about trans people and dispel incorrect, preconceived notions about LGBTQ communities. A conversation between people on different sides of an issue can lead to a meeting in the middle and even common ground, he says.
Take gender-affirming care for youths. Major medical groups in the U.S. — including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association — support access to gender-affirming care for youth with gender dysphoria, the discomfort or psychological distress caused when one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity are different. That care can range from using a child’s preferred pronouns to using puberty-blocking medications and sex hormones.
But, Santiago says, many people don’t know the facts about the issue. Trump’s campaign website says that he plans to “revoke Joe Biden’s cruel policies on so-called ‘gender affirming care’—a process that includes giving kids puberty blockers, mutating their physical appearance, and ultimately performing surgery on minor children.”
As a result, Santigao says, there’s an incorrect belief, spread during the election and by Trump, that young children are undergoing gender-affirming surgery — which is actually a rare occurrence.
Similar to Santiago’s efforts, Colby and his son will continue what they’ve been doing for years: meeting lawmakers face-to-face and talking about their experiences. Their work has brought them to Capitol Hill before and he expects it will again.
“We’re just being human,” Colby says. “We try to demystify the issue and humanize it. They hear the narratives being pushed about all these left-wing parents pushing their kids into being transgender. And, of course, obviously, anybody would be concerned if that’s the only thing you’re hearing.”
There’s a segment of the GOP that, in his experience, offers openness and kindness on the issue.
“My son and I are just going to keep trying to reach that kind of undecided middle group of people,” he says.
What groups are doing now
Lazarus Orr from Advocates for Trans Equality says there are steps people can begin taking now. The group recommends trans people update documents, including driver’s licenses and passports, to reflect desired name or gender marker changes ahead of January.
Lazarus also encourages people not to let anxiety and fear control them.
“I think one of the bravest things that trans folks can do right now is just continue living,” he says. “More than ever, just the simple act of our existence is a form of resistance.”
Santiago says his work and life will continue even in the face of opposition.
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It’s advice Santiago, the Ohio activist, takes to heart. To counter his fear and stress, he finds moments of joy while watching football with his family (“Roll Tide, baby“), decorating for the holidays and proudly embracing his identity as a “Disney Adult.” He is not cowed by the opposition.
“I’m going to live my best life because at the end of the day what would make them happy is for me to stop doing that,” he says. “And I’m never going to give that satisfaction to anyone.”
