It Is Going To Be A Bad Four Years

The Republicans are preparing for a full onslaught of a barrage of anti-trans national legislation…

Activists worry that Trump will bulldoze trans rights. Here's how they're preparing
NPR
By Jaclyn Diaz
December 7, 2024

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.

First off it will be “Save the Children” where they will pass harmful laws instead of letting the medical professionals decide the proper treatment.

It is going to be some lean years where there are going to be a back and forth… we win some and we will some. Hopefully none of them will be fatal.

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."

That is easier said then done, all the rhetoric coming from the Republicans and threats of legislation is taking a toll on trans people, we are worried, we are scared about the future.

Now’s the time for building coalitions. We need to get out and talk to religious groups, we need to talk to the Rotary Clubs, we need to talk to unions… we need to build coalitions!

The trans community is only somewhere around 0.5 of the population! Why do you think they are picking on us? Even if you include the rest of the LGBTQ+ community make up 7.6% of the population… we are the low hanging fruit. All the hostility coming from the far right is causing stress and fear. Calls to the trans hotlines are increasing.

In a study, “The impact of discrimination on the mental health of trans*female youth and the protective effect of parental support” they found,

Discrimination has differential impacts on mental health depending on the type of discrimination. Those with higher exposure to transgender-based discrimination had almost three times the odds of PTSD compared to those with lower exposure. Those with higher exposure to transgender-based discrimination had more than 2 times the odds of depression than those with lower exposure. High exposure to transgender-based discrimination had the most significant impact on stress related to thoughts of suicide. Those reporting higher exposure to transgender-based discrimination reporting almost 8 times higher odds of stress compared to those with lower exposure, though the confidence intervals were wide. Those with higher exposure to racial discrimination had significantly higher odds for psychological distress (i.e. as measured by the BSI) and PTSD symptoms  than those with lower exposure. Those with higher exposure to racial discrimination had significantly higher odds for stress related to thoughts of suicide than those with lower exposure. Those with higher exposure to both transgender-based and racial discrimination had higher odds of PTSD symptoms and stress related to thoughts of suicide compared to those with lower exposure to both types of discrimination.

Parental Closeness was the most consistently protective resiliency promoting factor for mental health disorders and psychological distress (Table 3). Youth with higher parental closeness had significantly lower odds of psychological distress, PTSD symptoms, depression, and stressful thoughts regarding suicide compared to those with lower parental closeness. Youth who reported higher resiliency had significantly lower odds of psychological distress, PTSD symptoms, and stressful thoughts regarding suicide compared to those with lower resiliency. Youth with higher parental acceptance of their transgender identity reported significantly lower odds of PTSD compared to those with lower parental acceptance.

When I transitioned I sent letters to my relatives and one of my cousins wrote back,

“Thank you for sharing your story with us. I, in turn, shared your letter with my children who, as parents themselves, need to be reminded of the importance of accepting their children as they are. Whatever their differences may be.”

That are family values, a supportive family goes a long way for positive outcomes. But for others we have to depend upon our chosen families. 

We have to stick together, we have to be there for those who have no place or no body to turn to. During the AIDS/HIV crisis in the ‘80s groups of lesbians came together to help them. In the movie “Gen Silent” a trans woman was dying of cancer and the community came together to be with her.

We as a community must come together because now the whole community is in crisis… the trans community is right now the target of their venom, but in their bible Project 2025 is to overturn same-sex marriage and some have their sights set on overturning Lawrence v. Texas. Time magazine wrote back in 2022…

When the Supreme Court overturned the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade this summer, Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion named several other cases he wants the high court to reconsider, including Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case that made same-sex marriage legal in every U.S. state.

Project 2025 also raises those questions, The New Republic website writes,

It’s important to understand what conservatives mean by “pornography” here. The roadmap refers (in its Foreword) to “pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children.” This language suggests that the document is adopting the thesis animating right-wing threats and attacks targeting LGBTQ spaces, books, and people: the old trope that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are out to recruit children and that depictions of their lives are meant to seduce children away from heterosexuality. This thinking holds that transgender people are evidence of a contagious “ideology,” at risk of infecting children. (Requests to define what was meant here by “pornography” sent to both Project 2025 and Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage and author of the foreword, did not get a response by time of publication.)

So what the Project 2025 playbook seems to be proposing here is that public institutions such as schools and libraries regard any presence or depiction of queer and trans life as a potential sex offense, to be reported. Similarly, social media platforms would risk government seizure if they serve as a platform for any presence or depiction of queer and trans life.

This is also right out of Putin's handbook, this is from CNN...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed into law a bill that expands a ban on so-called LGBTQ “propaganda” in Russia, making it illegal for anyone to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal.”

The ban was rubber-stamped by Putin just days after a harsh new “foreign agents” law came into effect, as the Kremlin cracks down on free speech and human rights as its military operation in Ukraine falters.

The new laws significantly broaden the scope of a 2013 law which banned the dissemination of LGBTQ-related information to minors. The new iteration extends the ban on promoting such information to adults as well.

The hand writing is on the wall! United we stand… As a community and with our allies.

Don’t let Martin Niemöller poem come true for us!