Fight Or Flight

Families are making tough decisions.

In states that are losing their minds over trans people, many families are fleeing to sanctuary states, while others are preparing to fight City Hall.

Transgender Arkansans and their families weigh moving or staying in the face of restrictions.

Transgender Arkansans and their families weigh moving or staying in the face of restrictions

Families look at states with laws protecting gender-affirming medical care after Arkansas ban reinstated

Arkansas Advocate

By: Tess Vrbin

June 9, 2026

Key points

• Arkansas in 2021 became the first state to enact a ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. The law also prohibits Arkansas doctors from referring minors elsewhere for such care.  
• The ban, Act 626, was struck down by a federal judge in 2023 who had blocked its enforcement two years earlier. The ban was reinstated by federal appeals judges last year after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar Tennessee law.
• The Williams Institute says nearly half of transgender adults have moved or considered moving from states with laws targeting them.

Sabrina Jennen’s family has deep roots in Arkansas, but she said moving to Maryland three years ago brought them a sense of safety they didn’t have in the Natural State.

I have even looked into fleeing to Canada

State and national trends

Nearly half of transgender adults in the United States have moved or considered moving from states with laws targeting them to states with safer legal and social environments, according to a survey last year from the Williams Institute, a research center on gender identity and sexual orientation at the UCLA College of Law.

“For those transgender people who do pursue relocating, service providers, businesses, and state and local governments should both consider the costs of losing members of their communities and support and welcome those who are making new homes,” the Williams Institute states.

I just don't understand how they can lie, and even worse, how people sit back and let it happen!

‘No other option’: inside the refugee camp for trans Americans fleeing Trump

Fear, abuse and eroding rights have forced many trans people to leave the US – can they claim asylum in the Netherlands?

The Guardian

Helen Pidd and Eli Block

Mon 19 Jan 2026

Ter Apel, a small, unassuming Dutch town near the German border, is a place tourists rarely have on their itinerary. There are no lovely old windmills, no cannabis-filled coffee shops and on a recent visit it was far too early for tulip season.

When foreigners end up there, it is for one reason: to claim asylum at the Netherlands’ biggest refugee camp, home to 2,000 desperate people from all around the world.

Some, like the Eritreans and Somalis, are fleeing war; the Syrians insist it remains unsafe for them to return home after the fall of Assad. But in the last year they have been joined by a curious new cohort: a bunch of Americans, who say they have feared for their lives ever since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Their presence has surprised many of the camp’s residents. “My dream is to go to America or the UK. America for me is the paradise,” said Usama, a 21-year-old Libyan-Algerian hanging around the main gate. “You can work, you can make a million if you have a good idea. Why they come here?”

It is a fair question. Last year, 76 Americans claimed asylum in the Netherlands, according to the Dutch asylum and immigration ministry, up from nine in 2024. Unlike the UK, the Netherlands does not rent out hotels or houses for asylum seekers, instead housing them in fenced-off camps, officially called reception centres, dotted around the country.

What does it say about the United States that people are fleeing it, and worst still people are cheering them leaving!

This Says A Lot

When you see refugees you don't think about it happening here, but it is... through out history people have fled oppression. The Bible is full of tails about people being forced to leave their place of birth.

Transgender people are looking for safer places to live. Some have found a home in central Illinois

University of Illinois IPM News

By Sam Rink

December 4, 2025

Aaron Slayton lives and works at Five-Acre Farm Daylilies a few miles outside of Tolono, with their husband, Jim Wuersch.

They first came to Illinois in January to visit and help him deal with the grief of his late husband’s death. After helping around the house and farm for a few months, Wuersch asked Slayton to move in permanently. 

“I technically never went back home after coming down,” they said.

[...]

In Tennessee, many laws restrict LGBTQ+ identity and gender expression. It was ranked among the lowest-rated states on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s annual State Equality Index report, which reviews legislation impacting the LGBTQ+ community.

But in addition to anti-trans legislation, the broader debate around transgender identity has become more hostile, creating a widespread sense of fear among many trans people.

Slayton said they weren’t welcomed at gendered support groups for victims of sexual violence, they were turned away from food pantries operated by Christian churches and they were often harassed in stores or restaurants they frequented in Nashville.

“There were a lot of times that I just didn’t feel safe,” they said. “So I kind of quit going.”

But this isn't unique to Tennessee... 

LGBTQ+ residents are fleeing red states, taking their talent and tax dollars with them

Missouri highlights the real-world effects of a hostile political environment.

LGBTQ+ Nation

Greg Owen

November 7, 2025

Up to an estimated $879 million in LGBTQ+ household and business income has left Missouri in recent years, as queer residents flee a hostile political environment, according to a recent analysis by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP).

The state lawmakers responsible for creating this financial drain were warned, the Missouri Independent reports.

For years, business organizations, advocacy groups, and individuals cautioned officials pushing discriminatory laws that the economic fallout would be one deleterious result.

Local officials and chambers of commerce raised red flags about impacts on workforce recruitment, employee retention, and the ability to lure businesses to the state.

[...]

“When people feel unwelcome or uncertain about their future in a community, they often take their skills and their families elsewhere,” Tracey DeMarea, executive director of the Mid-America LGBT Chamber of Commerce, told The Independent. “That loss affects our workforce, our businesses, and our shared sense of community.”

Think beyond the bigotry against the LGBTQ+, think what it says about a state who doesn't care about all the people in the state. Think beyond to the fact that the state is actually creating animosity toward its citizens.

Time writes that,

The U.S. Used to Be a Desired Destination for LGBTQ+ Immigrants. Now, Trans Americans Are Fleeing

by Solcyré Burga

October 23, 2025

Lizette Trujillo climbs into a taxi two months after she and her family moved abroad with two items in her purse: her U.S. passport and a bottle of Mexican hot sauce.

The latter, a relic of her heritage as the daughter of immigrants, is scarce at the local restaurants in her new home more than 5,000 miles away from the one-story Tucson, Ariz., home she purchased in 2023, not knowing her family would be fleeing the U.S. out of fear for the health and safety of her trans son less than two years later.

Trujillo and her family are not the only Americans who have left the U.S. amid mounting restrictions on transgender rights. Rainbow Railroad, a global nonprofit that helps LGBTQ+ people escape state-sponsored violence, has received a record-high number of requests for help from U.S. citizens since Trump’s reelection, according to Latoya Nugent, head of engagement at the organization. “That trend has continued,” she says. “The U.S. continues to be the number one country where people are requesting help from,” as of Oct. 6. Around two-thirds of the requests the group has received are from people who are transgender.

Like some third world country people are flee their homes because of oppression.

Many trans people are moving within the country rather than seeking to leave the U.S. altogether. Nearly half of the transgender adults in the U.S. have relocated or are planning to relocate to another state that they believe to be more affirming to gender-diverse individuals, according to a May report by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

As bans and restrictions have increased, states such as Oregon, Vermont, Connecticut, and Maryland have enacted shield laws to protect patients who cross state lines seeking gender-affirming care—and the health care professionals that provide it—from prosecution in other states. Local leaders are taking protective measures as well. Boston and California’s Long Beach and West Hollywood have all enacted resolutions or ordinances declaring themselves sanctuary cities for transgender people or the broader LGBTQ+ community.

Fleeing to safe havens!

The University of Illinois student newspaper ends with...

“What will make a difference and what will impact people is knowing that they have a community that actually cares about them,” Slayton said.