Transgender youth in the United States have flooded crisis hotlines since the election of Donald Trump, who made anti-transgender issues central to his campaign. Many teenagers worry about how their lives might change once he comes to power.
During his presidential bid, Trump promised to impose sweeping restrictions and roll back civil rights protections for transgender students. And his administration can move quickly on one big change: Transgender students could be excluded from Title IX protections, which affect school policies regarding student use of pronouns, restrooms and locker rooms.
One ad that aired more than 15,000 times crystallized Trump’s position on the rights of transgender and non-binary Americans: “Kamala is for them/them. President Trump is for you.”
To an Alabama teenager, the ad seemed to portray transgender and non-binary people as a threat to society. The weekend before Election Day, the 16-year-old teen, who identifies as non-binary and uses the pronouns “he” and “she,” called a crisis hotline at the Rainbow Youth Project. The group that serves LGBTQ+ youth has received more than 5,500 calls to its crisis hotline in the past 10 days, up from the 3,700 calls it normally receives each month.
According to his mother, Carolyn Fisher, the teen was desperate and struggling with thoughts of suicide. She said she hadn’t realized how deep her child’s depression was and how painful it was for him to see political ads that felt like a personal attack.
With the help of crisis counselors, Fisher said her teen started to feel better. But bullying at school has gotten worse, with some students telling her child that Trump will “let him back in the closet,” Fisher said.
“The kids who taunted him are now proud of themselves, and they rub that in,” she said.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story contains a discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the US National Suicide and Crisis Hotline is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
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Opposition to transgender rights has been a focal point of Trump’s campaign: Republican ads attacking political opponents over transgender or LGBTQ+ issues have aired more than 290,000 times on network TV since March 2023, according to data from the media tracking company AdImpact.
The message may have resonated with many Americans. About half of voters overall — and the vast majority of Trump supporters — said support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters in the United States. whole country.
President Joe Biden’s administration expanded recognition of transgender rights this year. The interpretation of Title IX, a landmark sex discrimination law, is largely a matter for the executive branch, although court decisions can impact enforcement.
Title IX was originally passed in 1972 and was first used as a women’s rights law. This year, the Biden administration said the law would ban discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, but Trump could overturn that. Biden’s new guidelines had at least limited implementation: After a wave of lawsuits, courts in 26 states had issued orders pausing the rule.
“Title IX will be a top priority. It’s emblematic of all the culture war issues that have arisen in recent years around gender identity versus sex,” said Candice Jackson, an attorney who led the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights during the first Trump administration.
Trump has also said he would ask Congress to pass a bill declaring there are “only two genders” and banning hormonal or surgical interventions for transgender youth in all 50 states. Most Republican-controlled states have already banned gender-affirming health care for transgender youth under the age of 18 or 19, and several have passed policies limiting which school bathrooms transgender people can use.
While Biden’s election-year guidelines did not extend to transgender students in sports, Trump has pledged to put an end to “boys in girls sports.” The administration would likely approach these issues “from a traditional understanding” of what Title IX intended, “with a biological, binary understanding of sex,” said Bob Eitel, who served as a senior adviser to the education secretary during the first Trump administration. .
In the U.S., 3.3% of high school students identify as transgender and another 2.2% are unsure about their gender, according to a survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released last month.
The survey found that 72% of transgender and gender-questioning teens experienced persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness in the past year. These teens also reported a higher rate of bullying at school compared to their peers. About 1 in 4 transgender students said they had attempted suicide in the past year, according to the CDC.
LGBTQ+ advocates are mobilizing to address the despair they see rising among transgender and non-binary youth. For example, the Rainbow Youth Project has expanded the number of virtual peer groups and town halls so LGBTQ+ youth can connect. Another organization, It Gets Better, has focused on reaching young people online through social media platforms such as Twitch and YouTube to create supportive environments even if legal protections are rolled back, said Brian Wenke, the group’s executive director.
Across the country, especially in conservative areas, LGBTQ+ youth are discussing whether it would be safer to live elsewhere.
Jude Armstrong, a transgender high school student in New Orleans, has led protests against Louisiana laws regulating the use of pronouns and discussions of gender and sexuality in the classroom. With the potential for federal changes on the horizon, Armstrong, 17, said he has thought about going to school in Britain but worries about leaving behind the queer culture and history he loves at home.
“How do you feel that you are protecting your own community when you leave that community and go to another country?” he asked.
Alejandro Jimenez, a sophomore at Texas State University, dreams of becoming a theater teacher in Texas. He knows how important it is for trans kids to see someone like them in class. Now he’s not sure if he’ll stay in his home state.
Tensions on his campus have already risen so high that he feels unsafe. The day after the election, two protesters held up signs that read: “Gay sex is a sin” and “Women are property.”
“I feel it is my duty to stay here, but I am afraid of being pushed out,” said Jimenez, who is transgender.
Under the new Trump administration, advocates are concerned about efforts to accommodate transgender and non-binary students everywhere. Trump’s platform called for withdrawing federal funding from any school that “imprints gender ideology or other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”
“It sounds really dystopian to say that efforts to be more inclusive could actually result in punishment from the federal government. But that is a risk,” said Elana Redfield, federal policy director of the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
With so much uncertainty, Eli, an 18-year-old trans student in New York, emphasized the importance of community, especially online for young people who are currently worried.
“You are not alone,” said Eli, an ambassador for It Gets Better, who asked to be identified only by his first name for security reasons. ‘We’ll come out the other side. There are queer adults who have lived happily ever afters, and you will get there too.”
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Linley Sanders contributed reporting from Washington.
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