LGBTQ Individuals and the 2024 election: “I do not really feel welcome right here.”

Lucian Holness woke as much as a frightening actuality on Nov. 6. Acute stress led to the combination of feelings that struck the transgender advertising supervisor as they discovered President-elect Donald Trump — by no means a dependable ally to the LGBTQ neighborhood and an more and more hostile determine for transgender Individuals — had gained a second time period within the White Home. 

“I went into this election totally anticipating Trump to win,” mentioned Holness, who lives in New Jersey and started to medically transition throughout the pandemic, an expertise they known as “liberating” and “superb” after a very long time spent “feeling like one thing was flawed.”

Assuming Trump would take the presidency once more was a self-preservation tactic, Holness instructed CBS Information but it surely didn’t essentially soften the blow.

“Perhaps I assumed it will be a more in-depth race than it was. And simply seeing what number of states we have been dropping, the immense approach that we misplaced … that actually destroyed me,” Holness mentioned. “And for a number of days after I had no hope in humanity.”

After the election, commentators and analysts steered Trump’s decisive victory towards Vice President Kamala Harris was broad proof of a thirst for financial change throughout the intense purple map of the nation. To win, he had punctured the Democratic “blue wall” and flipped all seven battleground states, with CBS Information exit polls indicating he had obtained help from extra of the citizens than ever.

LGBTQ voters have been among the many solely demographic teams that didn’t stray towards Trump once they solid ballots within the presidential contest this 12 months. Black ladies additionally overwhelmingly backed Harris on the polls.

“Black voters and queer voters understood the task on this election, and our task was to defeat the nice risk to our security and freedom that Trump poses, in order that we will struggle for what all of us should be protected and free,” mentioned Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, the manager director of GLSEN, an LGBTQ advocacy group centered on supporting and educating younger individuals. Willingham-Jaggers identifies as nonbinary and queer. 

The LGBTQ neighborhood has traditionally voted Democrat however in contrast to most different demographic tendencies this 12 months, LGBTQ help for the social gathering’s presidential nominee rose considerably sa 2020. CBS Information’ nationwide exit polls confirmed 86% of people that recognized as lesbian, homosexual, bisexual or transgender voted for Harris, whereas simply 13% voted for Trump. Echoing most Harris voters, a majority of LGBTQ  individuals mentioned they feared what might occur throughout one other Trump presidency.

Folks within the LGBTQ neighborhood instructed CBS Information they see the recurrence of Trumpism as a tangible affront to their primary human rights. The implications really feel significantly pressing to transgender Individuals, whom the president-elect and his associates categorically focused all through the marketing campaign.

“Sadly, these people are sadly misinformed,” mentioned Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition crew, in a press release to CBS Information. “President Trump campaigned on being a president for ALL Individuals and can unify our nation by nice success.”

“I do not really feel welcome right here”

The Trump marketing campaign ran commercials attacking trans individuals for months forward of Election Day, in a transfer that seemingly value a minimum of tens of tens of millions of {dollars}. Criticized for scapegoating, one TV advert bore a tagline interpreted as an try and sow division: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

The advocacy group GLAAD counted 225 outlined assaults on the LGBTQ neighborhood by Trump throughout his first White Home time period and newest presidential marketing campaign, when it comes to coverage selections and rhetoric, which transgender Individuals and others who’re LGBTQ instructed CBS Information is damaging by itself. The Trevor Venture noticed a 700% spike in disaster calls all through the day after the election, and analysis from the group discovered latest politics negatively impacted the well-being of 90% of LGBTQ younger individuals, whereas anti-trans state laws within the final 12 months drove up suicide makes an attempt amongst transgender and nonbinary youth by as a lot as 72%.

“I do not really feel welcome right here,” mentioned Holness.

Though New Jersey is a sanctuary state for LGBTQ rights, and Gov. Phil Murphy final 12 months declared it a protected haven for transgender and nonbinary individuals in search of gender-affirming care, Holness remains to be involved concerning the methods by which a second Trump administration and Republican Congress might probably work to interrupt down that refuge.

“What individuals assume being trans is, versus the precise expertise of being trans, are so vastly completely different. And if individuals would simply take heed to us, I believe they’d be shocked how a lot we’re the identical as them,” Holness instructed CBS Information. “It took me some time to take Trump significantly, however after seeing the rise in trans hate crimes, and the rise in anti-trans laws, the bounty out on trans individuals only for current, you realize, it is develop into actually scary.”

Trump’s anti-LGBTQ and particularly anti-trans positions stretch again to his first time period within the White Home, when he scrubbed federal company websites of illustration and proceeded to roll again protections for LGBTQ  individuals, amongst different coverage selections that clamped down on their skills to stay and work freely.

However vitriol towards the neighborhood grew to become integral to Trump’s politics and his general public model throughout the newest presidential bid. 

Well being care entry below siege

As Trump doubled down on anti-trans rhetoric in his speeches, he backed conservative proposals to limit entry to healthcare for transgender individuals and punish docs who give minors gender-affirming care. 

“The primary subject, of the various that the trans individuals I spoke with are nervous about, is entry to the well being care that we have to stay. This isn’t an abstraction. It’s not a tradition warfare. It’s not a political soccer,” mentioned Gillian Brandstetter, a communications strategist on the American Civil Liberties Union. “It is vitally a lot an issue of fabric want. Can we entry hormone remedy? Can we preserve our relationship with our docs? Can we preserve our insurance coverage protection?”

Trump pushed throughout his final administration to federally redefine gender alongside binary traces that might exclude transgender identities, successfully denying trans individuals authorized recognition and upholding an outdated characterization of “organic intercourse,” despite the fact that the medical subject has expanded its view of the spectrum of gender id. Renewed guarantees made by the marketing campaign this 12 months are fueling panic that he’ll try and implement it nationally once more.

Ryan Lyman, a trans faculty pupil in New York Metropolis who volunteered for the Harris marketing campaign and mentioned he has “passing privilege” after starting hormone remedy at 17 and present process prime surgical procedure, instructed CBS Information trans individuals elsewhere within the nation are getting ready for the worst case state of affairs. “Passing privilege” on this occasion means Lyman could keep away from among the prejudice different transgender individuals face if he’s publicly perceived to be a cisgender man.

“I’ve seen lots of people on the Web currently who’re going again to their assigned gender presentation,” Lyman mentioned. “There is part of the neighborhood that lives within the Deep South, in purple states, who must go stealth for their very own security. And I don’t choose them in any respect.”

A call that might probably work to guard sure trans rights earlier than Inauguration Day is the end result of United States v. Skrmetti, a landmark case set to go earlier than the Supreme Court docket in December the place justices will hear a problem to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming well being take care of transgender individuals youthful than 18. The choice might have wide-ranging impacts at a time the place virtually half of U.S. states have enacted legal guidelines to restrict entry to numerous facets of gender-affirming care, like hormones, puberty-blocking medication or surgical procedure.

An unsure future

Many LGBTQ persons are anxious about how Trump might alter basic elements of their lives, out on the planet and at residence.

A rising variety of transgender social media customers have now spent the higher a part of a month sharing steering on the best way to replace licenses, passports and different authorized paperwork to mirror their names and pronouns. LGBTQ {couples} instructed CBS Information they’re having conversations about whether or not they need to rush to get married earlier than January’s inauguration and what household planning may appear to be as soon as Trump is sworn in.

Lee Robinson, a comic shifting from Denver to New York Metropolis, mentioned they have been already contemplating a few of these large questions inside days of the election. That they had began to debate their choices with their girlfriend, too.

“It isn’t simply marriage, it is parentage and fertility stuff, and queer adoption,” mentioned Robinson. “It simply completely throws off our capability to plan for our futures when this type of factor occurs.”

Everybody who spoke to CBS Information for this story shared considerations about dropping discrimination protections below a second Trump administration. In addition they marvel what it will imply if the Supreme Court docket’s 2015 marriage equality ruling got here below assessment and marriage rights, like abortion rights, have been returned to the states.

An up to date coverage rundown on Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign web site known as Agenda 47 presents a blueprint of his “20 Core Guarantees To Make America Nice Once more.” Among the many gadgets on that listing, Trump pledges to “hold males out of ladies’s sports activities” and reduce federal funding for colleges “pushing important race principle, radical gender ideology, and different inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content material on our youngsters.” 

This stuff echo GOP state lawmakers and authorities leaders who’ve sought to bar trans youth from athletic groups that align with their gender identities and ban LGBTQ and racial identity-focused lesson plans and books from college curriculum. The First Modification’s freedom of speech and faith clauses have been utilized in high-profile court docket circumstances to justify anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

They don’t seem to be simply ideas. Anti-LGBTQ doctrines embraced at Republican rallies have in recent times been codified throughout the nation, conserving transgender kids off of sports activities groups and away from bogs aligned with their gender id. In Florida, legal guidelines have been handed to take transgender-focused curriculum out of colleges; a authorized settlement earlier this 12 months clarified that college students and academics would be capable to focus on gender id so long as it is not a part of the curriculum. 

Capitol Hill shouldn’t be immune, as Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, a Delaware Democrat set to develop into the primary brazenly transgender individual in Congress, confronted a swift Republican-led try after her trailblazing win to limit her restroom use within the Capitol Complicated.

“It is dehumanizing individuals,” mentioned Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of the advocacy group GLAAD. “They wish to deal with us as second-class residents, query our dignity and respect.”

Ellis mentioned measurable repercussions within the steadiness, like medical protection and equality below the legislation, are joined by intangible penalties that might trickle down generations.

“I consider my children, as my spouse and I’s marriage is below fireplace, however our neighbors’ marriage is not below fireplace. It is terrible when you concentrate on that,” she shared. “So, my children, of their understanding, see us as lower than the household subsequent door as a result of they’ve two mothers versus a mother and a dad, or a single mother. I simply assume all these are their tradition wars, not ours.”

Venture 2025

Consultants typically attribute the intensification of Trump’s anti-LGBTQ platform to his ties with right-wing non secular teams just like the Heritage Basis, a corporation with an extended historical past of espousing anti-LGBTQ legal guidelines that helmed the presidential transition proposal Venture 2025.

Venture 2025 is a 900-page coverage handbook developed by a crew linked to greater than 100 conservative teams, to which Trump had denied connections, although he’s hiring a number of of its architects to fill key workers positions within the subsequent administration. The ebook requires an overhaul of the federal authorities to “restore household because the centerpiece of American life.” Its socio-political imaginative and prescient for the way to try this, launched on the primary web page of Venture 2025, directs authorities officers to reject transgender individuals and LGBTQ identities throughout the board.

“The following conservative President should make the establishments of American civil society onerous targets for woke tradition warriors. This begins with deleting the phrases sexual orientation and gender id (“SOGI”), variety, fairness, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender fairness, gender consciousness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive well being, reproductive rights, and every other time period used to deprive Individuals of their First Modification rights out of each federal rule, company regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of laws that exists,” the doc states, on the outset of its opening chapter.

Though Trump tried to distance himself from Venture 2025 on the marketing campaign path, even going as far as to name a few of its proposals “abysmal,” the blueprint is appropriate with the Republican Celebration agenda. However on the identical time, Trump additionally plans to appoint Scott Bessent to be treasury secretary. He is a billionaire and former George Soros hedge fund supervisor and if confirmed, he’d be the primary brazenly homosexual individual to serve on this position.

“We must always completely take Trump at his phrase,” mentioned Willingham-Jaggers, of GLSEN. “We must always take Venture 2025 at its phrase. We must always anticipate a full court docket press to get every part outlined in Venture 2025, created into coverage and enacted as the start line, not the top level, as the start line. That is half one. That is what I am involved about.”