Writing From Exile

Preface: I’ve tried to write this in such a way that it will hopefully be more accessible to those outside the US who are perhaps less familiar with certain terms or how the US political system works, or is supposed to work.

The Trump administration is continuing to escalate its attack on trans people, including stripping trans people of gender affirming care (not just trans youth, but adults, too), and they keep seeking unprecedented access to the medical records of trans people. They also keep illegally cutting off or threatening to cut off funding from cities, states, and districts, withholding disaster relief, threatening to cut off election security funding, and are launching investigations meant to intimidate—all in an attempt to force cities and states to comply with their agenda, including their anti-trans agenda. In fact, the Department of Justice even keeps threatening investigations into Democratic leaders if they don’t do what Trump wants. Trump just threatened to cut off funding for all California schools if the state doesn’t adhere to his anti-trans agenda, he threatened “harsh measures” against the state of Colorado (a Blue state) if they don’t free a convicted criminal that he likes, and his administration just terminated funding for a California program that helps vulnerable young people because the program includes services for trans kids. Trump’s Department of Justice is increasingly being used to retaliate against his perceived political enemies, including Democratic politicians, and earlier this year, Trump blackmailed the Mayor of New York City to force compliance with his anti-immigration agenda.

People in the Republican party, which is now rigging the next major election so that they can’t lose power (at Trump’s request), have repeatedly called for the eradication of trans people. Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) that states that the US no longer legally recognizes the existence of trans people. More recently, he signed an EO that bans federal funds from being used to “promote gender ideology” and has launched anti-trans investigations into schools to stop them from allegedly “promoting gender ideology,” a term they use to refer to anything and everything related to trans people. The ban on the promotion of gender ideology is disconcertingly similar to what Russia did in its ban of “LGBT propaganda” and its Supreme Court labeling and banning the LGBT movement as an “extremist group.”

Even when a court ordered the Trump administration to stop transferring trans women to men’s prisons and detention facilities, the Trump administration ignored the court and transferred them to men’s prisons anyway, where they’re often then forced to detransition. While the judicial system is supposed to be a co-equal branch of the government, with equal power to that of the executive branch (the presidency) and the congressional branch, the courts are increasingly helpless in their fight to hold the Trump administration to account when they violate the law and the constitution. In fact, the Supreme Court has even helped Trump violate the constitution.

The Trump administration’s escalating attacks on trans people, along with the almost 10 years now of the Republican party aggressively pushing anti-trans rhetoric and passing anti-trans laws in Republican-led states, has led to a dramatic rise in anti-trans hate crimes across the US. And for a consideration of how Trump’s escalating criminalization of homelessness and mental illness will likely affect trans people, see this article. Homelessness and poverty rates were already high among trans people prior to everything Trump has done since returning to office. Aid groups are now preparing for a (deliberately caused) spike in poverty across the board for everyone due to Trump’s budget bill and cuts to public assistance. This will lead to more trans people becoming homeless and, therefore, at greater risk of being incarcerated simply for being homeless.

Since Trump’s return to power, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency tasked with investigating workplace discrimination cases and enforcing anti-discrimination laws, has dropped numerous investigations of workplace discrimination that trans people had brought against their employers, cases that were already underway when the Trump administration took over. They did the same thing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD was investigating numerous cases of housing discrimination that trans people had filed when the Trump administration took over and then promptly dropped those cases.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), which now has more funding than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined (and more funding than many countries’ militaries), has been granted access to both Medicaid data and IRS data. ICE’s current focus is ostensibly still only immigration, but as those who have studied history will point out, this will not remain the case. In fact, masked agents in unmarked vehicles have already been snatching US citizens off the streets. The Trump administration also previously issued a memo to the agency telling them they’re free to break into people’s homes without a warrant.

Given Trump’s efforts to rig the election to remain in power, and given that he has sent thousands of military troops into DC to seize control of it and to effectively impose martial law—with the help of 6 Republican-led states, who have sent several hundred of their own National Guard troops to help Trump seize control of DC—it is entirely reasonable to see the expansion of ICE and the massive increase of its funding as not just about immigration enforcement, but an effort to build out a special police force that will answer only to Trump and will be used to enforce his will. It’s important to note here that the Trump administration has stopped abuse protection for transgender detainees in ICE custody. Trump has also said he plans to do military occupations of Democratic-led cities and states, similar to what he’s currently doing in DC, with Chicago and New York being next. He’s even developing a rapid action military team that will be strategically positioned across the US, so that they can be quickly deployed to any US city or state to put down protests or “civil unrest.” In other words, he’s creating a special military force designed specifically to be rapidly deployed against American citizens.

To return to why it’s a problem for trans people that ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies have access to IRS and Medicaid data, this information tells them who is trans, since trans people still need a diagnosis of gender dysphoria to access gender affirming care, and gender is tracked on tax documents. Any trans person who has been on Medicaid post-diagnosis of gender dysphoria will have medical records that show that they’re trans. For those trans people who have updated their legal gender, this means their IRS tax filings will likely show that they’re trans, since the gender listed on their tax filings will shift from one gender to another over time—assuming they’ve been employed pre- and post-legal gender change. It can also mean there’s a record of gender change on their driver’s license, passport, and with the Social Security Administration. This means there are government records that show who’s trans. For some, their birth certificate may never match any of their other identifying documents, since some states, such as Florida, have laws that have never allowed, and likely will never allow, trans people to update the gender marker on their birth certificates.

Unlike with sexual orientation, gender is tracked in government data and medical records. This means that trans people cannot hide their gender identity from their government in the way that a cisgender gay person might be able to hide their sexual orientation long enough to flee a country that is persecuting them. If a trans person who has already left the US tries to return, they may risk facing great difficulty in leaving again, especially by plane, since American airport security would be able to run their passport at the time of departure and their gender could be flagged in government systems, indicating that they’re trans. If the Trump administration tries to prevent trans people from fleeing the US, it could end up being very difficult for many trans people to leave. This is a very real possibility and a very real concern.

Blue states are no longer safe, either. Blue states—states that are predominantly run by Democrats who were elected to office—have increasingly caved to Trump’s anti-trans agenda and have bargained away trans people’s rights and access to medical care. Some even caved before Trump retook office. In fact, many in the Democratic party have pushed to abandon trans people and to sacrifice trans rights because they see supporting trans people as a “liability” that might cause them to lose future elections. Immediately after the election, some Democrats even blamed trans people for Kamala Harris losing the election to Trump. In California, a Blue state and the most populous state in the US, the governor (highest ranking politician), Gavin Newsom, has turned against trans people and has already begun capitulating to the Trump administration’s anti-trans agenda. Blue states have even preemptively abandoned supporting trans people in different ways in an attempt to avoid being a target of the Trump administration.

This means that trans people in the US cannot count on Blue states to be safe places that offer protection from the Trump administration, which seeks to eradicate trans people from public life. The US has already been added to a global human rights watchlist because of the Trump administration’s attacks on American democracy and civil liberties; the US State Department has removed mention of LGBTQ rights abuses in its annual human rights report, downplaying the human rights abuses of LGBTQ people all over the world; while US representatives continue to push the Trump administration’s anti-trans agenda at the United Nations. The US’s system of checks and balances is failing, American democracy is disappearing over a cliff, and the Trump administration are creating a dual state, where something is only a crime if it’s committed by a member of the opposition party, it goes against Trump’s agenda, or if Trump says it is. This means trans people cannot count on the law, the courts, or Democratic-led Blue states to be able to provide protection.

How can Blue states provide protection for trans people when Democrats openly talk about abandoning trans people and trans rights as a means of winning elections, or when Trump openly talks about sending the military to take control of Blue states and Blue cities to force compliance, or withholds or threatens to withhold funding to force compliance, or threatens to withhold disaster relief to force compliance, or stokes so much hatred and extremism among his supporters that it leads to both a dramatic rise in threats against judges and his supporters assassinating or attempting to assassinate Democratic lawmakers? Blue states and their representatives are increasingly at risk of political persecution, vindictive and retaliatory prosecution, loss of funding, take over by the military, and direct political violence if they support trans people. Given this, how can trans people expect them to provide protection? How can Blue states be considered safe?