Now, after Trump’s remark and actions on the first day of his presidency, the group’s crisis aid again receives a whirlwind. Sixty-two percent of the incoming calls this week, the group tells Wired, about trans and gender-not-conforming adolescents from 14 to 17 years.
The callers express different degree of emotional and spiritual distress and often express feelings of hopelessness and fear. One of the most common sentiments being shared is, “My country doesn’t want me to exist.”
While the actions of the Trump administration are causing great distress for the trans community and their families, a clear increase in the attacks, online and offline, already from Trump supporters driving.
“We’ve already seen an uptick in hatred against us,” says Fisher. “We had someone who just came to our house last Tuesday and posted a note in our mailbox saying, ‘He’s your father now, he’s your president. You people will no longer exist. “So yes, they are definitely decorated. “
A trans -pride flag they hung on their porch was stolen twice within a week. At her local pig -like wiggly, a supermarket, she heard people at an adjacent table and talked about how glad they were that Trump got rid of Trans people ‘.
“He didn’t get rid of them, they would always exist- but he damned such a target on them, especially my teenage son,” Fisher said.
And the attacks are also aimed at the groups trying to help the LGBTQ+ community.
“We’ve seen a lot more hatred,” Lance Preston, executive director of the Rainbow Youth Project, told Wired. “We received a lot of messages, crazy shit, like ‘Trump is your president, now you all will have to go away. We don’t want you here. ‘We get those in contact every day, and since the election it has only grown exponentially. It’s really sad. “
Some activists are also concerned that those who have always stood with the LGBTQ+ community may be too scared to speak under Trump’s new administration.
“Every time something like this happens, we see that supporters are deteriorating and just getting quiet,” says Chris Sederburg, who helps people meet people through the Rainbow Youth project, Wired says. “Not everyone, but many of them do it because they are afraid of what’s going on. They are afraid of what can happen to them, or they can get hate for it. “
Sederburg, a Transman who works as a truck, communicates with young Trans people on social media and says that the reaction this week from the community was one of ‘intense, immediate fear’.
For Jamie Anderson, a 40-year-old teacher who lives in Texas, her biggest fear is that Trump’s administration is making a traumatic decision her 15-year-old daughter Dawn, who came out last year as Trans.
“My biggest concern is that she has to go back to a lie, like not being who she is meant,” says Anderson. “She’s happy now, she’s much happier than she was before she came out. She was super depressed. We had no idea what was going on. And finally she comes out, and she’s this whole brand new, incredible, loving child. ‘