Trans folks are under attack by the Trump Administration. We must fight back

02/28/2025

Donald Trump has started his second term as President by attacking our most vulnerable communities via executive orders and actions. His administration is trying to both demonize and disappear transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive people by rolling back hard-won rights, creating administrative chaos, and criminalizing bodily autonomy, gender-affirming care, and inclusive education. These attacks have created de facto travel bans for certain gender expansive people with gender-corrected passports, caused healthcare providers to stop offering gender-affirming care services, limited classroom content and interactions that respect people’s pronouns and identities, and emboldened cultural and institutional transphobia and discrimination. These executive orders and actions are unacceptable. They infringe on our basic rights and make vulnerable communities even more unsafe as transphobia and gender discrimination continue to gain traction. We must continue to disrupt these narratives and demand that institutions do not comply with transphobic orders and directives.

We condemn these attacks on our trans siblings and the scapegoating of queer communities. We know that intersectional feminism demands valuing, respecting, uplifting, and working with transgender and nonbinary organizations and leaders. We will continue to empower gender expansive leaders and members in our organization and take action together to resist these transphobic attacks.

The attacks on trans, non-binary, and gender expansive communities by politicians emboldens greater violence against transgender and non-binary people. As we witnessed Trump’s first term led to a dramatic increase in hate crimes and identity-based attacks, now this rhetoric is connected to current attacks on queer and transgender people. In the month since Trump’s inauguration multiple transgender people of color have been murdered. We honor the lives of Sam Nordquist and Tahiry Broom, two Black transgender people who deserved to live safely but faced violence, torture, and targeted murders based on their identity as trans people.

This is happening while simultaneously trans people, especially young people, are being targeted by mass state violence. Intersectional feminism demands bodily autonomy for all people and that includes gender affirming care. As grassroots feminist youth organizers, we are very aware that these attacks are focused most heavily on trans and non-binary students and young people as classrooms, college health centers, and university hospitals have become central locations in the fight for gender expansive rights. Our generation must not back down. We must resist these attacks, combat these anti-trans narratives, and defend gender-affirming care, as it is a life-changing and life-saving resource for queer people of all ages.

Transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive people have always and will always exist, and have always and will always be leaders in the fight for gender justice. We call on all feminists to fight back against the Trump administration’s dangerous, transphobic executive orders and actions.

We demand the Trump administration immediately reverse the attacks on trans people. We the peoples of the United States condemn these actions, we will resist, and will not comply. We demand not only the reversal of these attacks but gender justice NOW.