‘We’ve seen a lot of hate’: Trans people are already terrified

Now, following Trump’s comments and actions on the first day of his presidency, the group’s crisis helpline is once again receiving an influx of calls. The group told WIRED that 62% of the calls received this week are from transgender and gender non-conforming teens between the ages of 14 and 17.

Callers express varying degrees of emotional and mental distress, often expressing feelings of despair and fear. One of the most common sentiments is “My country doesn’t want me to be there.”

While the Trump administration’s actions are causing significant distress to the transgender community and their families, the stark increase in attacks, both online and off, are actually coming from Trump supporters who feel emboldened.

“We’ve actually seen an uptick in hate against us,” Fisher says. “Someone came to our house last Tuesday and put a note in our mailbox that said, ‘He’s your dad now, he’s your boss.’ You people won’t be around anymore. So yeah, they’ve definitely picked up steam.”

The transgender pride flag they had hanging on their porch was stolen twice in the space of a week. At the local Piggly Wiggly supermarket, I overheard people at a nearby table talking about how happy they were that Trump had “done” trans people.

“He didn’t get rid of them. They’ll always be there, but he put a purpose in them, especially my teenage son,” Fisher said.

Attacks also target groups trying to help the LGBTQ+ community.

“We saw a lot of hate,” Lance Preston, executive director of the Rainbow Youth Project, tells WIRED. “We’ve been getting a lot of crazy messages, like ‘Trump is your president, and now you all have to go.’ We don’t want you here. We get contact submission forms every day and since the election it’s grown exponentially. It’s really sad.”

Some activists also worry that those who have always stood with the LGBTQ+ community may be too afraid to speak up under the new Trump administration.

“Every time something like this happens, we see supporters step back and stay silent,” Chris Cederberg, who helps trans and gender non-conforming people through the Rainbow Youth Project, tells WIRED. “Not all of them, but a lot of them do it because they are afraid of what is happening. They are afraid of what might happen to them or they might get hate because of it.

Cederberg, a trans man who works as a truck driver, connects with trans youth on social media and says the community response this week has been “intense and immediate fear.”

For Jamie Anderson, a 40-year-old teacher who lives in Texas, her biggest fear is that the Trump administration will force her 15-year-old daughter Dawn, who came out as trans last year, to make a painful decision.

“My biggest worry is that she’ll have to go back to living a lie, like not being who she’s supposed to be,” Jamie says. “She’s happy now, she’s so much happier than she was before she came out. She was so depressed. We had no idea what was going on. And finally she came out and she’s a completely new, amazing, adorable baby.”