<
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-07/transgender-americans-donald-trump-anti-trans-safety/106251956>
“When driving across his home state of Indiana, there are certain towns Leo
Caldwell will not stop for a break.
"There's places I will not stop to go to the bathroom, I'll just keep going
until it's more populated just because I don't know what's going to go on," he
says.
Despite transitioning 20 years ago, Leo says he often doesn't feel safe, as
Donald Trump begins the second year of his second term as president.
"I feel a sense that people are emboldened now to say things or act on things
... because it's being acted on at a national level," he says. "So they're
comfortable to do it."
Trump used the inaugural speech of his second presidency in January 2025 to
rule out the existence of trans people, excluding them from all official
documents. Since then, 134 anti-trans bills have passed, which target a group
of people who make up about 1 per cent of the total American population.
As America continues down a path of political polarisation, transgender
Americans have found themselves at the centre of many debates, with experts
arguing they are being used as a scapegoat to undermine democracy.
"What do authoritarians do? They construct out-groups in order to consolidate
control ... and transgender people end up becoming a group that you can do that
with," says distinguished scholar Dr Andrew Flores at the Williams Institute,
UCLA School of Law.
Over the past three months,
ABC News has spoken to dozens of transgender
Americans from both Democratic and Republican states affected by these bills,
who say that since Trump returned to power, they feel dehumanised, unsafe, and
isolated from public spaces and experiences.”
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
