LGBTQ advocacy organizations are speaking out about the impact that a Donald Trump presidential win is already having.
According to prominent LGBTQ nonprofit "The Trevor Project", crisis lines have seen a 125% increase in calls nationwide since the November 5th Election.
Outfront Minnesota's Executive Director Kat Rohn says the same is true in Minnesota and that there are several key issue of concern among advocacy groups.
"We're most acutely concerned about continued access to gender affirming health care, as well as reproductive care for all Americans," says Rohn. "And what that might mean for folks across this country."
Rohn says Outfront and other local organizations are working hard to reach people in need.
"We, along with other partners, have just seen an uptick in instances and reporting of self-harm and other things like that," explains Rohn. "And we are urging folks to take care of themselves and to find strength in community."
During his campaign Trump promised to reinstate a ban on military service for transgender people and block gender care for minors nationwide.
Rohn says while protections for LGBTQ Minnesotans and a few other states are expected to stay in place, but fears about policy changes on a federal level remain.
During the campagin, Donald Trump made his opposition to transgender rights central to his closing argument before Election Day, using demeaning language and misrepresentations to paint an exceedingly narrow slice of the U.S. population as a threat to national identity.
The former and now incoming president's campaign and aligned political action committees spent tens of millions of dollars on advertising that attacked Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, along with running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, for their previous statements supporting transgender rights.
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His rally speeches also featured a spoof video mocking trans people and their place in the U.S. military. The montage, interspersed with clips of the Vietnam War movie “Full Metal Jacket,” typically draws loud boos at his rallies, as do Trump’s false claims about female athletes and his mocking impression of what he says is a trans woman lifting weights.
“We will get ... transgender insanity the hell out of our schools, and we will keep men out of women’s sports,” Trump said at his recent Madison Square Garden rally, drawing an approving roar from the crowd of 20,000-plus. He regularly claims, falsely, that “your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation” changing their sex.
While often overshadowed by his emphasis on migrants, Trump’s broadsides against LGBTQ people have seemed to grow more frequent and ominous in the campaign’s final days, intended both to stir his core supporters and coax votes from more moderate voters who may not mesh with Trump on other matters. He also referred several times to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who is gay, by a woman’s name, “Allison Cooper.”
Civil rights advocates continue to express concerns over what a second Trump administration would mean for LGBTQ rights, and say his messaging already threatens the security of transgender people.
Trump has vowed to target transgender people and said he would ask Congress to pass a bill stating there are “only two genders” and to ban hormonal or surgical intervention for transgender minors in all 50 states.
Sarah Kate Ellis, president of the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, said Trump’s approach attacks “vulnerable people” who make up about 1% of the population “and already are marginalized” by much of society.
“Why are we debating trans people’s medical care? Because there’s a lack of understanding, and there’s a lack of humanizing about who trans people are,” Ellis said. “It’s not easy to be transgender, to wake up every day in a body that might not fit who you are, and instead of having empathy, they’re met with hostility. That’s the culture Trump is creating.”
Writer and activist Charlotte Clymer added on the social media platform X: “It really ... sucks to watch any sports event as a trans person right now because of the Trump commercials, and I just need everyone to know that: yes, we do see the ads, and it’s demoralizing to know this entire subset of people sees us as subhuman.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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