Election night at BlaqOut in Kansas City was always going to double as a launch party for the organization’s fight for policy and attitude changes toward the Black LGBTQ+ community.
As vote results came in, a particular sense of urgency followed.
“We have to continue to organize beyond Election Day,” said D. Rashaan Gilmore, the founder and CEO of the Kansas City health and advocacy organization. “It would be too easy for us to sulk. To retreat to our shells, and then not be ready for the fight.”
Donald Trump was elected amid a flood of ads that portrayed transgender people as dangerous — to women’s sports, and to girls and women more broadly. Now that he is heading back to the White House, transgender rights are in question. Trans people fear losing access to hormone treatments and living under an administration that campaigned on making them pariahs.
Colleen Fagan, a Kansas City-area psychologist who treats transgender adults, said she worries about the ramifications election propaganda has had on her clients.
For years, they have been bombarded with political rhetoric on both sides of the state line — regular debates about legislation to take away their rights. The barrage of political ads this election season only caused more damage to their mental health, Fagan said.
“I worry about that,” she said. “I worry about the loss of hope. I worry about suicides.”
Since Trump resoundingly won the presidential election, calls to mental health helplines for people who identify as LGBTQ have shot up across the country.
Finding help
The Trevor Project, a national organization that provides mental health services to LGBTQ youth, said election night traffic to its hotline surged to 125% of the normal volume. The group’s website continues to warn that its text and chat services are “experiencing long hold times due to the election.”
The organization released a study in September that found a 72% increase in suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth between 2018 and 2022, a period when 19 states, including Missouri and Kansas, implemented 48 different anti-transgender laws.
Erin Reed, a journalist who tracks anti-trans legislation, counted 550 bills introduced in 2023 to restrict transgender rights and 586 bills introduced so far in 2024. On her website, Reed said the risk of federal anti-trans legislation is growing.
Many states, including Missouri, have banned hormone blockers and other health care, known as gender-affirming care, for minors. Other laws, including in both Missouri and Kansas, prohibit transgender girls and women from playing on girls’ and women’s sports teams.
And laws enacted across the country also place restrictions on adults, like those legislating the gender listed on driver’s licenses and the bathrooms transgender people should use.
Fagan said her clients worry a Trump administration will bring even more restrictions. Some have already begun rationing hormones they are prescribed, fearing a ban even for adults. They also fear laws restricting necessary surgery.
“There are no good words right now,” Fagan said. “Everyone in the community is banding together and providing support. That is huge. It’s all you can do right now.”
Robert Fischer, spokesperson for PROMO, a Missouri LGBTQ rights organization, said many trans leaders need some time before they discuss the presidential election.
“The question is …‘Where do we go from here?’” Fischer wrote in an email.
Gilmore said he hopes the advocacy campaign BlaqOut unveiled on election night will provide a good start. The “Give a F_ck” campaign calls on the LGBT community and allies to sign a pledge “to stand up against discrimination and ignorance and to amplify the voice of those who need to be heard.”
“There is despair,” Gilmore said. “But in all the conversations that I’ve been having so far, and frankly, even within myself, that despair is not outmatched by the determination of community members to fight like hell.”
