The State Of Queer America 100 Days Into Trump: Where Do We Go From Here?

April 30 marks the 100th day of President Donald Trump’s second term, a period described by queer leaders as “shocking,” “atrocious,” and “just…a lot.” 

Community fatigue is prevalent. News consumption has long been on a global decline. Rosie O’Donnell took her nonbinary kid and moved to Ireland. It’s easier than ever to turn away.

“After Trump got elected, I fully expected our community was in for a whole lot of awful, and this is way beyond what I thought we were actually going to see,” James Esseks, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union LGBTQ & HIV Project, tells GO. 

“It’s painful to see as someone who has watched things progress in a positive way and then have it turned around,” says Jen “Jefe” Baquial, president of New York’s Sirens Women’s+ Motorcycle Club, an association of women+ motorcycle enthusiasts founded in 1986.

“I really did believe Kamala was going to win,” adds Elliott Weahner, whose family moved from Texas to Canada in 2023. “I really thought we just needed to get out of Dodge for the election cycle. Obviously, disappointingly, that is not what has happened. And so it extended our decision. We’ll be staying pretty much indefinitely at this point.”

“I feel like the first administration was a lot more clunky and less targeted and sophisticated, and this iteration definitely feels a lot more targeted,” says Trevon Mayers, the senior director of advocacy and community engagement at The Center, New York’s LGBTQ+ community center. 

But for every anti-LGBTQ+ bill introduced or executive order signed, there is opposition. And if it’s not led by a queer person, they are almost always part of the team. Whether in the courts, in the streets, or on TikTok, the queer community is fighting back and finding their own way. 

“We are ready for anything that happens: good, bad, or nightmare,” says Cathy Renna of the National LGBTQ Task Force, an organization training and mobilizing the LGBTQ+ community to take political action. “Everybody can put out a statement saying how bad things are. That’s easy. No offense to all the folks who are doing that. We say that stuff too. But behind that needs to be a level of planning and strategy and thoughtfulness about the long game and what’s going to really help people survive the next few years.” 

THE FEDERAL FIGHT 

Last June, Esseks and his team at the ACLU published a report on what could possibly be expected from Trump’s second term. What has happened, Esseks says, has been worse than anticipated. “On every issue they went to the worst option again, and then again and then again…you’re like, ‘Wow, there’s no limits here.’” But, he says, “There’s definitely a lot of resistance.” 

Consider lesbian judge Ana Reyes, of Washington, DC’s district court, who recently barred the administration from implementing both of its anti-trans military bans. In her ruling, Reyes said, “In the self-evident truth that ‘all people are created equal,’ all means all. Nothing more. And certainly nothing less.”  

When the State Department suspended its policy allowing transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people to update their passports to reflect their gender or use the “X” option, the ACLU sued the federal government on behalf of five transgender and two nonbinary plaintiffs.  

After the National Park Service removed references to transgender people and the word “queer” from its website pages featuring the Stonewall National Monument, protestors rallied. New York Governor Kathy Hochul called the sudden removal “just cruel and petty,” posting on X, “Transgender people play a critical role in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights—and New York will never allow their contributions to be erased.” 

And in Maine, school officials said they would not comply with the Trump administration’s proposal to ban trans athletes in women’s sports. The refusal follows a recent public disagreement between Trump and Maine Governor Janet Mills at a meeting at the White House, when Trump told Mills she “better comply” with his executive order regarding trans people in sports. “See you in court,” Mills said. 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in L.W. v. Skrmetti is likely to come between now and the end of June. This case challenges Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors. The ruling could have broad implications for LGBTQ+ healthcare. 

This summer, the Supreme Court is also expected to rule in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case regarding public school curriculums and whether parents have the right to exempt their children from exposure to books with LGBTQ+ characters and themes. Parents involved in the case say requiring their children to engage with these books violates their right to freely exercise their religion under the First Amendment. 

The court has also said it will hear a case challenging bans of so-called “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ youth. More than 20 states have similar laws in place and the ruling is likely to have a nationwide impact. 

MARRIAGE ON THE BRINK? 

At the Democratic National Convention in 2024, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (who is also a married lesbian), said on stage, “You can pry this wedding band from my cold, dead, gay hands,” which became a kind of rallying cry she has repeated since. 

Nessel tells GO that protecting marriage equality feels just as urgent now, if not more so. “I feel strongly that this court has an appetite to either overturn Obergefell or to at least weaken some of the protections provided in Obergefell,” she says. 

Obergefell v. Hodges is a landmark 2015 case in which the Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. With the passing of Obergefell, state bans on same-sex marriage were struck down. 

While lawmakers in nine states have recently proposed measures to undermine same-sex marriage rights, Obergefell v. Hodges has not yet been picked up by the Supreme Court. “If the issue ends up before the court, I’m not sure how that comes out. I could see us winning it. I could see us losing it,” says Esseks, who worked as counsel on both Obergefell v. Hodges and United States v. Windsor, which struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 

Esseks says he sees two strands when considering Obergefell’s potential outcomes if picked up by the court: “One is a question of, ‘In the future, am I going to be able to get married or are my kids going to be able to get married?’ The other question is, ‘I’m married. Are they going to take that away?’” 

For those who are currently married, Esseks predicts it is unlikely the court is going to take anybody’s marriage away, and cited precedent with the California Supreme Court in 2008, when California residents voted to amend the state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. At that time, the state’s Supreme Court ruled marriages performed before the ban remained valid. Esseks says that while this precedent does not bind the U.S. Supreme Court, it highlights the difficulty in undoing marriages after they’ve been recognized legally. “It is awfully hard to unscramble those eggs once they’re all scrambled.”  

The future of marriage equality for those who are not married is less certain in the event Obergefell were to be overturned. “If you’re not married now and you want to get married, go get married,” Esseks says. If the case is overturned, same-sex marriage bans in individual states—many of which were nullified by Obergefell—would spring back into effect. In many cases, it would take a ballot proposal to repeal the ban. 

“That’s a pretty significant undertaking in our state,” says Nessel. “It’s very expensive and requires a lot of time and energy and resources.” 

Esseks didn’t expect the Obergefell ruling would be considered precarious 10 years later. “There were a bunch of people in the LGBTQ community and outside who were like, ‘Oh, hey, congratulations. You folks are done.’ Meaning we had achieved our civil rights. And really there’s nothing more to do. I was like, ‘I don’t think that’s where we are.’” 

ACTION ON THE STATE LEVEL 

Aside from the federal cases and actions, state-level legislation has been dizzying in its volume and breakneck in its pace. Currently, the ACLU is tracking 527 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the U.S. The National LGBTQ Task Force considers several states a high priority, including Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, all states Trump won in 2024 (he lost Pennsylvania in 2020). 

“The challenge is that it trickles down, and the other states are like, ‘Hey, that’s a good idea. Let’s make it so that kids can’t have gender affirming care. Let’s make it so that a trans adult’s papers need to match their sex assigned at birth and they can get harassed in the bathroom or in the workplace or in the streets or wherever,’” says Renna. 

Recently, a Texas bill was introduced that would make identifying as transgender a felony punishable by jail. Utah became the first state to ban LGBTQ+ Pride flags in government buildings and schools. In response to the Utah ban, leaders in Salt Lake City began projecting rainbow lights on its main government building in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community.  

“People are getting mobilized and people are getting activated because of the attacks. And we get backlash. We get visible, we get backlash. We start fighting back. We make progress. It’s not rocket science. That’s how it happens in history for every social justice movement,” Renna tells GO. “And we’re in the middle of it now, and it’s not easy and it’s painful and people will be hurt. That’s the reality of it. But we also have to keep pushing and know that progress is not linear and we need to move forward.”

Weeks after Trump’s inauguration, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill removing gender identity from Iowa’s civil rights protections, an act prohibiting discrimination across employment, housing, education, and credit. Gender identity was added to the Iowa Civil Rights Act 18 years ago, in 2007, when the Democrat-controlled Legislature extended protections to LGBTQ+ people with the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The bill marks the first time a protected class has been removed from a state law prohibiting discrimination. Reynolds said in a statement that the bill “safeguards the rights of women and girls” and the previous protections “blurred the biological lines between the sexes.”

Iowa Democrats fought the bill before it was passed, and Iowa state Rep. Aime Wichtendahl was given the last word on the House floor. Wichtendahl is the first transgender representative to serve in Iowa’s Legislature.

This bill revokes protections to our jobs, our homes and our ability to access credit. In other words, it deprives us of our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. I bring this up because the purpose of this bill, and the purpose of every anti-trans bill, is to further erase us from public life and to stigmatize our existence. The sum total of every anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bill is to make our existence illegal, to force us back into the closet,” Wichtendahl said on the floor.  

For the first time in decades, Republicans currently hold supermajorities in the Iowa House and the state Senate. (On the federal level, Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House and a majority in the Senate.)   

In an interview with GO after the bill was passed, Wichtendahl says her constituents say they are afraid and will move out of state because they no longer feel safe in Iowa. 

“And the other thing that I hear is, ‘Who’s next?’” Wichtendahl tells GO. “Truth be told, this has been a long line of rights revocations from the Republican majority going back nearly 10 years. They started off taking collective bargaining rights away. They took reproductive freedom rights away, passing one of the most stringent anti-abortion bills in the entire country. They’ve banned books, they’ve banned discussion of topics, they’ve banned discussions of diversity, equity, inclusion.  

“It’s clear that the Republican party ideology is the only acceptable ideology and either you need to conform or fall in line or find a new place to live,” she says.

Wichtendahl first ran for office in 2015, running on local issues and gaining a city council seat. “The one thing I realized quick when I got elected to the Hiawatha City Council is that even though the seat that I sit in may be small, it does come with the ability to have a voice and community.” She was elected to the state legislature in 2024.

RUNNING FOR OFFICE AS RESISTANCE

In the 2024 election, LGBTQ+ candidates saw big wins and historic victories. Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, several LGBTQ+ judges were sent to the bench, and RaShaun Kemp became the first out gay Black man in the Georgia Legislature, among other gains. 

The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute, which supports queer people pursuing public service, has been publishing election trends in a yearly report. Its 2024 report showed LGBTQ+ representation in elected office has increased between 5.8% and 25% each year since it began its annual report in 2017. That same report found just over 38,000 more LGBTQ+ people must be elected to achieve equitable representation in government. There’s a lot of room to grow.

“Right now, running as an out LGBTQ+ person is an act of defiance and resistance,” says Elliot Isme, the institute’s executive director. The organization has been focusing on state and local initiatives, and has doubled the number of cities where it will be doing campaign training in 2025. 

“We realized that for the next couple years, it was going to be difficult to achieve major successes at the federal level…so we’re going to cities in red states to try and recruit LGBTQ+ people to run for office, to inspire them to run for office and to really work to build the defense and offense that we need in the state legislatures, city councils and school boards across the country,” Isme tells GO.

The institute has already hosted six leadership summits this year, in Milwaukee, St. Louis, Denver, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Fort Lauderdale—nearly all cities in red states. (Denver, traditionally a Democratic stronghold, supported Democratic candidates in the 2024 election, but Trump did make some gains.) 

“We’ve seen LGBTQ+ elected officials in red states act as the front lines against horrific legislation targeting our community. And whether these bills pass or not, it is essential that we have their voices and their pushback there,” Isme says. “It doesn’t work every time. But even when bad legislation passes, having the debate about our lives being less one-sided and more humanized is a win for our community. Because when we’re not there, it’s very easy for folks to vilify us and dehumanize us in a way that might resonate with the general public.”

CAN I JUST MOVE TO CANADA?

Fleeing Trump’s America for another country has been a hot topic at dinner parties and across social media since Trump’s rise and subsequent election in 2016. But with the tide of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation increasing sharply, some consider leaving to be the only option. 

That’s how Texas native and TikTok creator Elliott Waehner felt. He came out as trans in 2017. “My early transition was relatively uncomplicated in the sense that there wasn’t a huge political conversation around my gender identity at the time,” he says. But, in 2023, his wife came out as trans. “And that was a very different situation,” he tells GO. 

The vitriol was swift and intense. His wife is a teacher and she wanted to stay in the classroom, but Waehner said parents began to campaign against her. And though she had the support of the school administration, her students, and some parents, it became untenable. 

“I was like, ‘This isn’t going to get better.’ Heading into the presidential election, I knew that the trans issues were going to basically be the number one culture issue,” Waehner says. He was also concerned about the anti-trans sentiment in Texas. In 2022, Texas’ child welfare agency began investigating parents who provided gender-affirming care to their trans kids. That same year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called on Texans to report parents of transgender kids for abuse. 

Waehner and his wife have a son, and while he is not trans, Waehner was concerned about potential laws that could materialize. “What if it is, you have two gender diverse parents. Would they say we represent a threat to our own son and try to take him away from us?” Though there is no evidence of a bill like that being introduced on a legislative level, Waehner’s consideration underscores the culture of fear that has developed in recent years. 

Waehner and his wife had the resources for one move, not two. Fearing what could potentially happen on the federal level, it was too much of a risk to move to a blue state and then have to move again. The family relocated to Canada in late 2023. Waehner is in school for graphic design, and his wife teaches Latin. Their son has adapted well. 

What about those who say leaving the U.S. means giving up? “I don’t necessarily owe anyone an explanation. I think there is an impulse, especially in today’s society, to look at people and think, ‘Do they really deserve or need what they’re doing?’” Waehner says. “If they feel safe, but they don’t feel safe telling you why they don’t feel safe, I think that’s valid.”

Waehner is popular on TikTok, where he counsels others on how to move out of the United States. When Trump won the election, he felt a range of emotions. “The feeling was really a mixed bag of, ‘Dear God, why did we have to be right?’ And really, really glad that we moved, really thankful that we did that, and also still incredibly heartbroken for what happened. There’s been a lot of times we’ll watch the news and my wife will be like, ‘Hey, thanks for making us move to Canada.’ And I’m like, ‘Yup.’” 

WHERE IS THE QUEER JOY IN THIS POLITICAL HELLSCAPE?  

Natasha Jones works with queer youth at The Center in New York City. Some of her clients have fled states or families that are dangerous at worst and alienating at best. Others are not in affirming spaces at home or in school. They seek acceptance at The Center. 

“I think in moments such as what we’re going through now with this current administration, a lot of fear and anxiety instantly comes up. And the reaction from the community is to isolate. And I think through any challenging moment, I think communities where you can feel safety can offer strength,” says Jones.  

Jen Baquial became president of the Siren’s Women’s+ Motorcycle Club in January. She told her club then, “Let’s make this space a pocket of joy for everybody in this moment. What we really need from each other is a place to sit softly and have a good time.” 

She said the younger people in the club look at her like “Madam Elder.” “I guess I consider myself a f—- elder now. We feel a little tired,” Baquial said. “But our boots are still strapped on and we’re ready to march with them. But we want them to lead the charge. It’s up to them and we will follow them.”

Iowa Rep. Aime Wichtendahl says her advice is to check on each other and to be unafraid to live your life. “When you have authoritarian governments, they want you to be afraid, so don’t give them that pleasure. The greatest act of resistance in these dystopian times is to declare to the world that I’m happy. And do what you can to find that happiness,” she says. 

“I’m not going to give these bastards the satisfaction of letting them grind me down.”