On the morning after Election Day, I dressed in black. This was not accidental; I was in mourning.
It was not that someone close to me had died. I was, and still am, grieving the suffering and untimely deaths that are to come now that Donald Trump will return to the White House.
There is much I could address about these next four years that people putting their faith in Trump disregard: the economy will not be “fixed,” public health will deteriorate as agencies are undermined, government assistance will be targeted and people will find out how important it really is to our society.
However, what needs to be highlighted more than anything else is the catastrophe that is ahead for the marginalized people living in America. For the immigrants who will be scapegoated, the women who will continue dying under abortion bans and the transgender people who will be infantilized and dehumanized, times will be incredibly dark.
The issue of immigration has been thrown into sharp relief since Trump entered the political arena in 2016. From his infamous comments about Mexico “not sending their best” to policies like family separation and the construction of a wall on the United States Mexican border, he has relied on contempt for immigrants for political capital since the beginning.
During his campaign this past year, Trump has escalated his anti-immigration rhetoric to a promise of mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants that he has now followed through on just days after taking office.
As someone for whom videos of traumatized children affected by the family separation policy left a deep impression, I find this pledge and everyone enticed by it to be repugnant in every respect.
As is well known by now, Trump’s first term saw the ideological balance of the Supreme Court shift hard in the favor of the right wing, with three seats on the court being filled by conservative justices.
They have since secured the long-standing conservative goal of overturning Roe v. Wade and allowing states to implement bans on reproductive healthcare.
We have seen the effects of this withdrawal of bodily autonomy already as, according to ProPublica, women have died of complications of pregnancy in states like Texas and Georgia, where effectively total bans are in place.
Disturbingly, the state of Georgia has dissolved a committee tracking maternal mortality after an investigation by ProPublica found that the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller could have been prevented by care that is restricted in the state.
There is no doubt in my mind that the cases of severe complications and deaths under abortion bans currently receiving public attention are only the tip of the iceberg, and there will only be more as the federal government comes completely under Republican control.
I admit that I have the greatest personal stake in the encroaching threat to transgender rights that is creeping into every corner of the U.S. Even acknowledging my own personal investment, though, I think it is fair to say that this facet of the reactionary backlash to progress is likely to be the most sadistic.
I wrote in April about the death of Nex Benedict in Oklahoma after he was assaulted in a girls’ restroom which he was required by state law to use. An investigation recently found that Owasso Public Schools failed to protect its students.
Since winning the election, Trump has pledged to dissolve the federal Department of Education, which conducted the investigation, and allow states to manage schools as they see fit.
This move is clearly aimed to enable states with Republican legislative majorities, including Oklahoma and Kentucky, to pass laws restricting healthcare for transgender youth, if they have not already. It is not hard to foresee this progressing to bans on adults transitioning as well.
A legal challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care is currently before the Supreme Court, and the conservative majority seems poised to let it stand.
Even as I am writing this, I have learned that Florida has revised its policies on gender-affirming care in prisons in order to effectively force transgender inmates to detransition and undergo conversion therapy. At least one inmate is already indicating that this change has made her consider suicide.
It bears mentioning that none of this has come out of nowhere. Immigration policy in the U.S. has arguably been cruel under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the end of Roe has been decades in the making, and revulsion and violence against transgender people has been a normalized part of American society for generations.
Still, the concerted efforts to render certain people second-class citizens or even totally dehumanize them are a sign of a bleak future. I have not even mentioned the racist text messages sent to Black people in several states after the election or the likelihood that anti-abortion politicians will put birth control in their sights next.
To all my transgender siblings fearing the future right now, please take care of yourselves. Stay close to those who love you, and remember that you deserve better than this.
To those who are threatened by bans on reproductive care, plots of deportation or the uptick in hateful rhetoric and violence, I wish you the same.
To those who think that there’s nothing to worry about or that Trump will only target those who supposedly have it coming to them, I hope you will think twice. For a growing number of people in this country, this is a matter of life and death.