What It’s Like to Be Transgender in Trump’s America

Dan Gorenstein (DG): It’s been a hard year for many transgender Americans.

President Trump has issued numerous executive orders targeting transgender people and their health care. Some hospitals have stopped providing certain medications and surgeries — elements of what’s known as gender-affirming care. And last month, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s right to ban that care for transgender kids and teens.

Harleigh Walker (HW): There’s really no safety in the country. I feel unsafe almost everywhere. It’s really scary.

DG: Today, how the federal government has restricted transgender Americans’ access to health care over the last six months, and how those changes in policy and rhetoric are affecting one family.

From the studio at the Leonard Davis Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, I’m Dan Gorenstein. This is Tradeoffs.

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DG: To get an update on everything that has changed when it comes to health care for trans Americans in 2025, we called up Orion Rummler. Orion covers LGBTQ+ health and policy for the nonprofit news organization The 19th.

Orion Rummler (OR): This administration has just been really relentlessly focused on trans people, which make up a very small part of the population.

DG: We’re going to start with the Supreme Court case from a few weeks ago.

News clip: The Supreme Court has just released a major decision upholding a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for transgender children.
News clip: The justices ruled that the state’s law, which prevents children from accessing treatments like puberty blockers or hormone therapy, did not violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

DG: This decision means either going without care or traveling out of state for the some 112,000 trans kids living in Tennessee or the other 24 states with similar bans. A lot of folks worry this case opens the door to banning care for trans adults.

But late in June, Orion, you wrote an interesting article quoting legal experts who said this ruling could have been much worse for the trans community. For one, these experts that you talked to flagged that there are still ways that families and advocates could challenge these gender-affirming care bans. How would that work? It has something to do with parents.

OR: Right. So some parents can still sue their state for banning gender-affirming care on the grounds that that law violates a parent’s right to make medical decisions for their trans child. 

DG: So parents can basically say, I, as the parent, should have the power to decide what kind of medical care my child gets. That is my right. That is not the right of the state. 

OR: Yeah. And some of the attorneys I spoke with found this to be kind of an optimistic route, because parental rights or due process is kind of an old right that has a good bit of precedent at the Supreme Court. So some of them felt kind of hopeful about this.

DG: You quote Chase Strangio, the ACLU lawyer who argued this case – U.S. v. Skrmetti – and he said that the case, “is a setback in many ways. But we continue onward in the fight.” Is that the vibe that you’re hearing from the advocates and families that you’re talking to, Orion? Are people energized to keep fighting post-Skrmetti? 

OR: I’d say that the average trans person or their families, from the conversations I’ve had, are feeling pretty low and demoralized at this point. Not everyone, but that’s a general vibe that I’m getting.

I do think that attorneys are wired differently. Most of them are like thinking, how can I figure out this puzzle box? How can I get around this? So I think their brains work a little differently.

DG: So obviously this case has made huge headlines these last few weeks, but the Trump administration has also issued a number of executive orders aimed at trans people and their health care. Here’s President Trump at his inauguration:

Trump: As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.

DG: Now, Orion, as you know, the president has threatened to pull funding from hospitals that offer gender-affirming care to kids. That order has been temporarily paused by a federal judge, but the administration is still launching investigations into several hospitals over the issue. What have been the practical impacts of all of this?

OR: So hospitals in blue states like California, Massachusetts and New York are now responding to this executive order, and some of them are making the calculus that, you know, not a lot of people get this care, and we don’t want to lose money, so we’re just going to stop providing it.

It’s not even about stopping gender affirming care sometimes. It’s about being concerned about being singled out for being too affirming of trans people.

There’s this patient I spoke with, he said that the hospital started using his dead name or the name he used before transitioning on his medical chart, and because of that, it led to him being unable to coordinate with a surgeon about endometriosis in his body. 

DG: Bottom line, Orion, it seems like as a result of these administration actions, we’re seeing it get harder for trans people to get health care, even if they live in places where this care, in theory, is still legal.

OR: Absolutely. Most recently, the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles said they would stop providing gender-affirming care for trans youth. This effort by the federal government has kind of created an atmosphere of fear in states that have not experienced it until now. 

DG: One last thing on the administration: They are also shutting down, as of mid-July, the special 988 mental health crisis line for LGBTQ+ young people. This also seems like a pretty big deal given the research showing trans youth are much more likely to attempt suicide and have other mental health struggles.

OR: Yeah. The 988 cuts are especially devastating for advocates right now. The Trevor Project, which is a suicide prevention org for queer people, they’ve seen a really significant increase in LGBTQ youth calling suicide or crisis hotlines. So these services are being cut at a really bad time when they’re really especially needed.

DG: Is there any discussion about what may come next? What replacement, if any, there may be?

OR: Right now the focus has been trying to spread awareness about alternatives to 988. There’s Trans Lifeline, which is a hotline for trans people specifically. The Trevor Project has their own hotlines. But there’s really no trust that any kind of federal hotline will continue to exist to serve LGBTQ people.

DG: Orion, you talk about an atmosphere of fear, particularly in blue states, that is new. In some ways, this is too broad of a question to ask, but from your reporting, what does it mean to be transgender in America in the summer of 2025?

OR: I’d say it means having a target on your back in a way that trans people haven’t really seen before. I recently interviewed a trans woman, a comedian, Esther Fallick. And the way she described it is that right now, trans people are being made to feel afraid to leave their house, that they can’t get the health care they need, or they’re being told they shouldn’t be able to.

Trans people are just navigating an increasingly difficult bureaucratic maze that have some life or death implications. So yeah, I’d say right now a lot of trans people in America are just living with a lot of fear every day.

DG: Orion, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us on Tradeoffs. Really appreciate it.

OR: Thank you so much, Dan. Love this conversation.

DG: When we come back, we talk with a transgender teen and her dad about how their lives have changed since Donald Trump took office.

MIDROLL

DG: Welcome back.

Jeff Walker (JW): Hi, Dan.

HW: Hello.

DG Hey, you two. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

HW: Of course.

DG: To better understand the impacts of the federal government’s anti-trans policies and rhetoric, I got on Zoom last week to talk with the Walkers.

HW: My name is Harleigh Walker. My pronouns are she/her. I’m 18 years old.

JW: Jeff Walker. I live in Auburn, Alabama. I have two kids. I have a son who’s 24, and my daughter, Harleigh, who is 18.

DG: Harleigh told Jeff and her mom that she was transgender 8 years ago, when Harleigh was 10. Jeff has been by Harleigh’s side for all the tough moments of growing up trans in the South: bullying, switching schools, losing friends and family.

JW: It’s hard to be a parent to see Harleigh have gone through the things she’s gone through over the past several years — to see people attacking her and attacking this community.

DG: All that said, the two agree things have been much worse since Donald Trump re-entered the White House.

HW: I always said that no matter how unsafe I felt in my home state or how many states passed this anti-trans legislation or spewed this rhetoric, I knew that the federal government wasn’t going to come after me and my community. And then as soon as Trump won the election, I knew all of that was going to change.

Now instead of being condemned by the federal government, it’s now enabled by the federal government. And so there’s really no safety in the country. I feel unsafe almost everywhere. It’s really scary.

JW: You know, after the election and after the inauguration, I didn’t sleep well for a very long time. Every car that drove down the street, I had this crazy fear that it was someone coming to try and take Harleigh away from us as parents, because that’s kind of some of the stuff you were hearing, right? These parents should be put in jail. These parents should be gone after for what they’re doing to these kids. It’s been really tough. 

DG: Jeff and Harleigh told me the future looks a lot darker to them today than it did just two years ago when Harleigh — as a 16 year old — was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate at a hearing on transgender rights.

Harleigh Senate: I want to thank you all for the opportunity to tell you more about myself and what it’s like to be a trans person.

HW: If I could tell that Harleigh two years ago what has happened in the past few years with Trump winning the election and a lot of failures in the federal government and the Supreme Court case that just came out, she’d be devastated. 

Harleigh Senate: I’m hoping to share what my journey has been like and clear up some of the false information that I’ve heard coming out of Congress and state legislatures including the Alabama state legislature.

HW: It’s not to say I don’t have hope anymore, but it’s to say that my attitude has changed. I feel a lot more pressure to act individually, and I don’t feel like I havethe same amount of support on my back as I did in that moment.

JW: Even when she gave that speech, she could still get health care in the state of Alabama at that time. And it was not until about six months later that they fully banned health care here in the state of Alabama. So I think Harleigh is right: So much has changed for us as a family, for her as an individual, and it’s gone the opposite direction we were hoping for it to go in.

DG: Is there a moment for either of you, a story that captures what it has felt like for your family in 2025?

JW: One of the things right now for us is around Harleigh getting ready to go off to college. I’ve always wanted one of my kids to go to Auburn. But we knew pretty quickly that it’s not safe for her in this state. Our state leaders don’t want her in this state. And they’ve made that abundantly clear.

Lots of kids go far away for college. And I know that’s pretty normal. But for me, it was: My kid didn’t have a choice. So she’s moving over 10 hours away from us. And that kind of sucks.

DG: Harleigh, do you share your dad’s regret, lament, sadness, sense of loss, whatever it is, about not being able to go to school in your home state?

HW: I do. Almost 90% of my graduating class is going to Auburn University. My best friend, she’s going to Auburn University. I could never think about going to college with my best friend.

I love living in Alabama. I’ve grown up here all my life. And I couldn’t think about continuing on that life here. And, you know, I’m going to go live my life wherever I end up happy and continue being who I am. But that place unfortunately won’t be Alabama. And that’s the product of the state legislators here at home.

DG: Jeff, a study last year in the journal Nature found that suicide attempts among transgender teens went up after anti-trans laws passed in their states. Other research suggests that one of the most important things that can protect trans youth against some of these negative mental health impacts is having a supportive family. You’ve clearly been supportive of Harleigh, you and your wife.

As both of you know, there are lots of parents out there whose kids are telling them that they’re trans and the parents are scared. They’re genuinely worried that supporting them in their gender transition could actually permanently harm their child.

Jeff, as a father, what would you say to these worried, scared parents?

JW: I think even when Harleigh first came out, that was one of the statistics we kind of read early on was there was a high suicide rate, especially trans youth who didn’t have supporting families. So, Harleigh’s mom and I, we very quickly made sure that everyone knew we were all going to support Harleigh, or you’re not going to be a part of this family.

To me, it’s not hard to do. You love your kid. Just listen to what they have to say and support them. I know it seems much harder than it really is, but it really is that simple. 

DG: Jeff, for you, I mean, I’ve gotten I’ve got a 19 year old, I’ve got a 17 year old. I could imagine myself going to a doctor, being scared that my kid would be vulnerable. That medical professionals might in some way be prejudice or discriminate against my kid. Was that present for you at all?

JW: It was pretty gut-wrenching. When you take your kid and they have strep throat or they break their arm. You know when you go, you’re gonna get, here’s antibiotics, here’s a cast.

This was something very foreign to me as a parent. What are they going to do to my kid, right? What are these doctors going to prescribe or want us to have as treatment? So there was a lot of nerves around that. 

HW: We honestly really didn’t know what to expect going into it. We were all kind of nervous, but then we sat down with the doctors and immediately felt comfortable.

It often gets lost in translation that you immediately go to the doctor and it’s hormones, puberty blockers, surgeries, etc. It’s so far from the truth. It’s really just those first few visits are kind of getting to know you. What can we do to help you with your journey and what’s the best thing for you and your family going forward?

And so I think that we left that meeting feeling really reaffirmed and like I was seen as a person. And we actually celebrated by getting Cheesecake Factory afterwards. So that was great.

JW: We just all felt so good afterwards that we wanted to go celebrate somewhere.

DG: Cheesecake factory, what did you guys have?

JW: I’m sure I had Snickers cheesecake. 

HW: I don’t know what I had meal wise, but I know I had red velvet cheesecake.

DG: Harleigh, we’ve been talking a lot about how much your parents took clear steps to support you. And have seemingly walked with you through your transition. How do you feel about how your mom and dad treated you?

HW: I’m incredibly grateful to have such a supportive family. I think the biggest thing is just listening. And a lot of people don’t listen like my parents did.

Like my dad said, he grew up from the South, Christian, small town. And, you know, he didn’t know what being transgender meant. But he was still willing to listen. And now my dad is my biggest supporter there is. And just seeing his growth the past few years since I’ve come out has been truly inspiring. And I’m forever grateful.

DG: I’d like to go back to your testimony, Harleigh, before those senators one more time. Because even as you were describing how hard Republican legislation has made your life, you made something in that testimony very clear.

Harleigh Senate: I want all of you to look at me, here and now, and hear my words. I am a very happy 16-year-old. I have wonderful friends who accept me fully for who I am. I’m active in my school’s debate team and other curricular activities. I love to travel. I enjoy concerts and music like Taylor Swift, and listening to my record collection in my room. I get all As in school and I’m looking forward to college. I am not miserable in my life, I’m not depressed. I’m just trying to be a teenager in America.

DG: Harleigh, why was it so important for you to tell those senators that you were happy? Why did you want them to know and understand that you were happy?

HW: Because often whenever people talk about trans youth, people get caught up in the negativity and the sorrow, and I think there’s a lot of joy. I always say, I’m Harleigh, I’m not trans Harleigh, I’m just Harleigh. And that I have so many other parts of my life other than being transgender.

And so I think that that’s why I wanted to highlight that I’m not miserable. I live a great life. I live a happy life. And a lot of people don’t know that. And so that’s why I wish people would not look at trans people as, you know, a talking point, but as people. And I think if you do that, you’ll realize that trans people have a lot more to offer than just being trans.

DG: And obviously, right now, the political environment for transgender Americans is pretty hard. What right now, Harleigh, makes you happy?

HW: What makes me happy is, right now I’m watching the new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and that’s really fun. I’ve been listening to a lot of Fleetwood Mac recently. That’s a lot on my summer playlist. “Say That You Love Me” by Fleetwood Mac is really good.

What makes me happy is just having a group of friends that I can laugh with, have a good time with, and feel like I can be authentically myself. I love that.

DG: Jeff, what’s something that’s making you real happy about your daughter?

JW: She’s so busy with her friends all the time. A lot of times they come here to the house, and I’ll get pizza or whatever, and they’ll sit downstairs and watch movies. When I’ve got a house full of kids that are downstairs giggling and doing karaoke and cackling and cutting up, you can’t help but be happy, right, to see your kids happy like that. So I’m really enjoying that.

DG: Harleigh, what’s something that you and your dad are going to do before he drops you off of college that you’re looking forward to?

HW: We’re going to be traveling up to Maryland soon for my college orientation. And I always just love traveling with my dad. Every time we travel, he’ll always take a selfie of us before we leave and be like, “Jeff and Harleigh going on a new adventure. Where are we going now?”

So I love traveling with my dad. I’m just excited to spend the last few months home in Auburn with my family and soak it all in before I leave.

DG: I can imagine on the road trip, as y’all go up, maybe there’ll be a little Fleetwood Mac.

HW: Yes. There will. He always will play my playlist whenever we go on road trips. 

DG: Harleigh and Jeff, thank you both for taking the time to talk to us on Tradeoffs.

HW: Thank you so much for having us. 

JW: Hey, thanks for the opportunity. We appreciate it.

DG: I’m Dan Gorenstein, this is Tradeoffs.