How trans people can win against Trump

So, this is what it feels like to be used as a scapegoat by a fascist regime.

It’s March 2025, and I’m still here and still trans. But I’m slowly losing my ability to focus. I, an inveterate social media hater, can’t put my phone down. I tell my students to set limits for themselves, to choose how much they’re going to read the news, and consider what they’ll do afterward to make themselves feel better. Meanwhile, my own fingers twitch across the screen and keyboard. Self-control? I think I knew her once.

I worry about everything: about losing my job as an academic who studies trans history; about losing access to public bathrooms; about having to flee the country; about all my loved ones who can’t flee the country; about being jailed for speaking out against Donald Trump and his cronies; about trans people being rounded about and put into camps; about being rounded up and killed. 

My partner and I try to plan for our future, identify steps we can take to protect ourselves, and find something – anything – we can control. She keeps telling me that we can have a good life anywhere, no matter what. When I look into her face, I believe her. But the future still feels like anticipating an earthquake: Disaster is coming and the only question is when it will strike and how bad the devastation will be. 

I’m sure someone reading this thinks I’m suffering from paranoia. God, I hope so. But I’m guided by the words of Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” 

Trump has made it clear that he intends to curtail the rights of trans people and force us to retreat from public life and back into the dangerous shadows where we have long suffered. Under his watch the federal government is restricting our access to accurate passports, erasing our history from federal websites, and threatening to withhold funding from schools and hospitals that care for us. He has declared war on our very existence.

Here in Trump’s administrative crosshairs, trans people are in good company. His attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion, critical race theory, and “wokeness,” encompass immigrants, people of color, disabled people, and women. Through Elon Musk, an unconfirmed appointee to a department of questionable legality, Trump is taking a hacksaw to government services and public interest regulations. The proposed Republican budget goes against the interests of all Americans except the super-wealthy. I’m pretty sure the only people Trump actually likes are other rich autocrats.

But despite the dire situation we face, I have hope. I think you should, too. Let me tell you why.  

As a historian, I know that fascist regimes fall and fall hard. People’s movements can and do defeat them. There is no reason to believe our country will be an exception.

Trans people can use three strategies to survive and resist this regime. First, we can protect and support each other, just as we have for generations in circumstances that were even harder than this. Second, we can use the tools of democracy – lawsuits and elections – to challenge Trump. We are already doing so and many of our efforts are winning. Third, we can organize a movement of mass noncompliance to force Trump out of office, in the same way people have removed dictators all over the world. 

Mass noncompliance works because even the most brutal dictator needs the cooperation of others. From federal workers to teachers to farmers to the media, Trump still relies on us to make this country run. When we stop cooperating, he will stop ruling. 

The beginnings of mass noncompliance are springing up all around us and trans people are at the heart of the rebellion. In Ohio, trans students responded to Senate Bill 104 restricting bathroom access by walking out of school and rallying across central Ohio. At the University of Cincinnati, students simply removed bathroom signs reading “biological men” and protested against the school’s preemptive compliance with Trump’s threats. In short order, the university president admitted he had made a mistake. 

I’m sure that every trans person who participated in these protests felt just as fearful as I do, but still they refused to give up. They protested. They tried. They got ready to try again. That is why we can survive and win.

Across the country, other everyday people are also refusing to cooperate with Trump. Federal workers are not going along with DOGE’s nonsense. Voters are filling up town halls. Target is facing a boycott. Tesla sales are imploding as demonstrations have erupted across the country. 

Don’t believe that this kind of noncooperation matters? Then don’t listen to me, listen to Tom Homan, Trump’s so-called “border czar,” who raged about the ways Chicago’s sanctuary city initiative has hindered his mass deportation plans:

“Uh, sanctuary cities are making it very difficult to arrest [undocumented immigrants],” he said. “For instance, Chicago, very well educated. They’ve been educated how to defy ICE. … They call it ‘Know Your Rights.’”

The tide against Trump will not turn overnight. His power is built from the melding of long-standing hatred and powerful greed. We are fighting against American prejudices that run just as deep as our democratic traditions; no, deeper. The hope I am offering you is a fledgling bird, barely ready for its first, fragile flight. It is growing every day, but I need you to help me care for it. 

Trans people are strong – breathtakingly so. Under this fascist regime that is using us as an excuse to consolidate its power, we will grow even stronger. When we come together, we will win.