This weekend, a colleague shared with me that an editor for a progressive media outlet liked our recent piece for TIME and wants me to write an article on "the ways in which Trump 2.0 has made life harder for trans kids."

I actually laughed out loud when I read that proposed subject. I could probably fill a whole book with all the ways life is "harder" for trans kids under Trump's second administration.

Would I start with the "shock and awe" tactic of the Day 1 executive orders?

Or the HHS report on gender-affirming care for adolescents?

Or restricting access to accurate federal identity documents?

Or banning trans girls from school sports?

Or school censorship?

Or hospitals caving to federal pressure and ending gender-affirming medical care?

Or the growing anti-trans propaganda?

All of these have very real consequences for transgender children and their families.

But I think the most devastating result of the actions and directives and rhetoric and trickle-down effects ... is the fear.

The kind of constant fear that's inescapable, wondering which of your rights will be taken away next. When the next shoe will drop.

That's why families I know have moved out of the country. They were exhausted from the vigilance and anxiety, always on high alert for their kids' safety.

That's how life is harder now for trans kids and their families. Living under the fog of fear, knowing that you are your government's scapegoat and suspecting that things will somehow get worse.

There are ways to lift this fog - creating a safe home, leaning into community, drawing courage from visible transgender folks, and looking to the helpers who are fighting this administration with everything they've got.

And yet it's still hard.

How would you write that article?

Mandy Giles​
Founder, Parents of Trans Youth​

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