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It’s time for transgender Americans to be more scared. Donald Trump is leading a fascist administration. In his first month in office, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders that clamp down on trans people. One ordered that trans women can’t compete in women’s sports in federally funded institutions. Another banned transgender service members from the military. And yet another executive order, signed on his very first day in office, told the federal government that only two genders exist — those that people were given at birth.
Furthermore, Trump took over the Kennedy Center, electing himself as the chair of the board, and immediately a Pride event was cancelled. Taking over arts and letters is a surefire sign of fascism. Fascism, as defined by Merriam Webster, is a “populist political philosophy or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”
America, in essence, is becoming more and more of a fascist state, and Trump is already a fascist leader. Trump’s strand of fascism is interesting, because he is an utter capitalist, with a fetish for colonizing foreign spaces. Trump has been trying to colonize Greenland for many years now, and he also shared an AI generated video of him colonizing the Gaza strip with a Trump hotel and pictures of Elon Musk spooning hummus next to the beach. Both of these are concerning, but the Trump Gaza video is especially horrifying because it shows he is in some sort of quasi break from reality where posting an AI generated future of a war-torn land seems OK. When I floated the Trump Gaza video among friends and family, they reacted with words like “crazy,” “insane,” and “delusional.”
When mentioning his transphobia, one relative who is politically aware theorized that Trump would unleash all of his anti-trans fury in just a few months but that he would run out of transphobic things to do. Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be true. Every passing day seems to bring a new anti-trans piece of legislation, whether it’s Texas’s proposed ban on being transgender in and of itself, or whether it’s Utah’s anti-trans bathroom ban.
Yet even more unfortunately, I am not seeing trans people get scared enough. I am not seeing enough action on our part. I am unsure whether our collective inaction is due to the fact that both houses of Congress are red, or whether some of us simply don’t have the privilege of fighting.
Regardless, I can propose one policy solution that trans people in the D.C. area can implement: Make Arlington a sanctuary city. In order to make Arlington a sanctuary city, Arlingtonians (and other Virginians for that matter) should lobby the county board to do so. However, Virginia faces stiff pushback from Gov. Youngkin when it comes to the formation of sanctuary cities. On Dec. 12, 2024, Youngkin proposed a budget that would include a “sanctuary city ban” across the state. We have to make sure that we lobby the legislature to reject this proposed version of the budget.
Until then, transgender Americans need to start devising plans to move to sanctuary cities across the country and to fund underprivileged trans people who need the money to do so. Some of us also need to start thinking about moving to Canada if our futures become less bright.
Isaac Amend is a writer based in the D.C. area. He is a transgender man and was featured in National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ documentary. He serves on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Contact him at isaacamendwrites@gmail.com or on Instagram at @literatipapi.
It’s time for transgender Americans to be more scared. Donald Trump is leading a fascist administration. In his first month in office, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders that clamp down on trans people. One ordered that trans women can’t compete in women’s sports in federally funded institutions. Another banned transgender service members from the military. And yet another executive order, signed on his very first day in office, told the federal government that only two genders exist — those that people were given at birth.
Furthermore, Trump took over the Kennedy Center, electing himself as the chair of the board, and immediately a Pride event was cancelled. Taking over arts and letters is a surefire sign of fascism. Fascism, as defined by Merriam Webster, is a “populist political philosophy or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”
America, in essence, is becoming more and more of a fascist state, and Trump is already a fascist leader. Trump’s strand of fascism is interesting, because he is an utter capitalist, with a fetish for colonizing foreign spaces. Trump has been trying to colonize Greenland for many years now, and he also shared an AI generated video of him colonizing the Gaza strip with a Trump hotel and pictures of Elon Musk spooning hummus next to the beach. Both of these are concerning, but the Trump Gaza video is especially horrifying because it shows he is in some sort of quasi break from reality where posting an AI generated future of a war-torn land seems OK. When I floated the Trump Gaza video among friends and family, they reacted with words like “crazy,” “insane,” and “delusional.”
When mentioning his transphobia, one relative who is politically aware theorized that Trump would unleash all of his anti-trans fury in just a few months but that he would run out of transphobic things to do. Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be true. Every passing day seems to bring a new anti-trans piece of legislation, whether it’s Texas’s proposed ban on being transgender in and of itself, or whether it’s Utah’s anti-trans bathroom ban.
Yet even more unfortunately, I am not seeing trans people get scared enough. I am not seeing enough action on our part. I am unsure whether our collective inaction is due to the fact that both houses of Congress are red, or whether some of us simply don’t have the privilege of fighting.
Regardless, I can propose one policy solution that trans people in the D.C. area can implement: Make Arlington a sanctuary city. In order to make Arlington a sanctuary city, Arlingtonians (and other Virginians for that matter) should lobby the county board to do so. However, Virginia faces stiff pushback from Gov. Youngkin when it comes to the formation of sanctuary cities. On Dec. 12, 2024, Youngkin proposed a budget that would include a “sanctuary city ban” across the state. We have to make sure that we lobby the legislature to reject this proposed version of the budget.
Until then, transgender Americans need to start devising plans to move to sanctuary cities across the country and to fund underprivileged trans people who need the money to do so. Some of us also need to start thinking about moving to Canada if our futures become less bright.
Isaac Amend is a writer based in the D.C. area. He is a transgender man and was featured in National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ documentary. He serves on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Contact him at isaacamendwrites@gmail.com or on Instagram at @literatipapi.
