The LGBTQ+ community weigh up their options in a hostile climate

Given Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric on the campaign trail, it is hardly surprising that members of this community are dreading the start of Trump 2.0.

While some are considering uprooting and moving to more LGBTQ+-friendly turf, others are stockpiling medicines and still more are starting to carry a weapon.

In fact, firearms sellers and trainers focused on marginalized groups, such as the Pink Pistols national gun group, have reported a huge hike in sales since the election.

“We all feel the need to make sure that we’re aware of our surroundings and protect ourselves in general, but even more so now,” Ashley Parten, 38, a bisexual woman told The Guardian after buying stun guns for herself, her daughter and three nieces.

Meanwhile, transgender woman Zoei Montgomery, is thinking of moving to Canada in response to Trump’s win.

“I would hate to leave home,” Montgomery, 25, tells The Washington Post. “But it makes me less anxious to have an exit plan in place.”

Montgomery also told the Post that she has been stockpiling estradiol and spironolactone pills since September in case her care is vetoed in Congress.

“Many people around me are acting like everything is the same since Nov. 5,” she said. “But nothing will be the same for the LGBTQ+ community once Trump’s in power, and he has promised that.”

Speaking to Reuters, transman Angelo Myers, 26, a PhD student in New York, directed this message to Trump and his Republican allies. “We are not afraid of you.”

Photo: screenshot Teuters video.

Having said that, Myers added, “Without the care I have now I would go as far as to say I might be in the percentage of people who don’t make it to the end of Trump’s presidency.”

Trump promised supporters at his pre-election rallies that he would ban gender transition care for children and eliminate federal spending on care for adults.

He also promised to table a bill establishing just two genders – those that are assigned at birth.

As far as the issue of trans women in sport is concerned, Trump is adamant: “We will of course keep transwomen out of women’s sports,” he told crowd of supporters in Salem, Virginia on November 2.

Faced with disturbing rhetoric coming from the anti-LGBTQ+ camp, such as, “Your body, my choice. Forever,” spouted by the white nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes on X, the tangible fear among LGBTQ+ members and their families is understandable.

“If there’s men out there that really think like that, I want at least a fighting chance if I ever encounter one,” Kylee Ortega, 24, from Texas told The Guardian, explaining why she has purchased her stun gun.

Tennessee has joined 26 states in banning gender affirming care for trans minors, according to CNN. The decision is currently being challenged in the Supreme Court.

Carolyn Fischer, meanwhile told The Washington Post that her 16-year-old trans son made a heartbreaking pact to end his life with three other young trans people if Trump won the election.

In the end they didn’t take their own lives, but Fisher and her husband are considering a move. “Nowhere in the country seems safe for LGBTQ+ kids right now,” she said.

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