The state of Texas has continued collecting information on transgender drivers seeking to change the sex listed on their licenses, creating a list of more than 100 people in one year.
According to internal documents The Texas Newsroom obtained through records requests, the Texas Department of Public Safety has amassed a list of 110 people who tried to update their gender between August 2024 and August 2025. Employees with driver’s license offices across the state, from El Paso to Paris to Plano, reported the names and license numbers of these people to a special agency email account. Identifying information was redacted from the records released to The Texas Newsroom.
The data was collected after Texas stopped allowing drivers to update the gender on their licenses unless it was to fix a clerical error. It is unclear what the state is doing with this information.
An agency spokesperson did not respond to questions about why the list was created and whether it was shared with any other agencies or state officials. The Texas Newsroom filed records requests in an attempt to find the answers but did not receive any additional information that sheds light on what the state may be doing with these names.
In recent years, GOP lawmakers have passed multiple laws restricting the rights of transgender Texans, including two new measures that went into effect this year.
One defines “male” and “female” on state documents as being based on a person’s reproductive system. The other, known as the “bathroom bill,” bars governments from allowing people to use a restroom at public buildings, parks or libraries that do not match their sex at birth.
While it’s unclear how the state plans to enforce the bathroom bill, transgender activist Ry Vazquez told KUT News she was asked to show her ID before using a restroom in the state Capitol earlier this month. Vazquez said she and three other people were then cited with criminal trespassing and banned from the building for a year.
Landon Richie, the policy coordinator with the Transgender Education Network of Texas, is concerned that the list the state is keeping will be used to pass more state laws targeting the rights of transgender Texans.
“The state collecting this information raises a lot of red flags, not just in terms of people’s privacy and ability to exist not under a magnifying glass,” he said. He added that he wonders “how this information will be leveraged in terms of drafting and crafting additional legislation” to chip away at the civil rights and freedoms of transgender Texans.
For years, transgender people in Texas could update their state IDs to match their gender identity by obtaining a court order and then submitting this document to the state agencies that issue driver’s licenses and birth certificates. After the state restricted updates to driver’s licenses last fall, the state’s health agency followed suit, blocking changes to birth certificates other than to correct hospital errors or omissions.
In March, The Texas Newsroom reported that the state was collecting information on people who continued to ask for these changes despite the policy shift.
The attorney general, whose office determines what records are public, allowed the agency to keep other documents about the policy shift secret. But it did release a list of the four employees with access to the special email account.
The Texas Newsroom also obtained records that show the agency investigated threats against the driver’s license division chief after news of the policy change was made public. But no case was referred to the Travis County Attorney’s Office for prosecution.
The Texas Newsroom has requested an updated version of the list.
A county government in central North Carolina has dissolved its entire public library board after trustees voted to keep a children’s picture book about a transgender character on library shelves, turning a local book challenge into one of the most severe reprisals yet in the national campaign against LGBTQ-inclusive materials.
The Randolph County Board of Commissioners voted 3–2 last week to dismiss all members of the county library board, weeks after trustees declined to move or remove Call Me Max, a picture book about a transgender boy who asks his teacher to use his chosen name. The decision followed a public hearing that drew nearly 200 residents and revealed a community split almost evenly between those calling for the board’s removal and those urging commissioners to respect the library’s review process.
Library staff and trustees had reviewed the complaint earlier this fall and, in October, voted to keep the book in the children’s section, concluding it complied with the county’s collection policies, local CBS affiliate WFMY reported. Commissioners nonetheless moved to dissolve the nine-member board outright — a step allowed under North Carolina law but rarely taken.
Free-expression advocates said the action represents a dramatic escalation in the political response to book challenges. Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read program at PEN America, told The Washington Post that Randolph County’s decision is among the harshest penalties she has seen imposed over a single title.
“It’s a pretty dramatic response to wanting to have diverse and inclusive books on shelves,” Meehan said.
Opponents of the book claimed the dispute was a matter of child protection. Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the conservative North Carolina Values Coalition, which urged supporters to attend the commission meeting, argued that Call Me Max teaches children that their parents may be “wrong” about their gender.
The book has been banned by several school districts and was prominently invoked by RepublicanFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 while promoting his so-called “don’t say gay” legislation restricting classroom discussions of gender identity, a law later challenged in court.
To critics, the Randolph County episode demonstrates how procedural safeguards are increasingly overridden when LGBTQ+ inclusion is at stake. Kyle Lukoff, the book’s author, who is a trans man, said the case is especially troubling because the library followed its own policies and was still punished.
“Policies can be helpful, but this is ultimately a question of power,” Lukoff told The Post. “If there are people in power who believe trans people don’t belong in their communities or the world at large, they will twist those policies to make it a reality.”
Randolph County, home to about 150,000 people, voted nearly four to one for President Donald Trump. Commissioners have not announced when or how they plan to reconstitute the library board.
The Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA) has settled a lawsuit brought by right-wing school districts for the right for schools to bar trans students from joining sports teams that align with their gender. The lawsuit targeted multiple defendants and will continue with the remaining ones without CHSAA’s involvement.
“Eligibility decisions have always been left to individual schools and districts, which is why being named in this lawsuit was both frustrating and unnecessary,” a CHSAA spokesperson said in a statement. She went on to call the organization’s inclusion in the lawsuit “much more performative than substantive.”
The lawsuit was brought by several school districts but was led by District 49. That district’s board passed a controversial trans sports ban back in May by a narrow margin. The lawsuit against the state was filed the day after the policy was voted in, calling for Colorado to allow the ban to be enacted and to align policies with the demands laid out in the president’s “two sexes” executive order.
Colorado has state laws prohibiting discrimination against trans people, specifically people’s gender identity or gender expression. While the lawsuit cites the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in arguing that trans girls playing on the girls’ team affects the rights of cis girls, it does not mention the impact on the rights of trans girls.
To settle their part of the lawsuit, CHSAA agreed not to sanction the districts and schools named in the lawsuit for banning trans students from sports teams. It will also not respond to statements the schools make about “advantages of biological males over biological females in competitive sports” or potential propaganda about the hazards of “allowing biological males to play contact sports with or against biological females.” There will also be no penalties from CHSAA for forfeiting against a team because they allow trans children to play.
CSHAA has said that it will still sanction the schools and districts if any of those statements are demeaning in nature or call for violence against trans people. The organization is also recouping $60,000 in legal and operational fees.
While some Colorado school districts specifically allow trans students to play sports under their correct gender identity, others have no concrete rules about it. CSHAA has never stepped in over a trans person being allowed to play school sports, or not being able to.
The lawsuit will continue with the Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and other Colorado Civil Rights Division officials as the remaining defendants.
Colorado’s District 49 has around 27,000 students. In May, Board President Lori Thompson noted that, as far as she was aware, the district had only had one instance of a trans student trying to join a sports team that aligned with their gender identity. The student in question was a trans boy, and they did not pass tryouts.
The University of Oklahoma (OU) recently dismissed a professor for telling students that they wouldn’t be counted absent from her class if they attended an on-campus protest in support of a transgender teaching assistant (TA) who was placed on administrative leave after she failed a student’s essay that referred to trans people as “demonic.” The newly dismissed professor reportedly didn’t give the same option to students who wanted to protest against the trans TA’s reinstatement, OU said.
OU composition professor Kelli Alvarez was accused of viewpoint discrimination for her alleged actions, OU said in an official statement cited by KFOR. OU’s director of first-year composition emailed Alvarez’s students, calling Alvarez’s actions “inappropriate and wrong,” adding, “The university classroom exists to teach students how to think, not what to think.”
The director informed students that they could miss the Friday class to attend either the protest or the counterprotest. The director also noted that Alvarez has been replaced for the remainder of the term, which ends on December 19. OU said it agrees with the director’s actions.
“Classroom instructors have a special obligation to ensure that the classroom is never used to grant preferential treatment based on personal political beliefs, nor to pressure students to adopt particular political or ideological views,” OU wrote in its statement.
At the Friday protest, hundreds of students rallied in support of Mel Curth, a trans TA who OU placed on administrative leave after she gave a student a grade of zero on an essay about a study on gender roles in which the student called trans people “demonic.” The student, Samantha Fulnecky, filed a religious discrimination complaint with OU in November, and the university put Curth on administrative leave.
Students at the protest chanted, “OU shame on you,” “Protect our professors,” and “Justice for Mel,” KOKH-TV reported. Even students who didn’t agree with Curth’s failing grade for the student agreed that Fulnecky’s essay was poorly written and that Curth didn’t need to be put on leave.
At one point in the protest, a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) supporter got in front of the crowd and began counterprotesting.
The OU Chapter of the right-wing young conservatives group published a transphobic tweet saying, “We should not be letting mentally ill professors around students. Clearly this professor lacks the intellectual maturity to set her own bias aside and take grading seriously. Professors like this are the very reason conservatives can’t voice their beliefs in the classroom.”
In her paper, Fulnecky wrote that people aren’t “pressured to be more masculine or feminine,” that she doesn’t see it as a problem when peers use teasing to enforce gender norms, and that “eliminating gender in our society… pulls us farther from God’s original plan.” She also said trans identities are “demonic and severely [harm] American youth.”
In her response, Curth — to whom the OU Department of Psychology recently gave its Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award — wrote that her grade wasn’t because Fulnecky had “certain beliefs,” but rather because the paper “does not answer the questions for this assigment, contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive.”
In a statement, OU wrote that it takes First Amendment rights and religious freedoms seriously and began a “full review” of the situation to “swiftly” address the matter, including a “formal grade appeals process” and a review of the student’s claim of “illegal discrimination based on religious beliefs.”
The university also said that Curth had been placed on administrative leave during the finalization of the discrimination review, leaving “a full-time professor” to serve as the course’s instructor for the rest of the semester.
A federal judge has blocked a gender-affirming care ban for trans inmates in Georgia that has been in effect for several months. Judge Victoria Calvert agreed with the plaintiffs that the blanket ban violated the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment.
“The Court finds that there is no genuine dispute of fact that gender dysphoria is a serious medical need,” Judge Calvert wrote in her opinion. “Plaintiffs, through their experts, have presented evidence that a blanket ban on hormone therapy constitutes grossly inadequate care for gender dysphoria and risks imminent injury.”
Georgia Senate Bill 185 was signed into law in May by Governor Brian Kemp (R). The bill prohibited state funds and resources from being used to provide gender-affirming care to inmates in Georgia prisons. That included hormone replacement therapy (HRT), as well as “sex reassignment surgeries or any other surgical procedures that are performed for the purpose of altering primary or secondary sexual characteristics,” and even “cosmetic procedures or prosthetics intended to alter the appearance of primary or secondary sexual characteristics.”
The bill took effect in July, and five plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against it in August. In addition to arguing that SB 185 constituted cruel and unusual punishment, the lawsuit also claimed that it violated the Equal Protection Clause. HRT and other gender-affirming care treatments were not banned under the bill for all inmates, only for those who were trans. The bill also prohibited trans inmates from paying for the care themselves while incarcerated.
“We would never allow a state to decide that people in prison with diabetes should be cut off of insulin just because the state didn’t want to pay for it anymore,” said Celine Zhu, a Staff Attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing the plaintiffs. “So why would we allow Georgia to cut off medically required care for people with a similarly serious diagnosis of gender dysphoria?”
SB 185 was a blanket ban that overruled the opinions of judges, doctors, and the Georgia Department of Corrections, all of whom have previously acknowledged that gender-affirming care is medically necessary for incarcerated trans people.
While the judge’s ruling makes it clear that not every inmate is entitled to gender-affirming care, it puts those decisions back in the hands of medical professionals and the patients rather than having the legislature make medical decisions for trans people.
“The Court requires healthcare decisions for prisoners to be made dispassionately, by physicians, based on individual determinations of medical need, and for reasons beyond the fact that the prisoners are prisoners,” the judge said in her ruling.
Current estimates suggest that there are around 300 out trans people incarcerated in Georgia state prisons.
After the ruling, the Department of Corrections filed a notice of appeal with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
This sort of case has been litigated for over twenty years now. In 2005, Wisconsin introduced a ban on doctors providing trans inmates with gender-affirming care, affecting inmates who had been on hormones since the early 90s. The law was overturned by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the state’s appeal in 2011.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has altered the official portrait of Adm. Rachel Levine, the out transgender former assistant secretary for health under President Joe Biden, to display Levine’s deadname — a needless act of transphobia that Levine has called “petty.” Her portrait hangs in the HHS office alongside those of other federal officials who have led the U.S. Public Health Corps.
“During the federal shutdown, the current leadership of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health changed Admiral Levine’s photo to remove her current legal name and use a prior name,” Levine’s spokesperson Adrian Shanker, former deputy assistant secretary for health policy under Biden, told NPR. Shanker called the move an “unprecedented” act “of bigotry against her.” Though Levine said, “I’m not going to comment on this type of petty action.”
When asked about the alteration, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told the aforementioned news outlet, “Our priority is ensuring that the information presented internally and externally by HHS reflects gold standard science. We remain committed to reversing harmful policies enacted by Levine and ensuring that biological reality guides our approach to public health.”
An anonymous HHS staffer told NPR that they considered the change “disrespectful,” adding that it exemplifies “the erasure of transgender individuals by this administration.” Upon taking office, the president issued numerous executive orders denying all federal recognition of trans people and kicking trans people out of the military for being selfish, dishonorable, deceitful, and undisciplined.
Levine was the first out trans person to receive Senate confirmation. On October 19, 2021, became the first out trans four-star officer in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, a noncombatant service of the nation’s eight uniformed services which promotes public health and safety. She resigned on the current president’s first day in office.
The current assistant secretary for health is Adm. Brian Christine, MD, who was appointed in November.
Missouri State Sen. Joe Nicola (R) introduced a bill that would ban “social transition” in schools and forcibly out any transgender and nonbinary students to their potentially unsupportive parents if the students ask a school staff member to address them by a name or gender identity different from the sex assigned to them at birth.
The bill would also allow teachers to be fired and banned from teaching, as well as schools to be sued for affirming trans and nonbinary students’ gender identities, even if a parent approves of their child socially transitioning.
S.B. 1085, one of 21 anti-LGBTQ+ bills recently introduced by Missouri State Republicans, requires school staff members to inform the principal or a designee within 24 hours if any student asks them to “participate in or support” their social transition by having them address them by a name or gender identity that differs from those they were assigned at birth. The principal or designee would then have 72 hours to inform the student’s parents.
The bill would forbid school staffers and counselors from affirming a student’s trans or nonbinary gender identity or teaching about such identities. School districts would also be forced to fire teachers who violate the law and begin proceedings to revoke those teachers’ teaching licenses. Parents and the state attorney general may also pursue a civil lawsuit against any school or school district that violates the law.
The bill has no exception for parents who approve of their child’s social transition. This essentially forces educators to continue misgendering trans students and invalidating their identities even if they personally support trans and nonbinary students. Studies have shown that social transitioning improves the overall health and well-being of trans children.
Trans journalist Erin Reed wrote that the bill “underscores a shift in how anti-trans legislation is being sold to the public.”
“For years, supporters of bathroom bans, sports bans, and ‘don’t say gay’ policies framed their efforts as battles for ‘parental rights.’ Increasingly, though, that language has fallen away as lawmakers move to strip supportive parents of any authority at all, mirroring the approach in medical transition bans that override parental consent entirely.”
Nicola’s bill is just one of numerous anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in the state legislature. The other proposed bills would require the state to deny all legal recognition of non-cisgender identities; roll back nondiscrimination protections for transgender people; ban trans students from accessing school facilities or sports teams matching their gender identities; ban schools from displaying Pride flags; and allow anyone working with schools to misgender other employees’ trans/nonbinary gender identities.
The other proposed bills would also forbid state agencies from allowing gender changes on government-issued identity documents; ban trans people from using public facilities matching their gender identities; ban teachers from being a member of any sports organizations that allow trans participation; ban all “obscene” content from schools (including LGBTQ+ educational materials); forbid all gender-affirming care for minors; and designate all drag performances as “adult cabaret” performances (whose viewing by children can be criminally charged).
In April, Nicola voiced support for a state bill that would ban trans and nonbinary people from using “bathrooms, locker rooms, sports facilities, various crisis centers, prisons,” and other sex-segregated spaces that match their gender identity.
When a doctor testified against the bill, noting that such bans negatively affect trans people’s well-being, Nicola replied, “I’m not going to listen to doctors that say one thing that disagrees with a God of creation. You want to kind of berate me a little bit by saying we should listen to what doctors have to say, what your schooling has to say, over what the scripture has to say — it’s not happening with me.”
Nicola may not realize that the Bible has several scriptures that theologians interpret as being supportive of trans people and their identities.
Aubrey and her wife are preparing to leave the United States for Costa Rica in January – a decision they haven’t taken lightly, after building a life as homeowners in upstate New York.
She says months of unease about the political climate in the United States – from debates over LGBT rights to concerns about basic safety – finally tipped them into making a plan to leave.
Her story is far from unique, according to a recent survey by US analytics firm Gallup which suggests 40% of American women aged 15 to 44 would move abroad if they had the opportunity.
These figures reflect aspirations rather than intentions, but they appear to highlight a trend that Gallup says began more than a decade ago – a growing number of younger American women reassessing where they see their futures.
The rise has also created the largest gender gap in migration aspirations that Gallup has ever recorded, with only 19% of younger men saying they want to leave the US.
Although Aubrey’s decision crystallised in the last few months, under the Trump presidency, the trend has been apparent for many years – starting at the end of the Obama administration, according to Gallup.
Pressures have been building on women from the left and the right, says Nadia E Brown, professor of government and chair of the women’s and gender studies at Georgetown University.
“It’s not just partisan politics,” says Professor Brown. “Women feel caught between expectations from both sides – traditional roles promoted by conservatives, and the pressures of progressive working life. Neither path guarantees autonomy or dignity, and that leaves women considering alternatives like moving abroad.”
Economic reasons like student loans, the rising cost of healthcare and the cost of home ownership are also factors in shaping young women’s decisions to forge a life in another country, she adds.
A recent survey from the Harris Poll – a US market research firm – suggested 40% of Americans have considered moving abroad, with many citing lower living costs as their main reason. The largest demographic groups thinking of moving were Gen Z and Millennials.
‘No strong work-life balance in US’
Kaitlin, 31, who moved from the US to Portugal four years ago, says there wasn’t one big reason why she decided to move abroad but she felt compelled to ditch her day job to explore a new life somewhere else.
“I was working a 9-to-5 in Los Angeles, and every day felt exactly the same. There’s not a strong work-life balance in the US. I wanted to live somewhere with a different pace, different cultures, and learn a new language.”
She now lives in Lisbon, works remotely as a freelancer, and says the lower cost of living and strong social culture have made her feel “more like a whole person again”.
“I can’t imagine ever going back to the US”, she says.
Despite the non-political nature of decisions made by people like Kaitlin, a clear political divide emerged in 2017, with those who disapproved of the Trump presidency far more likely to want to leave, according to the Gallup data, which was based on 1,000 interviews.
The number of young women expressing an interest in leaving actually fell this year compared with Biden’s final year in office but the gender gap has now reached its widest level.
Interest in moving abroad is also rising among Americans using platforms that help plan relocations and explore new countries. Expatsi, which offers scouting trips, expert consultations, and relocation services, has reported a spike in younger women’s interest in recent years.
“Expatsi data shows a clear gender trend,” says its co-founder Jen Barnett. “Our clientele has always been two-thirds or more women, but our first big bump in traffic came after Roe v Wade was overturned.”
‘Women’s rights were being stripped away in real time’
For Alyssa, a 34-year-old mother who moved from the US to Uruguay earlier this year, the decision to leave wasn’t just about lifestyle – it was a response to political and social pressures that felt immediate and personal.
She first began seriously thinking about leaving three years ago, after the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v Wade ruling – ending the constitutional right to abortion in the US – but didn’t make the move until early 2025.
“I have children and I don’t plan on having more, but the increasing governance of women’s bodies terrified me. I felt like women’s rights were being stripped away in real time,” she explains.
As a Latina, she felt unsafe because of rhetoric around immigration in the US, even as a US citizen. “I genuinely feared being detained in front of my kids,” she says.
Confidence in major US institutions drops
Another related issue on which a gender divide appears to have widened is the matter of Americans’ trust in institutions, including the Supreme Court.
This has also sunk to historic lows, according to data from Gallup. Just 26% of Americans say they trust the presidency, 14% trust Congress and fewer than half express confidence in the court.
But the decline has been especially precipitous among young women.
Their scores have fallen by 17 points since 2015 – the sharpest decline of any demographic. Confidence dropped during both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Some women are also weighing practical concerns like healthcare, and climate – factors that can tip the balance when considering a move abroad.
Marina plans to leave the US for Portugal next May with her boyfriend. “Healthcare not being a human right in this country is a huge part of why we’re leaving.”
“We also want to live somewhere where gun violence is unlikely,” she added, citing a decades-old issue in America. “In Portugal it’s much harder to get a gun – that alone makes life feel safer.”
For Marina and her boyfriend, the challenges at home have made the decision to leave the US more urgent – including the nightmare of his house flooding during increasingly extreme weather, another issue that has intensified in recent decades.
“We’re tired of the climate here – it’s become unbearably hot, and it feels like there’s a natural disaster every year now.”
Her concerns reflect a broader mix of economic, environmental and safety pressures drawing younger women towards Europe and elsewhere.
A global trend
Younger American women were previously less likely than those in other advanced economies to see their futures abroad, Gallup has documented, a trend that has reversed since the late 2000s and early 2010s.
But Professor Brown says this “isn’t just a US problem”.
“Women in many countries are navigating similar challenges. The US just happens to be one where these pressures are particularly visible and acute,” she says.
Access to subsidies for childcare and healthcare, which are more common in Europe, can impact an American woman’s decision to move abroad.
“People don’t realise how far behind the US is on maternal care, parental leave, and healthcare,” Alyssa says, “until they leave the country.”
Across the country, LGBTQ+ Americans, people of color, women, religious minorities, and others who feel newly vulnerable under the second Trump administration are quietly constructing “Plan B” escape strategies: securing second residencies, lining up alternate passports, moving assets offshore, scouting communities abroad, or mapping literal escape routes to sanctuary states or neighboring countries.
Some are wealthy enough to buy investment visas in Europe. Others are applying for digital nomad permits that require little more than proof of remote income. Still others are assembling go-bags, stockpiling medication, or rehearsing how they would reach the Canadian border if federal restrictions tightened.
But the phenomenon, a blend of dread, pragmatism, and resignation, is unmistakably rising. None of the people interviewed for this story wants to leave their country. All emphasized that they hope their Plan B remains unused.
They are preparing anyway, because, they say, preparation now feels like survival.
A business built on American anxiety
Eric Major, CEO of the London-based global migration firm Latitude, says his American business has undergone a transformation.
“What used to be a 90 percent, ‘I’m not moving, but I want an insurance policy,’ is now turning into, ‘No, I am moving,’” Major said. “People are saying, ‘I don’t like what I’m hearing or what I’m living or what I’m experiencing.’”
Major, whose company operates across Europe and the Americas, says the shift began in late 2023 and accelerated after Trump’s second inauguration in January, when the administration moved quickly to reinstate the transgendermilitary ban, strip LGBTQ+ recognition from federal websites, and target health care and civil rights protections.
For LGBTQ+ clients, timelines are now one of the first concerns.
The timeline: from 30 days to two years
Major stressed that processing times vary dramatically depending on the country, the type of visa, and how overwhelmed that nation is by American demand.
He says some countries operate at almost lightning speed: Costa Rica, Panama, and other smaller jurisdictions can process residency in as little as 30 to 60 days, depending on background checks and documentation. Malta, too, can process a residency application in approximately three months, making it one of the faster European programs, Major said.
Meanwhile, he noted, countries like Portugal offer popular pathways but now struggle under the sheer volume of applicants. Major said that Portugal’s processing time ranges from six months on the low end to nearly two years on the high end, describing it as a country “victim of its own success.”
Canada, from where Major is originally from, he added, has become similarly stretched; in his experience, no one should expect to receive anything there in under 18 months.
He also emphasized the importance of timing and planning in the application process. Suppose clients know they cannot move until a certain date. In that case, he says the firm essentially reverse-engineers the application, starting preparations early but holding submission to align with a client’s planned departure. Some countries require newly approved residents to arrive almost immediately after approval, he said, which means planning a move is as important as qualifying for one.
‘America is not a safe place in my mind right now’
For “Mark,” not his real name, a gay New Yorker who works as both a physician and a consultant, the ability to pursue multiple residencies is directly tied to his financial circumstances, something he is quick to acknowledge.
He describes himself as “speaking from a very affluent gay perspective,” noting that he has the freedom to work remotely, the savings to invest abroad, and the professional flexibility to relocate. “I have the ability to do such things,” he said. “For me, it was a very no-brainer decision.”
He said the speed at which he could leave mattered as much as the destination.
“When Trump was in office first, I saw the writing on the wall,” Mark told The Advocate in an interview. “I decided one needed an escape mechanism from the United States.”
Mark obtained residency in Portugal, formed a company to gain residency in Panama, and secured status in a Caribbean country. These routes required financial resources, but he stressed that even many of his patients, including those with modest means, are pursuing lower-cost options such as digital nomad visas or temporary residency permits.
Mark said that a significant portion of his own patient population is preparing similar contingency plans. “At least 40 percent of my patients, and 100 percent of my gay patients, all have other residencies now.”
He pointed to Spain’s digital nomad visa, noting that one only needs to show roughly $3,000 in monthly income to qualify. In that program, he said, people can obtain residency and health care after a few years, then become eligible for citizenship after that.
The process brought him a profound sense of security.
“America is not a safe place in my mind right now,” he said. “I’m not going to allow my rights to be taken away from me by some insane lunatic.”
For trans Americans, the calculus is existential
For transgender Americans, the stakes feel even sharper.
Robert, a transgender man in his 60s living in a blue coastal state, began planning immediately after Trump’s inauguration, when the administration reimposed the transgender military ban and targeted trans people’s access to accurate passports and federal recognition.
“I thought we were headed down an authoritarian path — maybe even fascist,” Robert said. “The probability wasn’t zero.”
He initially researched so-called golden passports in the Caribbean, but quickly realized two issues: several of the countries selling them were not LGBTQ+ friendly, and the programs often required investments of $200,000 to $300,000 without guaranteeing a safe environment.
He instead turned to residency programs in Europe and selected Malta, which he identified as one of the most LGBTQ-protective countries in the world. Robert is now deep into the process: he has submitted all documentation, paid the first government fee, and is awaiting final approval before traveling for a required biometric appointment.
But immigration paperwork is only part of his Plan B. Robert has also stockpiled testosterone, a controlled substance, in case access becomes restricted. He has consulted attorneys to secure his real estate holdings, mapped out strategies for exiting the country if his passport is invalidated, and established protocols with his financial institution so that, with a single trigger phrase, his liquid assets can be moved or protected. He said the financial professionals he spoke to did not consider him paranoid; instead, they viewed these preparations as reasonable under the circumstances.
He also acknowledged that his preparation is not something every trans person can do. “My situation is privileged and unique,” he said. “The only thing I tell other trans folks is to at least make a Plan B, even if it’s just knowing how to get to a sanctuary state or across the border.”
For Robert, the red line that would prompt immediate departure is if the government starts signaling that transgender people’s passports could be restricted or invalidated. He said that any move toward requiring trans people to carry identifying markers or any early signs of authoritarian control would also trigger his exit. “Anything akin to the initial steps taken by a fascist regime,” he said.
A new American story
Beyond the logistics and financial planning, the emotional weight of this new reality is heavy.
“People don’t think of what their choices do to people like me,” Robert said. “There’s this level of apathy.”
Mark expressed a similar warning. “Don’t be too late,” he said. “When they start taking passports away and closing borders, it’s too late.”
Major sees this shift reflected in nearly every conversation he has with American clients today. While the process begins with lifestyle questions, financial disclosures, and paperwork, he says the deeper shift is psychological. “Americans are asking: If it gets really bad, where do I go?”
Everyone interviewed emphasized the same hope: that they will never need to use their Plan B.
But preparation itself has become a form of survival.
“I feel it’s a good feeling to be prepared,” Robert said. “I hope I never have to use it. But I’m not willing to gamble my future.”
Mark echoed him, reflecting on how drastically the national mood has shifted. “People usually moved to the United States for better lives. Now people are leaving the United States for better lives.”
The grim consequences for transgender students in Texas are coming into focus three months after the state’s sweeping new Don’t Say Gay legislation went into effect in September.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed the so-called “Bill of Parental Rights” in June, a draconian right-wing wishlist of MAGA priorities banning discussion of LGBTQ+ identity and race in classrooms, shutting down gay-straight student alliances (GSAs) on school campuses, and explicitly prohibiting school staff from supporting trans students, alongside other restrictive measures.
The prohibitions around social transition mean kids known to their classmates and teachers by their preferred name and identity for years are now being deadnamed and forced to assume an identity they’d abandoned long ago.
Ethan Brignac, a trans student at Wylie East High School northeast of Dallas, has been known by his chosen name since seventh grade. With the new legislation in effect, the high school senior lobbied teachers to continue using it.
“In the first week of school, when I was kind of trying to convince my teachers to call me Ethan, I was like, ‘Hey, look, it’s still on my ID.’”
“Then one of my teachers this year said, ‘Okay, they’re gonna fix that soon.’”
Three weeks later, school administrators called him to the library and gave him a new ID. Ethan was now officially identified by his deadname.
He says some teachers seem to make a point of working his legal name into every interaction, he told the Texas Tribune, outing him to peers and rekindling the dread he felt in his time before Ethan.
“It was definitely a big change having my deadname kind of sprawled everywhere,” he said, “It was like, wow, okay, that wasn’t just a social media post I saw, this is real life.”
A school spokesperson confirmed the change was “to ensure full compliance with state law, including Senate Bill 12.”
In the Leander school district north of Austin, faculty may continue to call students by their preferred name, if it was done prior to SB 12’s implementation. But for new students, the use of their chosen names and pronouns is banned. Parents can request a name change, but those updates are only allowed if they’re unrelated to social transitioning, said Conner Carlow, a classroom support specialist in the district.
Carlow grappled with his own sexuality as a middle schooler and recalled how hard it was.
“I wasn’t telling my parents what was going on, so I imagine these kids aren’t either,” Carlow said. “The fact they’re willing to tell us before even the parents is a big deal, and now the fact that we have to just not accept them, I mean, it’s awful.”
The school board in Conroe, Texas, north of Houston, was among the first in Texas to bar teachers from using gender-affirming names and pronouns.
At Woodlands High School in the district, junior Cassie Hilborn had planned to come out as trans, but the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation stripped her of her confidence, she says.
“It feels like every day I look at the news and then the headline just reads, ‘Sorry, more things you’ve lost.’”
Cassie takes refuge at the school’s Dungeons & Dragons club, where classmates and a faculty adviser call her by her chosen name. She lodges a small protest against SB 12 by hiding the deadname on her school ID under blue masking tape.
But Cassie remains discouraged, she said.
“Now, even teachers that might have respected my identity have been told that they unequivocally are not allowed to do so,” Cassie said.
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