I think this is one of those things that's stunning, in all the worst ways, and most of them aren't obvious.
Let's start with the basics: there are about 5.5 million trans Americans. This means that *nearly 10% of the entire trans population of the nation* has moved.
Just
Last
Year
Really sit with that for a moment.
The only comparable historical mass-movement like it is The Great Migration, in which about 40% of the Black population of America moved north, to safer states.
Over a period of *sixty years*.
And the trans population isn't as concentrated as the Black population was.
According to the 2022 USTS, about 60ish percent of trans Americans lived somewhere in the American south. That means that about 3.3 million trans Americans lived in those high-danger states, of which 400,000 moved.
That's over 12% of the trans population of the region.
And, like any mass-migration, the folks moving first are those most able to. People with money, family, connections--this migration is ***noooooot*** over.
If this keeps up, percentage-wise, it may be the most rapid non-forced (ie Trail of Tears) mass-migration in American history.
I could absolutely be wrong here, to be clear. If I am, I'd appreciate any sociologists or historians popping in to correct me.
But over 12% of a demographic fleeing a region in a year is beyond flabbergasting to me.
It's more than that, though.
According to research from *a year ago*, almost half of all trans people are considering moving for their safety. Remember that 60ish% of all trans people live in the south.
So, let's do a little napkin math here.
If 50 percentage points of a population that constitutes 60 percentage points wants to move, that means that 83% of the people in those states want to move, give or take.
Now, that number isn't quite good. On one hand, we'll have folks in, say, Wisconsin who want to skip town to Minnesota in there. On the other, Colorado is in the regions I'm talking about, and not many trans folks are leaving there, and for pretty good reason.
So, the real percentage needs to be lower, to account for dangerous states outside of the south, but what that is? Impossible to know.
But the point here is deeply disturbing: if even half of that percentage actually act, it would, percentage-point-wise, be a migration equal to that if The Great Migration.
And there's absolutely no way to slice this that's not horrifying.
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/trans-moving-press-release/
@Impossible_PhD A friend of mine in Texas compared the migration from there to the AIDS epidemic in terms of its scope; so many people leaving, and no one knew who would be gone next.
Said friend let her lease end, and is staying with a friend while she seeks employment in friendlier locations.
@NicolaElle @Impossible_PhD anecdotally these numbers fit my experience as someone who lives in a state people are moving to. I live in a very small town that is a very red area in a very blue state but our local LGBTQ group is seeing a small uptick of people moving from southern states.
I also work at a very small college and in the past year we went from zero trans fems to three that I know of. I know 2 of them are transfer students fleeing southern states. Don’t know about the third. Trans masc population has been holding steady. We have always had a few and still have a few.
@GoldenRetrieverGF @thatfrisiangirlish @screwturn @Impossible_PhD
This is probably a really difficult (impossible?) study to do because it would involve Americans now living all over the world, but I would be curious as to what the “already left the country" numbers are. I also am one of those.
@sophiesometimes @GoldenRetrieverGF @thatfrisiangirlish @screwturn @Impossible_PhD
Moi aussi!
And, yeah, we already know multiple people who've moved here from the US in the last 9 months. My wife has a coworker who moved shortly after us. There's a (cis?) lesbian couple in my wife's French class who moved. A few others we know of. And we're not even that well-connected!
@GoldenRetrieverGF
All true
But for those whom leaving the country entirely is not a practical option, Blue States at least offer something slightly better.
I would happily move to a place that values writers, but alas, few want OLD writers
@Impossible_PhD This is what happens when people have to either flee or fight an openly announced genocide.
My trans friends are fighting a war of survival and I stand with them. I know if they are defeated nonmonagamous Gay and Bi men like myself are next in line. As I warn my partners, the time to fight is NOW.
@Impossible_PhD
Experts are warning U.S. in early stages of Genocide against TransAmericans.
Genocide scholars say policies targeting transgender Americans match early warning signs of mass atrocity.This piece has been updated from its original email version.Genocide scholars are sounding the alarm over what they describe as escalating attacks targeting transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Americans in the United States.Experts, including two former presidents of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), warn that the nation may already be in the early stages of committ
Net migration from Texas alone would be staggering, I think. (Edited to add: Because it's big, highly populated, and one of the worst states for trans rights and getting worse FAST)
I'm one of them. And I know several more trans folks that left before me, several that left after me, and several more planning to move within the next year.
impact
Over 400,000 transgender people have fled their home states for safer ones since the 2024 election.
A key ring with two keys and a transgender pride flag key fob.
This marks one of the largest domestic relocations in modern U.S. history.
@Impossible_PhD #Alt4You image description (you may be able to update your post to make it more accessible): "Over 400,000 transgender people have fled their home states for safer ones since the 2024 election
This marks one of the largest domestic relocations in modern U.S. history."
@lilo @katronoris the Williams numbers are absolute garbage and are known to be garbage--they pull their samples from CDC epidemiological data on transness,not direct sampling, and the CDC only even attempts to capture medically-transitioning trans folks... Which are only about 50% of the trans population, per the 2022 USTS. Even if we ignore that, minorities of all kinds consistently underreport their minority statuses to governments, because governments have a nasty habit of using those data to genocide them.
That list keeps growing. I might be moving within a month or two after I started pursuing the most awesome opportunity last week and it is getting real 🥰
@Impossible_PhD I would've left the US faster if I could. I had to leave for the States midway through immigrating, got denied entry, and had to start the process from scratch in the US. Given that I'm literally just waiting on the PR card, I might have been able to be a card-carrying immigrant before 2025 ended if that didn't happen.
I lived in Chicago previously since 2017. Were it not for the way the election went and the federal policy changes, I would've died, ideally of old age, in Chicago. The city saved my life, but I got tired of being a Cassandra after over a year of begging every trans person I had interactions with to take this shit seriously, to prepare to either flee or face literal warfare.
While I may have been wrong about warfare, that's mostly because I overestimated how violent the response to what ICE is doing would be.
@disorderlyf @Impossible_PhD You are not wrong about warfare, it's just a "low intensity conflict" at this moment. It's not a cold civil war anymore though, it's more like the Troubles in Northern Ireland or the Years of Lead in Greece.
I cannot even keep track of all the assasinations and attempts anymore. We have had members of one party (the GOP) burning homes of members of their main rivals(the Dems) while those homes were occupied.
We've had Trump's Gestapo and SS (ICE and CPB)occupying multiple cities and battles fought in the streets to resist the occupations. In Minneapolis we are winning most of the battles but we've had three people shot with two dead by enemy forces there-JUST in Minneapolis and all in one month.
Armed National Guard on US streets are not an uncommon sight in many places, though to their credit blue state National Guard troops often seem to be deploying the "work to rule" style slowdown to avoid fighting for Trump. In DC there were National Guard patrols last fall studiously cleaning up litter from the roads while ICE got their ass kicked by a crowd less than a mile away.
If ICE or CBP shows up to kidnap a specific person and counterattack by resistance fighters pins them down while that person escapes, by definition that battle is a defeat for Trumpist forces. This is because they enter the battle with a specific goal and defenders prevented them from reaching that goal.
Trumpist forces are trying to make posessing anarchist literature a felony. A bill in Florida would make "material support" to any ideology on a ban list a FELONY. Such laws are enforced by roadside ambushes and armed house raids, both of which can turn into unpleasant surprises for the attackers at any time.
Multiple CBP offices were shot up last year (one right after the i\Inauguration), though the Texas Prarieland ICE detention center noise demo case with its unknown facts seems to have overshadowed all of thm.
We had the Tesla fires a year ago, in an early offensive against Trump and DOGE. The majority of the underground fighters behind those fires appear to have escaped.
Now we've had three fires (one with a propane tank in it) in potential ICE warehouses in barely over a week.
The real achievement in Minneapolis is this: the backbone of the fighting is not career activists but self-organized fed up civilians who became resistance fighters out of necessity. A full quarter of the city participated in the biggest general strike in some way and many businesses closed for the day. About 8% of the city did not show up for work that day. On the Northern Front, we are winning and Trump is losing, one battle at a time.
@LukefromDC @Impossible_PhD While I suspect you're right, I want to specify that what I expected when ICE/CBP did start shooting civilians was more more deadly and more one-sided. (at least, initially) I expected us to be at tens or hundreds or casualties within the first few months. I expected millions of unambiguous American citizens sheltering in place for fear of being shot for allegedly aiding "illegal" immigrants. (when I say unambiguous, I unfortunately mean white, given how racist the administration is in their enforcement) It's frankly a miracle I was wrong about that, that whistles and phone cameras were as effective as they have been.
It's almost entirely certain more people were shot and/or killed, given we learned of someone who got shot much sooner by ICE only just recently. I only hope that the success of nonviolent or far less violent action against CBP/ICE is indicative of how badly it'll go if things truly do escalate to the point where merely having a whistle and a phone won't be enough to prevent anyone from being shot.
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