Following a decade of increased tolerance and protections for queer and gender-diverse communities, recent rhetoric and policy changes under President Donald Trump have contributed to a more hostile environment for the LGBTQ+ individuals, creating more negative attitudes and fueling a rising level of hatred, prejudice and fear that affects the daily lives, safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ individuals in various ways.

Mitchell Lunn, an Associate Dean for Research and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, who focuses on LGBTQ+ health disparities and health equity, said the LGBTQ+ community has made significant headway in recent years. 

“In the past decade there’s been a lot of progress,” Lunn said. “We’ve seen … greater structural things or policy-related things that have helped the fight for equity and equality.” 

At the same time, the United States has experienced a steady increase of anti-trans legislation. The number of anti-trans bills considered nationwide has risen from 153 in 2021 to 701 in 2024. So far, in 2025, 1,000 bills that would negatively impact trans and gender non-conforming individuals are under consideration across the country, with that number expected to grow.  

Lunn said recent actions targeting the LGBTQ+ community hinder hard-fought progress. 

“The biggest things we’re seeing are a lot of the executive orders, things that are against gender ideology,” Lunn said. “These are trying really to erase the existence of transgender and gender diverse people, saying that their gender identity is invalid, and that gender doesn’t really exist at all.”

Lunn said this leads to greater prejudice and discrimination. 

“I think people are now more likely to be stigmatized or discriminated against because … the filters have been turned off effectively, and people are saying things that are quite hurtful,” Lunn said. “We’re seeing that rhetoric and that narrative coming from some of the highest levels of government, which I think can be very hurtful for people.” 

This political rhetoric doesn’t only affect people on the national level. Senior Dorian Luo, who uses they/them pronouns, said recent political changes have affected the LGBTQ+ community in every aspect of their lives. 

“It’s kind of taking away our rights to exist in public, like the bathroom bills and other stuff like that,” Luo said. “But I think it’s part of a larger movement among conservatives, of a culture war against trans people, almost like painting us as the scapegoat to distract from larger issues.”

Freshman Pine Paldi Bracho, who also uses they/them pronouns, said anti-LGBTQ+ views aren’t new but have been promoted by the Trump administration. 

“It’s (the government) not really changing, it’s just kind of furthering,” Paldi Bracho said. “It’s polarizing, and the Trump administration is amplifying it for its own political gain.”

Lunn said one reason for this change is due to an increased resistance towards diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

“A lot of it is a largely false narrative that people from diverse backgrounds are taking positions over other people because of their diversity, … because of their LGBTQ+ identity, which I actually think is not the case,” Lunn said. 

However, Lunn said discrimination and marginalization is a common trend throughout history. 

“For whatever reason, there’s always a group that gets picked on or bullied in the path to justice or liberation,” Lunn said. “We’ve seen that with a variety of other groups over time. These groups get blamed for things, almost scapegoated. There’s really no real objective reason other than people might find them to be different, and that difference for whatever reason can be threatening to people when, in fact, (it) largely has little to no impact on most people’s lives.”

According to Lunn, this marginalization has recently been amplified as the federal government has begun removing or altering references to LGBTQ+ history. Recently, National Park Service websites mentioning the Stonewall Riots, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the Lavender Scare now only include contributions of gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals, downplaying the roles of transgender and gender diverse groups. Other webpages educating the public on famous LGBTQ+ activists, monuments and events have also been deleted. 

Paldi Bracho said these actions pursued by the Trump administration are intended to silence essential history. 

“I think they’re erasing history, to prevent us from having role models and to further this notion that we’re new,” Bracho said. “But we’re not new. We’ve been around for thousands and thousands of years.”

And Lunn said a history of resilience gives him hope. 

“We’ve been around forever, and there’s no reason, just because somebody says you’re unimportant, (that) doesn’t make an entire group of people disappear,” Lunn said. “And so I think this might be tough for the next couple years, with lots of struggles that feel like we’ve taken a couple steps backwards, but I think we have to stick to it in order to make the future better. And I’m quite confident that that will happen, because that’s the way it’s happened for the past hundreds of years.”

Changes to the LGBTQ+ community have not been confined to terminology and rhetoric. Several federal actions have had a direct impact on transgender individuals’ ability to obtain medical care.

President Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 28 called “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order states that the U.S. will not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another,” and will “rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”

Currently, 27 states have banned gender-affirming care for those under 18. As of July 2025, 40.1% of transgender youth aged 13-17 live in these 27 states, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an American LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

A Bay Area family doctor who is involved in pediatric gender-affirming care but requested anonymity due to fear of retribution said the Trump administration’s actions against this care have changed the landscape.

“Since the administration started, the main difference that I’ve seen is the amount of fear that people are experiencing in their daily lives,” she said. “Before, my conversations were centered around the patient experience … but now every single visit we have conversations about what the current administration is doing, what risks have come up … to decrease access to care and what we are going to do to try and help protect them.”

According to the doctor, the federal government’s attempts to end pediatric gender-affirming care has done more than strike fear in the transgender community.

“There’s just so much suffering on a daily basis and just intersectional despair,” she said. “I feel like the environment has just become consistently negative. Folks are expressing a lot of fear all the time in many of my patient visits. There are tears from kids, families, as well as adults, just reflecting on how they feel unsafe in their communities and how they feel targeted and persecuted. I think the emotional toll and the emotional stress is significant.”

The doctor said she was also frustrated that the government’s actions against gender-affirming care is based on belief rather than fact.

“I think that they are bogus,” she said. “I think they’re trying to legislate discrimination and intolerance. They are basing their decisions not on science, but on very conservative opinions.”

Gender dysphoria, the psychological distress experienced when a person’s gender identity does not align with their assigned sex at birth, is closely linked with increased rates of mental health concerns. Many experts say access to gender-affirming care at any age can significantly improve mental health. 

A 2021 study done by researchers from the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+ youths, surveyed nearly 12,000 transgender or non-binary individuals aged 13-24. The study found that individuals who were using gender-affirming hormone therapy had lower odds of considering suicide and reported less recent depression compared to those who wanted care but did not receive it. 

Researchers at Harvard Medical School surveyed nearly 28,000 transgender adults in the U.S. and also found consistent results of a lower rate of suicidal ideation when individuals received gender-affirming hormones at any time throughout their life.

Yet the conversation is not clear-cut. The Standards of Care outlined by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health recommends against hormone therapy before age 16 and suggests that surgery only be performed after age 18 and once the individual has lived in their desired gender role for at least two years. Still, their recommendations are flexible and emphasize that decisions should be individualized and based on medical, psychological and social factors.

While many experts and members of the transgender community support gender-affirming care for minors, some argue it should not be accessible for any minors. 

Chloe Cole, a prominent “detransitioner,” has been a face of the movement against access to youth gender-affirming care. Cole was born female but transitioned to male and later received a mastectomy at 15. However, Cole said she felt uncomfortable in her male identity and detransitioned at age 16. 

Like many opponents of gender-affirming care for minors, Cole has argued children are not ready to make gender-affirming care decisions for themselves. In a video posted on X, Cole said a combination of body image issues, sexual trauma and early puberty led her to transition.

“All of these things culminated in me misunderstanding myself and the way that I was made,” Cole said in the video. 

Yet most people who receive gender-affirming care do not regret it. A study done by researchers at the University of Princeton surveyed 220 youths who accessed gender-affirming care. At an average of around 5 years after beginning hormone blockers and an average of around 3.4 years after beginning hormones, only 0.04% of participants reported regretting their decisions to receive treatment. 

And in an analysis of 27 studies involving almost 8,000 teens and adults who had transgender surgeries, on average, only 1% expressed regret.

Why such vocal opposition to gender affirming care recently, then? Honey Mahogany, a transgender drag queen, activist and politician from San Francisco said people may also oppose gender-affirming care because of fear and misinformation. 

“We’re seeing this pushback against something that has actually been very well researched,” Mahogany said. “When you use a possible attack on your children as the start of a conversation, it makes people excited and animated, and it also makes them more susceptible to misinformation … You’re not looking at the facts as much. You’re reacting much more emotionally.”

Under the Trump administration, government actions, including investigations and subpoenas by the Department of Justice, have created uncertainty for hospitals and patients alike.

U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi issued a memorandum on April 22 instructing the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute providers of youth gender-affirming care “to the fullest extent possible.”

A few months later, on July 9, the Department of Justice announced it had sent more than 20 subpoenas to hospitals performing pediatric-gender affirming care.

These government-issued subpoenas, the anonymous doctor said, have caused some hospitals to anticipatorily close their programs. 

“We’re supposed to have protected information, and (the subpoenas) caused a lot of fear and a lot of programs to preemptively comply and close their programs in … fear of getting targeted,” she said.

More protections exist for transgender individuals in California than at the federal level though. In 2023, California passed the Transgender, Gender Diverse, and Intersex Inclusive Care Act, which protects Californians’ rights to gender-affirming care and prohibits the forced sharing of medical records from California health care providers and health care service plans in response to subpoenas or investigations from other states.

On Feb. 5, the California Department of Justice sent the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles a letter reminding the hospital of California laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. 

“California families seeking gender affirming care, and the doctors and staff who provide it, are protected under state laws,” the letter reads. “The Office of the Attorney General will continue to defend California law.”

However, on July 22, CHLA closed its gender-affirming care center, which was one of the oldest and most prominent in the country. The hospital cited Trump’s executive order as the reason for its decision. The decision marked another victory in the Trump administration’s battle to end gender-affirming care for individuals under the age of 19. 

“I think that it has been very disheartening to see such a large organization fancifully comply that way,” the doctor said.

She also said funding cuts could be potentially devastating for many hospitals.

“We are definitely at great risk because we are dependent on federal funding for our ability to care for the whole community,” she said. “(Public) health care providers (are) for a very large area, so it would be pretty profoundly destructive if our grant funding was taken away. In that case, we would have to stop (gender-affirming) care because we’re in charge of 30,000 people.”

Other prominent gender-affirming care centers, such as Kaiser Permanente and Stanford, have stopped offering surgeries for those under 19, citing threats to funding. 

“After careful review of the latest actions and directives from the federal government and following consultations with clinical leadership, including our multidisciplinary LGBTQ+ program and its providers, Stanford Medicine paused providing gender-related surgical procedures as part of our comprehensive range of medical services for LGBTQ+ patients under the age of 19, effective June 2, 2025,” Stanford Medicine wrote in a statement. 

The Campanile contacted multiple other gender-affirming care doctors and all declined interviews, citing fear of retribution from the federal government as their reason.

Stanford Hospital officials also declined to comment but sent a statement to The Campanile that read, “Unfortunately, due to the intricate nature of gender-affirming care and recent federal developments, we cannot accommodate (any) media requests on this subject at the moment.”

While government actions have inspired fear around the country, some states are fighting back.

Eight days after President Trump’s executive order, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha and 14 other attorneys general issued a statement in support of gender-affirming care on Feb. 5. 

“Health care decisions should be made by patients, families, and doctors, not by a politician trying to use his power to restrict your freedoms,” the statement said.

In addition, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, 15 other states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Aug. 1 targeting Trump’s executive order aiming to end pediatric gender-affirming care. The lawsuit declared Trump’s executive orders banning care for individuals under the age of 19 to be unlawful and called for them to be “vacated in their entirety.” The lawsuit focuses on the lack of scientific evidence to back up the executive order and says the language “chemical and surgical mutilation” is offensive and not medically recognized. 

According to a Gallup poll, 9.3% of Americans identify as LGBTQ, nearly double the number in 2020. 

A recent Pew Research Center study found 61% of LGBTQ adults say there’s at least a “fair amount” of acceptance for people who are gay or lesbian. About 52% say the same for people who are bisexual. Far fewer say there’s a fair amount of acceptance for people who are nonbinary (14%) or transgender (13%).

With the sizable increase in the LGBTQ+ population and ongoing disparities in acceptance, teacher Aparna Sankararaman, who identifies as lesbian, said there has been an online shift in how the public views that group.

“I feel like I haven’t noticed the shift in in-person interactions like walking down the street with my wife,” Sankararaman said. “But I have definitely seen a shift online on social media for different accounts, where I feel like people online are feeling a lot more empowered to dismiss the LGBTQ community and to sort of devalue our identities.”

Tony Bravo, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle who covers the LGBTQ+ community and who identifies as gay, said we are currently in a moment that presents many challenges to the LGBTQ+ community. 

“I think our transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming community members are truly getting the worst of it right now,” Bravo said. “But I fear for what is in store for the rest of us, especially around issues like employment, housing, other equal protections  and specifically marriage equality, as much as it scares me to admit that as somebody (who) is married. We’re in a moment where I think people are trying to suppress certain voices.”

Bravo said he has faced similar pressures in his own life, prior to his work at the Chronicle. 

“Someone who was a well-intentioned person formerly in a leadership position in the Bay Area … said to me, ‘I really wish you wouldn’t just write about gay issues,’” Bravo said. “And I sort of thought to myself, nobody ever says, ‘I wish you wouldn’t just write about white people.’” 

For Surya Gannerkote, a senior at Palo Alto Middle College, these obstacles have appeared in a completely different area of her life: chess.

Gannerkote was born intersex, meaning she has biological sex characteristics that are a combination of traits typically associated with male and female bodies. She has an “X” on her birth certificate gender marker instead of “M” or “F.” 

Earlier this year, Gannerkote said she was scheduled to fly to Orlando for a chess tournament, but she was unable to attend the event because of a Florida law allowing the detainment of transgender minors with gender markers other than “M” or “F” on their identifying documents.

“Not being able to go for the chess tournament because I wasn’t able to get my gender marker changed in time, that did take a big toll,” Gannerkote said. “That was a big opportunity loss.”

A former PAUSD parent who moved out of the country with her family amid recent anti-LGBTQ+ government policies  said these policies have intensified fear and uncertainty in her family.

The parent agreed to be interviewed only if The Campanile didn’t use her name because she fears for the safety of her transgender daughter.

“As a parent with a child who is in stealth mode where no one knows, it’s really hard to know who I can trust to tell about my child,” the parent said. “I first always have to confirm with my child before I speak with any other adult. So that’s the dynamic for us, and I 100% respect her for that.”

The parent said anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric from the Trump administration has raised questions about her daughter’s future.

“What does it mean medically, what does it mean socially?” the parent said. “How do other people deal with these issues? There’s a lot of issues with the government. For example, your passport or your birth certificate. Or the medical track: you need to find a good therapist. You need to find a good doctor.”

Gannerkote agrees and said the recent shifts are negatively impacting the everyday lives of transgender individuals. 

“A lot of people are discouraged from becoming athletes, and it’s had a negative toll on the mental health of the community,” Gannerkote said. “Increased activity directly correlates to higher levels of mental health stability and just overall well being, so that’s definitely taken its toll on us, because we’re discouraged from partaking in sports or in more physical activities.”

And despite the debate about transgender athletes, Mahogany said it is unfair to assume an individual is transitioning just to win at sports.

“It is so hard for anybody who’s trans to actually make the decision to transition,” Mahogany said. “It is so disruptive to people’s lives, their families. It involves a lot of pain … It’s unfortunate that we have seen this type of rhetoric that is inflammatory, that is certainly very targeted and really used as a tool of division and of distraction.”

Even in the face of difficulty, Gannerkote said she thinks the LGBTQ+ community has reason to be hopeful.

“Being united, being strong together, and being able to provide an open space, a safe space for other people … I think if we stand together, we’ll be fine,” Gannerkote said. “We’ve faced worse things as a community before.”

Building on this sense of resilience, Mahogany said the community will fight back against the Trump administration’s attempt to categorize the LGBTQ+ community into narrow boxes. 

“Trans people, drag queens, gay people, we see those boxes for what they are, which are things that are just completely made up and artificial,” Mahogany said. “And, we don’t have to play in that box if we don’t want to. In fact, we actually choose to move out of that box and create our own box for ourselves. And oftentimes it is really fabulous and beautiful.”

This act of defiance, Mahogany said, points to the admirable strength of the entire community.

“I often say there’s nothing more American than being trans, because to me, as someone who was born here but whose family came here seeking refuge from political persecution, America was supposed to be the land of the free, the home of the brave,” Mahogany said. “Who is freer and braver than somebody who’s willing to completely change their lives and live authentically as they want to live?”