Trans families consider leaving U.S. after Trump’s re-election

Barbara Fowler has a go bag in the trunk of her car. In it are her family’s documents, burner phones, clothes, medications and an address of a house in Canada — ready, should her family need to flee their country. 

Fowler lives in the United States.

Her daughter is one of the 1.6 million American citizens who identify as transgender — one in five of which are between the ages of 13 and 17, according to the Williams Institute think-tank at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

Donald Trump’s re-election as president has filled Fowler with extraordinary anxiety.

“I cry and I rage and I carry so much fear for my family,” said Fowler, who asked CBC News not to use her real name, location or the name of her daughter. “I don’t know with this administration what will happen.”

Fowler, like many parents of transgender children in the U.S., has been reeling after Trump took office a few weeks ago. In his inauguration speech, the president said, “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.” 

The statement makes it illegal for transgender Americans to mark an X on their passports and other documentation. The marker was previously allowed for people who identify as non-binary, intersex, transgender or gender non-conforming while their documents go through the process of being updated to reflect their affirmed genders. 

In a series of executive orders signed in his first days as president, Trump also halted funding for gender-affirming health care and ordered federal employees to remove preferred pronouns from their signatures, measures that could come into effect in as soon as 60 days.

“My daughter is beautiful, she has great friends, she plays the clarinet, she is so happy,” said Fowler. “And now we are in limbo, because we don’t know if she’ll be able to continue to get the medical care she needs to transition or use the washroom in her school she feels comfortable in.”

Fowler says her daughter came out to her and her husband at the age of 11, telling them she never felt comfortable in her own body. Fowler admits she struggled with the revelation at first and cried for months knowing the path ahead would be difficult for her daughter. But not supporting her was never an option.

“We always told her that if she changed her mind, we’d understand,” Fowler said. “But she never wavered. She just knew who she was and deep down, we did, too.”

The clinic in the Midwest town where Fowler’s daughter receives care is currently deciding how and if they will continue to operate once government funding is pulled. In the meantime, Fowler has identified a clinic in Canada that could treat her daughter, if it comes to that.

Fowler isn’t the only American parent of a trans child contemplating a move to Canada.

Canadian law firm getting dozens of calls a day

Joycna Kang, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, says that since the inauguration, she has fielded dozens of calls from trans Americans inquiring how they could move here.

“Most of them are scared, wondering if they can claim asylum here,” Kang said. “Typically, those claims have been hard, because what you have to prove is that the state is unwilling or unable to protect you and that there’s nowhere else in your country that you can go and live safely. Now, with these changes that have been happening and these orders that have been passed down, I think we’re seeing a much clearer picture of the [U.S.] state being the agent of persecution.”

A year and a half ago, Kelli, who also asked that CBC not use her surname, moved her family of six from Florida to Minnesota over concerns for the safety of her 22-year-old trans son, Ollie. After settling in her new community, she now fears she’ll have to move again, this time out of the country, and has looked at Canada as a possibility.

“It’s traumatizing to be uprooted from everything you’ve known,” Kelli said. “The kids made friends. They’ve gotten into their activities. They’re settling in, and so the night of the election, my 11-year-old, sweet kiddo, starts crying and she’s like, ‘Does this mean we’re going to have to move again?'”

Kelli and Ollie are community activists, both committed to improving the lives of members of the LGBTQ community where they live. Kelli says if her son can’t receive the hormone therapy medications he needs, she wouldn’t hesitate to move her family again. The fact she is even considering moving again shocked even her.

“How is this the United States of America?” Kelli asked. “The words come out of my mouth and in my head I’m like, this can’t be real, this can’t be right. It’s so bizarre … the most powerful country in the world and its citizens are looking for asylum in other countries. Make it make sense. It’s so dystopian.”

Stuck in passport limbo

Americans already living in Canada are also affected by the president’s orders towards the trans community. Those living here who don’t yet have their affirmed genders on their passports fear that crossing the border could pose a problem.

Elliott Duvall is a trans man from Arkansas currently living in London, Ont. He moved here in 2016 to marry his wife. He hasn’t been home to see his family in more than five years because his passport still lists his gender as female, even though he presents and lives as a male.

“To hand over my passport to the border guards is terrifying,” said Duvall. “I would be terrified that I would get pulled into secondary questioning and I’d have to go into the immigration area, even though I’m still a U.S. citizen, and they’re just gonna question me down to the bone. And I don’t think I’d mentally be able to handle that, to be honest. I would just cry.”

Duvall has siblings he hasn’t seen in years. He missed his brother’s wedding and the births of several nieces and nephews over fears of crossing the border. 

His mother is now ill but too afraid to have Duvall come visit her.

“My mom, she wants me to come desperately,” he said. “We were going to try to make it for Christmas, all of us. And she said, ‘Don’t come.’ And that’s hard. It’s hard when my mom, who you know, watches the news, when she’s like, ‘Don’t come, because it’s not safe,’ that’s really hard.”

Kang says people like Duvall have reason for concern.

“When we speak of Canadians with the X marker on their passport trying to cross into the U.S., we don’t really know what that’s going to look like,” she said. “We don’t know if that just means increased scrutiny at the border or if it means a denial of entry or potentially confiscation of those documents.”

Duvall also fears having to drive through some states where bathroom bills would make it illegal for him to use a men’s public restroom.

“If I were to use the washroom in Arkansas and there was a minor — so anyone under the age of 16 — in there at the same time, then I could be arrested, put in jail for 30 days, fined $1,500 and then I’d have to register as a sex offender for the rest of my life.”

Duvall simply isn’t willing to take that risk.

Fowler and Kelli are also waiting to see how Trump’s executive orders will directly impact their lives. They both say they will stay in the U.S. as long as their kids get the health care they need and aren’t in danger.

“At the end of the day, you just want your child to be happy and healthy,” said Fowler. “That’s what every parent wants, and we are no different.”