Countries Should Accept Transgender Refugees From The United States

The situation on the ground for transgender people is deteriorating in real time in the United States. Other countries should open up refugee programs to allow those moving from the US.

Photo by ev on Unsplash

The situation for transgender people in the United States is unraveling at an alarming pace. Teachers now face criminal investigation threats for the basic act of respecting a student’s name. Medical care for both transgender youth and adults is being gutted, with entire states seeing widespread service shutdowns. The Trump administration has moved to erase transgender history from public institutions and end legal recognition altogether. Passports and identification documents are being flagged, with transgender visa seekers being denied entry to the United States. For all the promises that such policies would stop at the margins, the reality is clear: life as a transgender person in America is becoming unlivable for many. The time has come for countries with strong human rights protections to extend refuge to those who can no longer exist safely or openly within U.S. borders.

Many transgender people have told me they are planning or actively working to leave the United States—and some have already done so successfully. Most are using existing immigration pathways, such as job-based visas or close family ties in safer countries. But not every trans person has a high-demand skillset along with a job lined up abroad or a family connection that eases their way through immigration. Still, the writing is on the wall: when conservative leaders openly talk about “eradication” and declare the elimination of all gender-affirming care their “endgame,” the calculation many trans people make is a grim one—that safety may no longer be possible within U.S. borders.

This is a reasonable calculation for transgender people to make. Week after week, the administration’s policies grow more punitive. In its opening salvo, Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from the military declared them inherently “dishonorable, untruthful, and undisciplined”—an official government stance. Since then, any organization committing the supposed sin of acknowledging transgender people has been threatened with the loss of federal funding. That threat has proven so effective that even LGBTQ+ health clinics have stripped mentions of transgender people from their websites. And in one of the most flagrant examples of historical erasure, the government-edited page for Sylvia Rivera at Stonewall National Monument now claims she fought for “gay and rights,” omitting the word “transgender” in what can only be described as digital book burning—part of a broader campaign to erase trans people from public memory.

Since then, policy after policy has chipped away at what few rights transgender people retained in the United States, reducing them to second-class citizens. The administration has cracked down on medical care, issuing executive orders that ban gender-affirming treatment for those up to age 19, with recent letters hinting at an expansion to age 21. Passports are being delayed or denied. Transgender people have been denied entry to the country for having legal documents that don’t match their sex assigned at birth—such as trans musician Bells Larsen, who detailed his experience this week after being denied a visa. It’s becoming harder to argue that the systematic stripping of legal recognition, medical access, and freedom of movement does not constitute a crisis—one worthy of international recognition and response.

Many other countries are beginning to recognize the loss of safety for transgender people in the United States. Entire countries such as France, Denmark, Finland, and Germany have warned their transgender citizens over travel to the United States. InterPride, a global association of over 400 Pride organizations from over 70 countries, has issued similar travel warnings. While it is admirable that they see the danger to their transgender citizens traveling to the United States, they would be well served to also recognize their place in helping mitigate some of that danger.

Let me be clear: no transgender person should feel they must flee the United States. Many of us will stay—we’ve fought for decades, and we will continue to fight. But not everyone should be expected to hold the line. Transgender teenagers and their families in Florida, where using the bathroom can now result in arrest—as happened in a recent, high-profile case in the state capitol—should not be told that survival must come second to resistance. If a family has the will and means to seek safety elsewhere, they should not be shamed for choosing to live. Countries that have positioned themselves as safe havens for queer and trans people must recognize the urgency we face today: Refuge has always been a defining act in moments of political persecution—this is one of those moments, and history will remember who opened the door.