Recently, at Lezapalooza (2026), I had a lot of time to talk with people about something that is difficult to explain to anyone who has never had to live with it:
The general background fear that comes with being trans, queer, or otherwise marginalized.
We talked about childhood.
About being too young to have the words for who we were, but somehow already knowing that we were different.
We didn’t necessarily know why we were different.
We didn’t know words like transgender. Some of us didn’t know what gay or lesbian meant. We certainly didn’t have today’s vocabulary for the enormous spectrum of queer identities.
But somehow, many of us knew something else.
If people found out, something bad could happen.
Maybe we would be laughed at.
Maybe we would lose friends.
Maybe our parents would be angry.
Maybe we would be bullied, punished, rejected or hurt.
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As children, we couldn’t always articulate what we were afraid of. We just learned, remarkably early, that there were pieces of ourselves that might be safer hidden.
That kind of fear gets into you.
For many queer and transgender people, it becomes part of the background noise of existence — always quietly calculating whether a place is safe, whether a person is safe, whether this is the moment when someone realizes you are different.
I hope there comes a generation that doesn’t inherit that fear.
I hope someday a transgender child can simply discover who they are without simultaneously learning that discovery might carry consequences.
But right now, I am afraid things may get even scarier before they get better.
And that is where this story begins.
Because the fear I am talking about now isn’t the vague fear I carried as a child.
It isn’t just wondering whether somebody will stare at me in a bathroom or say something cruel when they realize I am transgender.
It is a much bigger question.
What happens if it gets worse?
Not worse on social media.
Not another ugly comment under a news story. Not another politician using transgender people as a punchline. Not another stranger deciding that our existence is an invitation for debate.
I mean actually worse.
Worse enough that staying starts to feel more dangerous than leaving.
And with the 2026 midterm elections approaching, that question has become harder for me to dismiss.
This fear did not appear from nowhere
It would be easier to tell ourselves that we are catastrophizing if the past year and a half had not already happened.
On President Donald Trump’s first day back in office in January 2025, he signed an executive order directing the federal government to recognize only male and female sex as defined by the administration and directing agencies to stop recognizing gender identity in a number of federal policies and documents.
That policy did not stay confined to rhetoric.
The State Department says it will issue new passports only with an M or F marker corresponding to what the federal government determines to be the applicant’s sex at birth. Existing passports remain valid until they expire or are replaced, but transgender people seeking new or renewed documents can no longer simply choose the marker that reflects their gender identity.
The Defense Department adopted a policy treating a current or past diagnosis of gender dysphoria as incompatible with military service and directing many affected service members toward separation, with limited exceptions.
The administration has also targeted federal funding connected to gender-affirming healthcare for trans kids/youth.
And federal agencies have increasingly used investigations, funding threats and regulatory authority against hospitals, schools and other institutions whose policies include transgender people.
These things are real.
That does not mean every feared outcome will happen.
It does mean the fear has something concrete underneath it.
And for transgender people who already grew up learning that being discovered could have consequences, watching the federal government redefine us, restrict us and repeatedly make us the subject of official policy does something familiar.
It tells us again that being known can be dangerous.
What the midterms can — and cannot — change
The 2026 midterm elections will not decide who occupies the White House.
Donald Trump’s presidential term continues regardless of what happens in November.
But congressional power matters.
Congress controls legislation, federal spending and oversight. The Senate also plays a major role in confirming federal judges and executive-branch nominees.
If Republicans retain control of both chambers after the midterms, the federal government would remain under unified Republican control.
If Democrats gain control of one or both chambers, the political dynamics surrounding legislation, appropriations, oversight and presidential nominees would change.
Neither result automatically determines the future of transgender rights.
Executive agencies still have authority.
Federal courts still matter.
State governments still matter.
Civil-rights organizations will continue filing lawsuits.
And elections do not instantly erase policies that are already in place.
But for transgender people watching federal policy move from passports to healthcare to military service, congressional control feels like considerably more than a scoreboard on election night.
We are wondering what the next two years could look like.
We are wondering what happens if the policies we’ve already seen are only the beginning.
And some of us are asking a question that would have sounded ridiculous to us not very long ago:
Do I need a plan to leave?
And that is when Canada enters the conversation
I have thought about Canada.
I suspect I am far from alone.
Canada feels close.
Familiar.
English-speaking in much of the country.
A place whose federal government explicitly recognizes protections based on gender identity and where transgender people can change gender markers on federal identification documents.
When Americans imagine needing somewhere to go, Canada can start sounding less like another country and more like the emergency exit at the end of the hallway.
But Canada is not a panic room.
You cannot simply load everything into a truck, cross the border and announce that you live there now.
There are ordinary immigration programs, including Canada’s Express Entry system for qualifying skilled workers.
Applicants enter a pool, receive scores based on factors such as work experience, education and language ability, and may later be invited to apply for permanent residence.
Getting into the system does not guarantee that you get to stay.
And then there is asylum.
There is an important distinction here that sometimes gets lost online.
The Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement generally restricts certain refugee claims made by people entering Canada through the United States.
But Canada specifically says the agreement’s restrictions do not apply in the same way to U.S. citizens seeking protection.
That does not mean an American transgender person automatically qualifies for asylum.
Far from it.
Refugee protection is an individualized legal process.
A person must show that they meet Canada’s legal standards for refugee protection, including establishing a well-founded fear of persecution or another qualifying risk.
Fear alone is not a visa.
Being transgender alone is not an automatic asylum claim.
And nobody should build their emergency plan around the assumption that another country will simply let them in.
Even leaving has a cost
And this may be the part we do not talk about enough.
People casually say:
“If things get bad, just move.”
Move where?
Moving to another state is expensive.
Moving to another country can mean immigration applications, legal fees, employment requirements, housing deposits, healthcare systems, schools, transportation, passports, documentation and potentially years of uncertainty.
It means leaving friends.
Family.
Doctors.
Neighbors.
Jobs.
Communities.
The coffee shop where somebody knows your order.
The pharmacist who already knows which name to call.
The hairstylist who doesn’t make things weird.
The places where you know which bathroom feels safe.
The streets where you know which direction is home.
And if you have children, it means asking them to start over too.
New schools.
New friends.
A new community.
A new country that may not feel like home simply because it appears safer on paper.
Safety is not merely the absence of a hostile law.
Safety is also knowing where you belong.
It is having people around you who notice when you disappear.
It is having someone you can call.
It is knowing which doctor understands you.
It is knowing who your neighbors are.
That is what makes the idea of leaving so complicated.
The place that scares you may also be the place where your entire life exists.
And crossing a border does not end politics
Canada also demonstrates another uncomfortable truth:
There may be no perfectly insulated destination.
Canadian federal law prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and expression.
But politics does not stop at the border.
Policies affecting transgender people differ between provinces.
Alberta, for example, has implemented restrictions on some forms of gender-affirming healthcare for minors.
Canada is not the United States.
But neither is it some magical country where transgender people never have to worry about politics again.
Neither is Europe.
Neither is Australia.
Neither is New Zealand.
Wherever transgender people go, we still have to ask questions about healthcare, employment, documentation, housing, immigration status and whether the political climate there could change too.
You can cross a border.
You cannot cross out uncertainty.
And there is another fear hidden inside that.
What happens if you uproot everything, move somewhere you believe is safer, spend years rebuilding your life — and then watch the same politics begin following you there?
That is not a reason to never leave.
It is a reason to understand just how enormous the decision really is.
So what exactly are we supposed to prepare for?
This is where fear becomes exhausting.
You cannot make a rational plan for an undefined catastrophe.
Do I renew documents early?
Do I make sure I have physical and digital copies of birth certificates, passports, court orders and medical records?
Do I make sure everyone’s passport is current?
Do I research immigration requirements?
Do I figure out which states still have strong protections?
Do I research jobs in Canada?
Do I look farther?
Do I keep enough money somewhere that I could leave quickly?
Do I make a list of friends in safer states?
Do I ask whether someone would take us in?
At what point does sensible emergency planning turn into living your life around fear?
And at what point does refusing to prepare become its own kind of risk?
I don’t know.
That may be the most frightening part.
There is also the danger of running too soon
Leaving is not automatically the safest choice.
For some transgender Americans, moving somewhere unfamiliar could make them more vulnerable rather than less.
A person may leave a state where they already have doctors, friends, employment and community support only to arrive somewhere they have none of those things.
A transgender person who is financially stable in one place could become financially precarious after moving.
Someone who is surrounded by people who understand and protect them could suddenly become isolated.
For some people, remaining exactly where they are may be safer.
Others may consider relocating within the United States.
Some may investigate immigration programs abroad.
And in extreme individual circumstances, some may eventually explore whether they meet another country’s standards for refugee protection.
There is no single answer that works for every transgender person.
There probably never will be.
These are decisions shaped by finances, family, employment, health, immigration law, disability, race, geography and countless other pieces of someone’s life.
But something has changed when people begin seriously researching them.
Something has changed when the phrase “escape plan” stops sounding like internet hyperbole and starts sounding like something worth quietly thinking through.
I don’t want to leave
That might be the simplest part of all of this.
I don’t want transgender Americans to have to think about escape plans.
I don’t want another country to become something we whisper about when the conversation gets too frightening.
I want Canada to be somewhere I might visit because I want to see Toronto, Montréal or Vancouver.
Not somewhere I have researched because I am wondering whether one day I might need it.
There is an enormous difference between wanting to move somewhere and wondering whether someday you might have to.
And I don’t want to leave my home because somebody else has decided people like me should be frightened enough to go.
I don’t want to surrender my community.
I don’t want to surrender the places I know.
I don’t want transgender children growing up today to learn the same lesson so many of us learned decades ago:
Hide this part of yourself, because somebody may hurt you if they find out.
I want that lesson to finally die.
Fear is not the same thing as surrender
Maybe the worst things people fear will never happen.
There are states with strong protections.
There are lawyers and civil-rights organizations fighting federal policies.
There are elected officials pushing back.
There are millions of Americans who have transgender family members, coworkers, neighbors and friends.
There are queer communities across this country that have survived much worse than a hostile administration.
None of that disappears because the political climate is frightening.
But neither does the fear disappear simply because somebody tells us we are overreacting.
The federal government has already changed how it recognizes transgender people on passports.
It has changed military policy.
It has targeted federal funding connected to gender-affirming healthcare.
Federal agencies have investigated institutions over policies involving transgender people.
Those are not hypothetical events.
The hypothetical part is what comes next.
And perhaps that is what makes this moment so difficult.
For many transgender Americans looking toward November, the frightening question is not necessarily:
“Where should I flee?”
It is:
“How bad would things have to become before leaving the life I built feels safer than staying?”
That is a terrifying question to have to ask.
But maybe there is another question underneath it.
The same question many of us were quietly asking when we were children and didn’t yet have the language to explain why we felt different:
Am I safe if people know who I am?
For decades, many of us have worked to make the answer yes.
We came out.
We built families.
We built careers.
We made friends.
We found community.
We stopped hiding.
And I desperately hope the answer doesn’t become no again.
I don’t know what happens after the midterms.
I don’t know what the next two years will bring.
I don’t know whether I’ll ever seriously have to decide between staying in the country where I’ve built my life and trying to build another life somewhere else.
But I know something I learned during those conversations at Lezapalooza.
Fear has followed many queer people for almost our entire lives.
We know what it feels like.
We know what it does to people.
And we know the difference between being afraid and being defeated.
Those are not the same thing.