Some Trans People Can’t Afford To Flee Anti-LGBTQ+ States

Bradie Anderson has been fighting to be herself for as long as she can remember. She knew she was a girl ever since she was very young, but others haven’t always seen it that way. When Bradie was 7 years old, her Catholic elementary school in Ohio gave her the choice to either pretend to be a boy or leave, so she left. And being the only out trans girl at her new public school drew the wrong kind of attention: At one point, a group of boys added her to a group chat in which they threatened to violently attack and castrate her.

Bradie struggled with the harassment she faced, never quite sure who she could trust or who was really her friend. “It felt like everybody was against me for something that I couldn’t control,” she recalled. “It just felt like the whole world was on top of me, and I couldn’t do anything about it. It just got worse because once everybody starts hating on someone, everybody else thinks that they can do it, too.”

Although the bullying has tapered off in high school, Bradie said her family was recently forced to get a temporary protective order on her behalf after she was harassed by a local right-wing activist. Bradie said the woman made a lurid remark about her genitalia, an invasive comment made all the more insidious by the fact that she is only 15 years old. Her mother, Anne, said her daughter “shouldn’t have to worry about this stuff” at such a young age, and yet these concerns have dominated so much of their lives. After an eight-hour court hearing, the family is waiting to hear back from a judge on a request to make the protective order permanent.

The Andersons don’t know how many battles like these they can take, and they have discussed the possibility of leaving Ohio altogether, depending on the outcome of the state’s proposed trans bathroom ban. In June, the Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban trans students from using locker rooms and restrooms consistent with their identities in both K-12 schools and state-funded colleges. It still needs to clear the state Senate and get approval from the governor before becoming law, but similar policies are already on the books in 13 other states.

“I’m not the person I used to be,” Anne Anderson said. “I’m a shell of the person I once was, just out of fear for my daughter. Nobody should have to live like that. Nobody could possibly understand until you go through something like this. You just couldn’t.”

But as the Andersons have learned, getting out of Ohio isn’t as easy as just packing up and leaving.

Many families of trans youth across the country have come to that same realization now that 25 states have passed laws restricting some or all forms of transition care to minors, whether in the form of hormone replacement therapy, puberty blockers, or surgical interventions, the latter of which are rarely performed on patients under 18. A 2024 survey from the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 47% of trans respondents had considered leaving their state following the introduction of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. But the reality is that the vast majority will not have the resources to do so.

For most households, moving is an expensive, labor-intensive process that typically requires finding employment in a new state, securing stable housing in an area with decent schools, and paying for the cost of either a moving truck or interstate shipping. Even if all those factors line up perfectly, progressive areas of the country can still be prohibitively expensive. Eight of the 10 states with the highest cost of living have policies in place protecting access to gender-affirming care, while the 10 most affordable states all have trans youth medical care bans.

The barriers preventing the Andersons from moving, as with most of the families HuffPost spoke to for this story, are highly complex. Anne Anderson cares for her 80-year-old father, who is undergoing treatment for Stage 3 kidney failure. She is the one tasked with taking him to all his appointments. She can’t leave him in Ohio, and a move to another state could imperil his already fragile health.

But for Bradie Anderson, her trepidation about moving is much simpler: She can’t bear to endure all the harassment she’s experienced for a second time. Coming out at a new school in a new state could mean a renewed wave of bullying, and Bradie has just gotten to a place in her life when her tormentors have finally moved on from her.

“It would just not be good,” she said, shaking her head. “It would not be good.”

Thousands of trans people and their families have been displaced from their homes as a result of the ongoing trans refugee crisis in the United States. When the progressive think tank Data for Progress polled trans Americans in June 2023 about whether they intended to leave their states due to the introduction of anti-trans legislation, 43% said they had been weighing whether to do so, and 5% of respondents said they had already moved. That figure represents about 80,000 people being forced to flee their homes, according to separate data from the Williams Institute, a pro-LGBTQ+ think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles, that puts the U.S. adult trans population at around 1.6 million.

These numbers indicate there are more than 1.5 million trans people left behind in the mass migration from anti-LGBTQ+ states ― and even that picture is incomplete, as the Williams Institute did not include trans youth in its data. About 300,000 young people between the ages of 13 and 17 in the U.S. identify as trans or nonbinary, as the institute’s own reporting estimated in June 2022. (Many advocates believe that this figure is itself an undercount because of the difficulty of reaching trans kids to survey them, particularly if their parents aren’t supportive of their identities.)

While no one really knows how many trans youth and their parents have fled hostile states, organizations serving the LGBTQ+ community suggest that the number is modest when compared to the overall number of families who have contacted them. Jensen Matar, executive director of the TRANS Program, Mississippi’s only statewide trans support group, estimates that just 5% of the families in his network have left the state in the past three years. In that time, Mississippi became the second state to restrict trans student participation in athletics and the seventh to limit the kinds of medications that can be offered to trans patients who are minors.

The primary reason that so few families of trans youth have left Mississippi is financial, according to Matar. The Magnolia State ranks last in the nation in economic opportunity, with 19.1% of residents living below the poverty line. Mississippi’s income crisis is even more severe for its LGBTQ+ residents: Eight years ago, Matar surveyed trans people across the state and found that 70% were impoverished. Among the trans young people whom TRANS Program regularly serves, Matar estimates that half of their households meet the state’s definition of poverty. Many of those young people can’t afford to come to in-person events organized by the nonprofit, because their parents don’t have gas money. A cross-country move would be out of the question.

“Some of what I hear from Mississippians just dumbfounds me: people spending $500 or less in rent or on a mortgage for a large family, not having vehicles, and clumped up on dirt roads, having lived there for decades,” Matar said. “By far the majority are still here, whether they want to be here or not. They’re here and suffering the consequences in whatever way they can.”

To determine whether Mississippi’s migration rate was standard for other states that have enacted anti-trans health care laws, HuffPost contacted LGBTQ+ advocacy groups across the U.S. to ask how many families in their networks had left their respective states. Numbers vary widely. On the low end, representatives with the Transformation Project in South Dakota and TransSocial in Florida estimated, respectively, that just 4% and 3% of their clients had moved as a response to anti-trans legislation. Representatives with Louisiana Trans Advocates and TransOhio each guessed that between 15% and 20% had fled because of anti-trans legislation, while numbers from Trans Heartland in Kansas were significantly higher: Thirty-five percent of the trans youth and adults the organization works with had left the state, the group said.

Heather Harris, who lives in Texas with her husband and two children, said she can “count on two hands” the number of families she knows who have left the state since February 2022, when Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents of trans youth for child abuse. “Most [families] had job opportunities equal to or better than what they had here, which was already way above my tax bracket,” said Harris, who is being identified by a pseudonym because she’s worried about her family’s safety.

Of the small number of families who have gotten out of Texas, many have turned to GoFundMe to finance their exodus. But crowdfunding isn’t foolproof. HuffPost reviewed 35 campaigns on the platform that were launched by trans people or their families seeking to leave Texas, and only four had reached their goals. Some campaigns have raised very little. A trans couple who say they are terrified that “it will become a crime to simply live our lives” have brought in just $790 toward their $5,000 goal. A woman whose partner is trans launched a fundraiser in July 2023, fearing that Texas lawmakers would target health care for adults next. She has raised just $190 of $15,000 so far; the page hasn’t gotten a donation in 10 months.

Taking a chance on a GoFundMe campaign that might not even pay off could be dangerous for Harris and her family, as a public plea could bring a phone call from a child welfare agent. Without those resources, she and her husband can’t even afford to fly to another city to decide whether it would be a good fit, let alone actually move there.

“Most everybody I know is close to check to check,” Harris said. “I’ve been told by friends who have left: ‘You need to get out now.’ But that’s coming from a privileged position because we can’t. If we had the option to move, then we would do it immediately.”

The myriad risks ultimately don’t feel worth it, Harris said, when moving would mean giving up the lives they have spent years building for themselves in Texas. She and her husband own their home, with a pool in the backyard, and their neighbors regularly come over for barbecues and movie nights. Harris has seniority at her job, which she would forfeit at a new employer, and she is extremely involved in the local community. Her daughter, who is 11, has been going to school with the same students since she was 5 years old, and they accept and love her exactly as she is. Harris can’t guarantee her daughter would find the same conditions in another school, or be able to swap out her best friends for new ones.

It’s difficult for Harris, though, to balance those limitations with the urgency of the situation. Her hair began falling out during the 2021 legislative session, when Abbott signed a bill prohibiting trans student athletes from competing on sports teams in alignment with their gender identity. A trans youth medical care ban enacted two years later further intensified that stress. Several families the Harrises know were among those investigated, so she and her children now live cautiously, wondering if tomorrow will bring the knock on the door forcing them to figure out an exit plan. It’s hard for her family to sleep most nights.

“We can barely pay our bills, and we’re tired all the time,” she said. “We don’t do everything right. We’re barely making it and barely holding it together, but we try to have a good time. We have dance parties in our living room. I’ve taught the kids how to two-step and how to waltz. We have high highs and low lows.”

With so few families of trans youth able to escape states that are making their lives progressively harder, many LGBTQ+ advocacy groups have turned their efforts toward supporting kids and adults where they are. Community-led organizations like Genderbands and Point of Pride provide one-time grants to help trans people afford the cost of gender-affirming care. For the Gworls, based in Brooklyn, New York, offers financial assistance for transition surgeries and subsidizes rent costs for qualifying low-income applicants. Funding may be limited based on availability.

The Campaign for Southern Equality has helped more than 700 youth across 15 states to access gender-affirming care through its Southern Trans Youth Emergency Project, which aids families in paying for the cost of traveling to access transition care ― everything from gas money to overnight hotel stays. A spokesperson notes that nearly all families the group serves have no plan to permanently leave their home states, and many do not wish to do so.

Emmett Schelling, executive director for the Trans Education Network of Texas, said these kinds of resources are critical because moving can be extremely risky for the people his organization serves. There’s no guarantee that another state wouldn’t pass the exact same policies as Texas. Even New Hampshire, which leans blue, enacted three anti-trans laws in a single day this July. More than 630 anti-trans bills were introduced to state legislatures in 2024, and out of the entire country, just six states did not see a single anti-trans proposal, according to the independent research organization Trans Legislation Tracker. (The legislatures in three of those states, Montana, North Dakota and Texas, weren’t in session this year.)

Schelling often faces the assumption that moving would solve all the issues that trans people face in red states. But he said it potentially causes as many problems as it addresses.

“Even in the states that are ‘friendly,’ we’re still fighting bias,” he said. “If we don’t fight it in the places that we see it coming up, it doesn’t matter where you’re at. None of us will be safe. People like easy, clean solutions, and there’s nothing easy and clean here.”

There’s certainly nothing simple about the situation that Kassia Finn and her three children find themselves in, as they are legally prevented from moving out of state.

Due to a custody agreement with her ex-husband, Finn is barred from taking the kids out of Montana. When she wanted to transfer them to a more progressive school district because her 15-year-old trans son and 10-year-old nonbinary child were being bullied, it cost her $20,000 in attorneys’ fees to do so. Her former spouse didn’t want his children to be three hours away from him, but Finn didn’t feel as if she had a choice. The harassment at school had gotten so bad that even her middle child, who is cisgender, started being targeted just for having trans siblings.

Montana’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for youth has been temporarily paused following an August 2023 court ruling, and Finn doesn’t know what she would do if it were revived. She doesn’t know how she could fund another legal fight to get her kids out of Montana when she barely knows how they’re going to pay their bills next month. She recently cleaned out the $60 she had in savings because she hadn’t given her kids any allowance money in weeks. With $47 to her name, she has thought about selling her clothes to make ends meet.

“We’re having a yard sale this weekend, and I’m going through stuff that I need but maybe don’t need right this minute,” she said. “I’m hoping I can sell enough to float us for a bit. I just want my kids to get to be queer grown-ups. I want to share them with the world so I need to get them to that point that they can launch, and that feels like a huge undertaking.”

Parents across the U.S. who spoke to HuffPost described equally complex challenges that have kept them in their home states, whether they want to be there or not.

Kat Brennan moved to Texas with her two children during the pandemic, when respiratory therapists were in high demand, but the job market has since cooled. She wouldn’t have moved to an anti-LGBTQ+ state if she knew that she was the parent of two trans kids, but they came out after Brennan’s family had already gotten settled. She would likely have to take a major pay cut if they were to relocate again, and she’s already barely scraping by. She currently has just $83 in her checking account, and that amount will be a lot smaller after she refills her gas tank.

Her oldest, who is about to turn 15, wants to begin medically transitioning, but he won’t be able to do so for at least another three years, because they can’t afford to fly out of Texas to access care. “I’m sure that breaks his heart because he doesn’t feel himself,” Brennan said. “I’m asking him to wait a little longer, and that’s tearing him up.”

Britt Walker, who has two trans children, said that what’s keeping their family in Idaho is the house they bought a few years ago, before the harassment they now face began to escalate. Walker’s 16-year-old daughter stopped attending in-person school after being targeted by another student in a school bathroom for being trans. She rarely goes outside anymore, fearing what the world may do to her.

Walker, who is nonbinary, said they personally have been driven off the road three times in their car, which has Pride stickers on the rear bumper. During the last incident, the driver’s girlfriend jumped out of the vehicle and began stomping toward Walker’s Jeep, although Walker was able to speed away before the situation escalated.

Walker’s husband, who is in the National Guard, took a job in Wisconsin and plans to live on a military base while their family figures out what’s next. But it could be years before his partner and children join him. Selling their home would mean accepting half of what they initially paid for it, losing tens of thousands of dollars. As they stall for time, Walker worries things could get much worse: Their area has a growing Christian nationalist presence, and they live one town over from the Eagle, Idaho, bar that went viral in June for celebrating “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month.” Walker said they have been called a “groomer” and a “pedophile” just for having trans kids.

“I don’t ask about their kids’ genitals,” Walker said. “They don’t need to ask about mine. We just want to find a place where our kids can thrive, grow, and learn to be the best versions of themselves that they can be. We’re not looking to have any special rights. We’re just looking to have the same rights as everyone else.”

The families who spoke to HuffPost for this story acknowledged that the conversation may be very different after November, when Americans head to the polls to choose the next president.

If elected to a second term, former President Donald Trump has vowed an unprecedented assault on trans health care. In a video posted to his Truth Social platform last year, Trump said he would ban the federal government from promoting “gender transition at any age,” and suggested that he would jail doctors who treat trans youth patients. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), authored legislation that would make it a felony for doctors to perform transition surgeries on minors, even though these operations are exceedingly rare.

Anne Anderson said that many of her close friends who have trans children have already fled the country in fear of Trump’s reelection. Lamenting that she doesn’t want to “be the last person running for the door,” Anderson is frustrated that so little is being done to address the problems facing families like hers, even with the election just three months away. It feels as if no one outside their community is listening and that no one cares, and that scares her.

“Everybody should be up in arms,” she said. “It shouldn’t be just the LGBTQ+ community. It should be everybody. That’s the scary part: seeing that people I’ve known my whole life are completely fine with my daughter having no rights whatsoever. It could have as easily been their child, just as it was mine.”

Anderson and her family have already been forced to sacrifice so much because of others’ intolerance, and it doesn’t feel as if they have anything else to give. Anderson no longer talks to her mother or her siblings, and the only other extended family member she has left is an elderly aunt, who also relies on her for care. If they were somehow forced to leave behind what little they do have, at insurmountable expense, Anderson doesn’t know how they would do it. “I’m numb to it,” she said. “I’m angry, and I’m mad as hell. I didn’t think that this would be where I’m at.”

But her daughter remains buoyant despite so much chaos around her. Bradie Anderson is bouncy and wryly funny in conversation, peppering her responses with “likes” and snappy asides with the air of a Southern California Valley girl. Of going to court to get a protective order from the woman she said harassed her, Bradie remarked: “We all had to see her in her little 6-inch heels and her ugly outfit.” She loves the color pink, worships Elle Woods and Regina George, and wears a bracelet that says “Barbie Girl.”

It’s not merely that the younger Anderson can’t move, she said, but that she feels she shouldn’t have to. Rather than mulling over whether to flee her home, she should be living the life of an average teenage girl: going to the mall with friends, getting a tan, and sleeping in for as long as she likes.

“People think that we’re aliens,” she said, describing how others often treat trans people. “I’m just a normal person. I’m not trying to cause any harm.”