Read the original story at the Grand Forks Herald.
By Joshua Irvine
November 22, 2024 at 10:35 AM
Editor’s note:
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. To reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
GRAND FORKS – As they had 366 days before, the crowd that filtered into the Christus Rex Campus Center on Wednesday evening came to remember the dead, and contemplate the future.
Transgender Day of Remembrance, which memorializes trans people who have died from violence over the last year, is by definition a somber affair. This year’s memorial, however, comes at a time of heightened anxiety for LGBTQ and, in particular, transgender North Dakotans.
With next year’s legislative session and the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump months away, many LGBTQ people are concerned they could see further attacks on their rights and livelihoods in what many expect to be a national blowback against the expanded discrimination protections pushed by the Biden administration.
“There’s a lot of fear of what the next four years are going to bring,” said Charles Vondal, a trans man and longtime organizer with Grand Forks Out and Proud. “People are going to have courage to stand up and make sure there are still LGBT events and safe spaces for youth and adults.”
Coming just over two weeks after Election Day, the new administration was top of mind for many of the attendees at the Christus Rex.
In his second term, President-elect Donald Trump has promised to roll back federal protections for LGBTQ Americans and block gender-affirming care for minors.
Advocates also worry about a reinstated ban on trans people serving in the military, which Trump implemented in his first term, as well as what they describe as efforts to override state-level protections and open up more avenues for discrimination against LGBTQ people.
“It feels like we’re going 80 gazillion steps back,” said April Wall, who is married to Nalani Wall, a trans woman. “Just to exist is to be in fear for your life. And that’s not a way to live.”
Nalani Wall said in the last two weeks, she has felt a fear she hadn’t felt before.
“I’m not sure if I can trust anybody to be a safe person that outwardly still pushes that public rhetoric,” she said. “I get people voted for him. That’s fine. You know what? That’s their thing. … (But) there’s a lot more to it now than there was last time.”
Ezri Bulan, a nonbinary organizer for Out and Proud, said some area residents are looking to push up gender-affirming surgeries ahead of Inauguration Day or even considering detransitioning to avoid unwanted attention.
Other LGBTQ couples are rushing to get married in the next couple of months amid concerns of a rollback of protections for same-sex couples.
“They really want to know that should something medically happen, or if somebody should pass away, if there’s any sort of hard decisions that have to be made, that partners are legally able to make those decisions,” Bulan said.
Some are concerned about what next year’s legislative session could bring in North Dakota.
In 2023, North Dakota lawmakers passed 11 anti-LGBTQ bills into law, more than any other state that year except for Tennessee, according to an American Civil Liberties Union initiative tracking anti-LGBTQ legislation at the state level.
Dalton Erickson, executive director of the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition, said his organization is looking at Texas, which he described as a “testing ground” for anti-LGBTQ legislation at the state level, as a reference point for what could come to North Dakota in 2025.
“The number of (bill draft requests) is the highest I think we’ve ever had,” Erickson said. “And while we haven’t seen any of these bills, we’re looking at the ones that have come out of Texas that have been filed already and anticipating they’ll sort of be replicated.”
Lawmakers in Texas have already pre-filed 26 bills the ACLU says are intended to target LGBTQ people.
Erickson said he has friends who have left North Dakota in recent years in response to the surge of anti-LGBTQ legislation and said he could see it happening again, though Bulan said they knew few people seriously considering leaving.
The Walls said they’ve considered moving across the river to Minnesota as a contingency plan, or maybe even out of the country.
“I’d rather not do all of that because we both have a lot of family (in North Dakota),” Nalani Wall said. “And I don’t think I could leave my family.”
Local activists are pushing for community members to prioritize their mental and physical health and emphasizing support within the LGBTQ community.
The Human Rights Coalition’s LGBTQIA2S+ Summit in October had focused on resilience through hard times.
“When everyone wants to push you down, embracing joy and embracing yourself can power you through that,” Erickson said.
Bulan said Out and Proud is promoting its monthly meeting space for LGBTQ people in Grand Forks to gather and feel safe, and that the community would remain visible and ready to advocate for itself.
Faye Siedler, a longtime transgender activist based in Fargo, also cautioned against viewing another Trump presidency with doom.
She points out attempts to roll back LGBTQ protections at the federal level are likely to be held up for years, bogged down by lawsuits from blue states in much the same manner that Republican-led states have fought to block the Biden administration’s new Title IX measures.
In North Dakota, many measures proposed by the Trump administration – such as banning gender-affirming care for minors or barring transgender women and girls from participating in K-12 and college sports – are already law.
Even then, Siedler said, North Dakota in 2024 is worlds apart from the kind of hostility trans people experienced 30 or 40 years ago. People had support networks, and family, and friends.
“As bad as the world can theoretically get, there are people that are there to fight for you,” Siedler said. “There are people that love you for who you are, and there are people who support you.”
