Despite record amounts of restrictive legislation and disappointment with both Presidential candidates, changing demographics are inspiring future optimism.
The race for the presidency between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is the rematch that few Americans wished to see.
Their combined age of 158-years-old and a slide towards gerontocracy in the United States has left many young voters disillusioned, but perhaps none more so than queer and trans youth in Republican-led states like Texas.
These individuals have seen a huge increase in laws targeting their rights at state level, despite the fact that a Democrat sits in the Oval Office.
“Regardless of who wins, people will always have something to say about trans people because our identities are constantly politicised,” said Rowan Hawke, a trans man from Houston, Texas.
The frustrations of Hawke, sitting with a pride flag hung behind him, are shared by many queer and trans Texans following the adjournment of the 88th state legislature which passed a raft of LGBTQIA+ laws last year.
“As much as Texas wants to pretend that queer and trans kids don’t exist, they do,” he says.
“When you have bills that are specifically targeting disenfranchised groups of people, particularly the youth who already don’t have a lot of legal autonomy, [those people are] being shown by the government that they’re not welcome,” he adds.
New laws passed included a ban on trans athletes joining college athletic teams, a ban on drag performances (later rescinded) and – most controversially of all – a law restricting the availability of gender-affirming care to trans minors.
This wave of targeted legislation is mirrored by 24 other Republican-led states who have passed legislation similar to the Texan law blocking trans children’s access to care.
Gender-affirming care is supported by most major medical associations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and American Medical Association. The care can be lifesaving to minors who are experiencing gender dysphoria.
Photo credit: ACLU Texas
Members of the LGBTQIA+ community would understandably be wary of the return of former President Donald Trump to the White House, but the increase in anti-queer and trans legislation in red states has happened under the watch of President Biden.
President Biden has cast doubt in his four-year tenure on whether advocating for trans people in conservative states is a priority, leaving many LGBTQIA+ people between a rock and hard place when they cast their ballot on 5 November.
“President Biden has done nothing in the past four years to prove that he cares about queer and trans people. He didn’t do anything to oppose these bills even though he has the power to in certain circumstances [using] federal protections,” said Hawke.
“[Yet] the thing that worries me most if Trump does become President again is the fact that his supporters will become more empowered with the vitriol he’s able to stir up,” he concluded.
Despite this bleak situation, change may be on the way as the number of voters openly identifying as LGBTQIA+ rapidly increases.
According to a Human Rights Campaign survey, LGBTQIA+ voters are expected to make up around 20 per cent of all eligible national voters by 2040 and Texas is on track to exceed this rate of growth as it has the second largest queer population in the country, after California.
Atlas Mars, a drag performer based in Austin, Texas, has witnessed the frustration with the presidential choices: “People are upset all around, wishing there was a third option, I think that’s really where most people are at.”
But Mars says they have simultaneously seen the growth in resistance to attempts to restrict the rights of queer people in Texas: “Queer people aren’t alone, there are queer people in families, there’s a lot of allies and so there’s just in general a lot of people that are unhappy. There’s been protests at the [Texas] Capitol. Every time something big happens, the community comes out in huge numbers with a lot of outside support.”
Gen Z have become comfortable with identifying as LGBTQIA+ in numbers never seen before, and this is sure to prompt a seismic shift in national and state voting patterns in the coming years.
In the Human Rights Campaign survey, 27 per cent of Gen Z voters identified as LGBTQIA+ compared to just 4.5 per cent of baby boomers, illustrating the stark generational divide with the majority of lawmakers who are part of the post-war baby boom.
Conservative-led states don’t show any signs of backing down soon and things may get worse before they get better for queer and trans Americans, but these statistics still inspire hope for Ash Hall, policy and advocacy strategist for LGBTQIA+ Equality at the Texas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Hope is a discipline,” Hall adds. “There’s a lot of reasons for us to turn out and vote at this point. Both to protest for ourselves and protect the people we care about. So when you combine that sort of motivation with the kind of [voting] numbers we’re predicting down the line, I think that’s a really good reason to have hope.”
Feature Image: A pride flag near the University of Texas. Photo credit: Cahal McAuley.