The U.S. Trans Genocide (2023 – ?)
An American Genocide
The word genocide often brings up visceral images of mass extinction or mass killing. However, genocide is also a process that unfolds over time. Though genocides may look different from population to population and region to region, there are often several traits or patterns that emerge within them. It starts with the identification of a supposedly dangerous group, one that can be othered or made out to be a threat—regardless of the veracity of such claims.
From there, dehumanizing propaganda may spread, slowly but surely separating the group or identity from their human nature. Over time, these so-called “threats” may experience the removal of basic civil rights, or the destruction of their institutions. They may be forced out of their homes or experience the supreme power of their governing political structures who attempt to prevent them from living openly as themselves.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security—a nonprofit organization consisting of leading genocide scholars and experts—identifies each of the ten different patterns of genocide that genocides often fall into.
According to these scholars, the Trans Genocide in the United States falls under Pattern #9 “Denial and/or Prevention of Identity”.
The Denial and/or Prevention of Identity Pattern states “The existence of an identity is actively and systematically denied or obstructed from manifesting itself from within the social world through laws, decrees, speech acts, and practices of groups in power or groups seeking power. This denial and obstruction can take the form of revocation of citizenship, denaturalization, withholding of official recognition, and creating conditions preventing identity development (Lemkin Institute, n.d.).
I use the term Trans Genocide to describe the coordinated and increasingly systematic attempt to eliminate transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive people as a recognizable and livable social group in the United States, following the Lemkin Institute’s example in their March 2026 Red Flag Alert #3 (See below). This genocidal process operates by the government denying that trans identities are real, restricting transition, removing legal recognition, excluding trans people from public life, dismantling institutions that support them, and making continued existence as a trans person increasingly dangerous or impossible.
This isn’t a claim that an international court has formally ruled that the United States is committing genocide. The 1948 Genocide Convention recognizes only national, ethnic, racial and religious groups, leaving gender and sexuality outside of its narrow (and dated) legal definition. Genocide scholars and prevention organizations, however, like the Lemkin Institute exist to study the broader processes through which governments and political movements attempt to destroy collective identities and their communities.
The core purpose of genocide prevention is to recognize and warn when these processes have begun before they reach their most catastrophic conclusion—and since 2023, the Lemkin Institute has sounded the alarm for TGE Americans.
From Mis/Disinformation to State Policy
But how can a government commit genocidal acts or atrocities, particularly against portions of its own citizens without justification? In the United States, the justification has been a process that has slowly picked up momentum over the course of a couple of decades. Through years of misinformation and deliberate disinformation portraying trans people as predators, groomers, terrorists, threats to women, threats to children, threats to the family, or threats to the nation itself.
These false narratives are not only inhumane and offensive, but they perform political work for the people who issue them. Once a population has been depicted as “dangerous,” discriminatory restrictions can easily be presented as protective or necessary. Healthcare bans become “protecting children.” Exclusions from bathrooms and sports teams become “protecting women.” Censorship in schools, libraries, and media becomes “parental rights.” The removal of legal recognition becomes “biological truth.”
These Executive Orders and administrative documents linked in each of these preceding statements depict how these claims are being made from the highest office in the country.
23 of the most specific claims behind this campaign, along with some of the evidence that contradicts them are more closely examined on the Trans Mis/Disinformation page.
Six Years of Breaking Records
For many trans Americans simply trying to go about their lives, tools like the Trans Legislation Tracker that track active anti-trans legislation across the country in real time quantify the real-world effects of these false narratives. The exponential increase reflected in the data speaks volumes. According to the Trans Legislation Tracker (2026):
- In 2021, 153 anti trans bills were under consideration. 18 of these bills passed. (~11.7%)
- In 2022, 174 anti-trans bills were under consideration. 26 of them passed. (~14.9%)
- In 2023, 615 anti-trans bills were under consideration. 87 of them passed. (~14.0%)
- In 2024, 701 anti-trans bills were under consideration. 51 of them passed. (~7.3%)
- In 2025, 1,022 anti-trans bills were under consideration. 126 of them passed. (~12.3%)
- In 2026, 835 anti-trans bills (as of 09/15) were under consideration. 63 have passed. (~7.5%)
While a bill being introduced does not mean that the law was enacted, and trackers like this one may include bills that carry over between legislative sessions, the pattern is evident. In March 2026, the Lemkin Institute revealed that 2025 was the sixth consecutive year of record-breaking numbers of anti-trans bills in the country. They calculated a 45% increase in the number of bills between 2024 and 2025 and a 668% increase between 2021 and 2025.
So, what’s buried within these bills? These bills have targeted almost every facet of public life imaginable for trans people: Healthcare, education, athletics, bathrooms and locker rooms, drivers licenses, birth certificates, libraries, incarceration, and even the ability of government agencies to recognize trans people at all.
Bills like Missouri’s HB 2885 in 2024 would create the so-called offense of “contributing to the transition of a minor” for teachers or school counselors that provided support—including even simply provide materials or information—to a student. The punishment? A charge of a Class E felony, and if convicted, they would be placed on the sex offender registry.
Maryland’s HB 1399, introduced in 2025 would prohibit doctors or health care practitioners from prescribing pubertal blockers to minors, even if the minor had support from their parents. If the provider was found to have broken this law, they would be charged with a felony, and if convicted, face imprisonment “not exceeding life.” These were just two of the bills out of the many.
And while passed and enacted bills like Kansas’s SB 244 have had chaotic and harmful implementations for trans people, even bills like HB 1399 and HB 2885 that fail can create harm. This harm can come from the normalization of increasingly extreme proposals, the consumption of community resources (that could be better spent somewhere else), the intimidation of institutions such as hospitals, schools, and universities, and by their perpetual reminder to trans citizens that their lives remain open to political debate.
Two Countries, One Map
The effects of these policies vary dramatically from state to state, painting a grim geographical landscape for trans communities. Journalist Erin Reed regularly publishes an Anti-Trans Legislative Risk Assessment Map, a map that evaluates the legislative climate trans people face across the United States.
This map is an expert qualitative assessment that considers enacted laws, pending legislation, executive actions, court decisions, and the likelihood of additional restrictions. Its categories range from states with stronger protections to states Reed designates as high risk or “Do Not Travel.” In her July 2026 assessment, 4 states, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, and Texas, were classified as “Do Not Travel” states for trans people. The map also demonstrates that even states with protective laws for trans people are being affected by federal policies, funding threats, court decisions, and institutional withdrawal from trans healthcare.
The resulting reality is that trans Americans no longer experience equal freedom of movement within their own country. Crossing a state line can change whether a person may receive healthcare, use an appropriate bathroom, participate in school activities, obtain accurate government identification, or be recognized by public institutions.
Expelled from Home
This legal assault has already caused large-scale displacement in the country. In its 2026 report, Expelled from Home: Persecution of Transgender Americans, Internal Displacement and the Road Map for a Resettlement Response, Gender Justice League estimated that approximately 401,000 trans Americans moved to another state from November 2024 to June 2025 (the seven months following Donald Trump’s second election). This figure was an extrapolation of survey data, as there is no government agency tracking displacement caused by anti-trans policies, so the exact number cannot be known.
However, even with that limitation, the report identifies a profound human crisis. Trans people and families with trans children are leaving jobs, homes, relatives, schools, medical providers, and support systems because their state governments have made remaining unsafe or untenable. This is not normal. This is not ordinary migration. When people are compelled to leave their homes because their government is restricting their access to healthcare, legal recognition, public existence, or physical safety, that movement must be understood as internal displacement.
4 Red Flag Alerts for Trans Genocide
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security has now issued 4 Red Flag Alerts of a Trans Genocide, with 3 of them concerning the anti-trans campaign of the Trump administration in the United States.
Initial Red Flag Alert – March 2023
In March 2023, the Lemkin Institute issued a Red Flag alert after Michael Knowles announced that “for the good of society…transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” at the Conservative Political Action Conference, receiving loud applause and shouts of support. The Institute warned of the potential effects of the so-called “gender critical” movement on democratic institutions in the U.S.
Red Flag Alert #1 – February 2025
The first Red Flag alert regarding the Trump administration’s anti-trans campaign came after the slew of early executive orders targeting trans recognition, healthcare, military service, education, incarceration, and public existence. The Institute warned that these measures represented an effort to remove trans people from collective life and prevent them from existing openly as themselves.
Second Red Flag Alert – June 2025
The second Red Flag Alert followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Skrmetti, which allowed Tennessee’s prohibition of gender-affirming medical care for minors to remain in effect. The Institute characterized the decision and the expanding campaign against gender-affirming healthcare as an escalation from political exclusion towards the systematic suppression of trans identity.
Third Red Flag Alert – March 2026
In its third Red Flag Alert (entitled “Anti-Trans Genocide in the USA - #3"), the Institute concluded that the United States was in the “early to middle stages of a genocidal process against trans people.”
The Institute particularly emphasized its 9th Pattern: Denial of Identity. This form of genocide doesn’t require mass killing. Its immediate demand is that members of the targeted group abandon their identities, disappear from public life, or accept a state-imposed identity in order to remain safe.
Two months after the third Red Flag alert, the Trump administration released their Counter Terrorism Strategy, in which they lumped those with radically pro transgender ideology alongside the beliefs of violent terrorists and extremists, further associating trans rights with terrorism and extremism. A month later, on June 30th, 2026, in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Little v. Hecox that narrowed Title IX’s interpretation in relation to trans student athletes, the Trump administration released a statement entitled “Supreme Court Bolsters President Trump’s Push to Eliminate Transgender Insanity.” Eliminate. Transgender. Insanity. This is not normal.
In August of 2026, Donald Trump stated that if Republicans won the midterms that transgender people will “end.” Trans people have become a central scapegoat of the conservative political movement’s campaign, a quintessential “them” for “us”to target. A them that only makes up 0.7–1% of the U.S. population.
Anti-trans genocidal language continues to be issued and repeated, only further normalizing incredibly outlandish ideals. With such a proliferation of severe anti-trans legislation and such hostility towards transgender Americans, the future looks exceptionally bleak.
A Note from a Teacher
I write to bring eyes and awareness to this genocide because it seems like so many cisgender people are blindly unaware of this visceral and heartbreaking reality. I have spent a large portion of my life—since I was a high school junior—attempting to neatly package my trans identity in a concerted effort to prove or convince people that I was worthy of more than derision and disdain. I figured if I could just be smart enough or funny enough or work hard enough, I might be worth a scrap of societal respect or care. But it’s becoming ever clearer that there will be an ostensibly vocal proportion of the population who will always seek to eradicate me and the people like me. And one of them is in the Oval Office, bedecked with fake gold.
As a Texas music educator for 7 years, I spent my days making my middle school choir students cringe with puns (that I still stand behind), dancing in hallways during passing periods to make students smile, creating choral music to help students fall in love with it like I once did, and cracking jokes to try to make kids’ days just a little bit better. I am a proud Texan whose favorite food is Tex-Mex (so much so that my dog’s name is literally Queso).
Texas will always be home to me; however, it’s no longer a state I can safely exist in. In 2025, Texas led the nation with 139 of the country’s 1,022 bills active in its state legislature. It passed extreme bills such as HB 229, SB 8, and SB 12, that makes it impossible for me to go back home—something my conservative, cisgender mother doesn’t understand. I still proudly claim the title of “Texas Choir Director” because to me it means something.
My cis friends and colleagues are still out there creating music at the highest levels with their students, doing the thing. The trans music educators and colleagues that I know there have since fled the state like me. The GOP have already announced their intentions to ban trans teachers across the state—so it appears that I made the right call. But my heart breaks knowing that the dream I spent such a large portion of my life working towards (including completing a Masters at the University of North Texas for), is one that I can no longer go back to.
I was once told by a coworker that one of my gifts as an educator was my capability of building relationships with students. As an educator, my students were the reason I got out of bed in the morning. I purposefully sought to provide a safe space in the school, where every student could make music, laugh, and feel loved unconditionally. I hoped they knew they had an adult looking out for them, holding them accountable, teaching them to strive for musical excellence, but most importantly grow as human beings.
Did I want them to develop as musicians and singers? Of course. Did I want them to stop eating in my classroom (we already had enough ants!) or put their phones away during class? Yes. But ultimately what was most important to me was that my students developed compassion, empathy, and consideration. That they would dare to stand up for what was right and moral and just. That they would do so in both their words and in their actions. That they would dare to love and treat people with kindness.
This is what I hope our ever-polarized country may somehow find its way back to. A country whose citizens can dare to look one another in the eyes and see the human that lies behind them. A country that can actively choose to stand up to mis/disinformation about trans people and undocumented people. A country that can dare to love and be brave enough to be kind. A country that will actively reject hatred and discord. A country that believes that all of us are created equal and deserve the same rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A country where we can truly be free.
Genocide prevention requires citizens to take action before it’s too late. To the few souls that have reached the end of this page and are now explicitly aware of the Trans Genocide, I leave you with one final question:
What are you going to do about it?