Editor’s Note: For privacy reasons, we have used only initials for transgender students interviewed in this article. Teachers and other publicly identified individuals are named in full with their consent.
In the opening month of his reclaimed presidency, President Donald Trump has moved swiftly to strip away protections for transgender individuals across the U.S., casting a shadow over the community nationwide. For transgender students, in particular, what should be a safe and equal educational environment now feels increasingly uncertain and scary as new restrictions arise.
As anti-trans legislation rises across the country, some states are leading the charge in restricting transgender protections. Texas currently tops the list with 64 proposed bills.
The college process
As the college application season draws to a close for seniors and is just beginning for juniors, students are meticulously deciding where to spend the next four years of their education, considering location, academic rigor, institutional reputation and more. But for transgender students, an additional, unique consideration emerges: the safety of their very existence on prospective campuses.
In six states — Alabama, Florida, Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Carolina — providing gender-affirming care for minors is a felony crime, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison. Twenty other states have restrictions which range from outright bans on treatments, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, to regulatory hurdles that can make care nearly impossible to access.
For S.K. ‘25, a transgender student, recent attacks have significantly influenced his college search. “I need to be looking at states that are safe for me, states that can give me access to the healthcare that I need,” S.K. said. “I also have to make sure that the schools I’m applying to are going to be alright with my name change and that the housing I receive is going to respect my gender identity.”
L.C. ‘25, another transgender student, also noted safety was at the forefront of her college search. “Being transgender has impacted the college process in terms of where I look for safety,” she said.
Beyond logistical challenges, students also must deal with the emotional impact of these decisions. “I’m definitely anxious and concerned for the future, for not only myself, but for the people around me, for my peers,” S.K. said.
The uncertainty extends beyond just college. “I’m concerned for where I’m going to end up, whether that’s at college or at grad school or at some point in my future, and what that’s going to entail eventually for New York as well.”
School response
Inside classrooms, the election has intensified anxieties for many transgender students. In response to these concerns, the Masters School has held debriefing sessions and addressed the results during Morning Meeting. But what tangible support exists beyond words?
“When you are sitting with this fear, all day, every day, it makes everything else in life harder,” said Kaci Collins-Jordan, a transgender teacher. “It makes it harder to go to school. It makes it harder to pay attention in class. It makes it harder to have conversations with friends. It makes it harder to have conversations in class that touch on politics.”
Masters has long provided affinity groups as a space for students to share their experiences and, in the wake of Trump’s election, the transgender affinity group, which started in 2022, has grown even more important.
“In the affinity group, we meet once a week, usually depending on what’s going on that week,” said Luke Wilde, a non-binary teacher who helps run the group along with Collins-Jordan. “It’s just a place for students to express themselves.” These meetings aim to provide tangible, in-person gender validation and community-building. Who shows up to these meetings is also completely confidential, giving students a safe space not to be outed.
“One of the things we’ll do at the beginning of a lot of meetings is just to talk about an aspect from that day that felt validating to their gender,” Wilde said. “Then we discuss things we try to do around campus. Last year, we had an informational board and a memorial for Nex Benedict.”
Following the election, the school opened a processing space in the Center for Inclusive Excellence. “With our current president, there is an obvious agenda that would impact this group of students,” Wilde said. “We did that to talk through what the election results meant to them, how they were feeling and also to plan for the future.”
Unlike public schools, private schools, such as Masters, are not bound by state or federal policies restricting LGBTQ+ rights. However, there are thousands of transgender American students in public schools whose rights are not protected. For example, the U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation against five Northern Virginia school districts, claiming they violate Title IX by allowing transgender students to use their chosen names and pronouns at school.
While theoretically, Masters is a safe haven for students, transgender students say that institutional protections do not always translate to lived experiences.
S.K. has faced repeated obstacles in having his identity properly recognized at school. “I’ve been continuously misgendered throughout my four years at Masters,” S.K. said. “Everybody has gotten my name correctly since freshman year… but most teachers forget pronouns halfway through the year unless you pass as a transgender person.”
He added, “I’ve had many, many issues with my email… I requested [a change] freshman year when I changed my name in the school system, but I didn’t notice my dead name was still in the system until sophomore year… It took them so long to remove it, but somehow, it got put back up. I’ve honestly given up at this point”
L.C. noted that the response from faculty has been inconsistent. “There were some people who did not address the election at all, and there are some teachers who stopped class for like a week [to address it],” she said.
Anti-trans bills
“I know that there have been a lot of anti-transgender bills and legislation passed around the country recently,” S.K. said. “And I know as a New Yorker, the state is very Democratic, and we should be pretty safe here, but I’m concerned for the people who aren’t in states like New York.” However, that concern now extends beyond state legislatures as Trump’s executive orders have begun reshaping federal policy.
Since the start of 2025, state legislatures around the country have introduced a total of 584 bills targeting healthcare, education and legal recognition for transgender individuals. Nine have already passed, while an overwhelming 553 remain active. The pace of new proposals far surpasses previous years; in all of 2024, 674 anti-trans bills were introduced, highlighting the aggressive legislative push intensifying in Trump’s second term.
With a Republican-majority Congress and a White House openly hostile to transgender rights, some fear that these bills are now far more likely to become law. Currently, one of the most closely watched legal battles is over a Tennessee law that bans certain gender-affirming treatments, such as hormone therapy, for transgender youth while allowing the same treatments for cisgender youth. The case, L.W. v. Skrmetti, was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 4, 2024, with a ruling expected in late June or early July. If the Supreme Court upholds the ban, transgender minors in Tennessee will be denied gender-affirming medical care, while similar bans in other states will be greenlighted.
One of Trump’s earliest actions in office was signing an executive order on sex titled Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. In his inaugural address, he declared that the United States will only recognize “two sexes: male and female.”
The executive order mandates that all federal agencies replace “gender” with “sex” on official documents, including passports, Social Security records, and other forms of identification. The policy has already taken effect in at least four states, where transgender individuals have been denied requests to update their gender markers on federal IDs.
L.C. also noted that the national debate is fixated on a narrow set of aspects of trans identity, often misrepresenting their reality. “[The debate] is a little — overdone is the wrong word — but over-saturated because there’s more to talk about.”
She noted that the focus on transgender athletes often distracts from broader systemic issues. “For example, I’m a trans swimmer, but the vast majority of transgender people don’t participate in professional sports,” she said.
L.C. says these restrictions feel increasingly personal and suffocating. “I wake up and figure out what I’m gonna wear in terms of safety rather than looking cute or being comfortable,” she said. “I’m feeling nervous – not for myself because I’m 18 – I’m worrying for the younger kids. I have control over my body, but they don’t.”
Wilde agrees that transgender minors are particularly vulnerable. “Transgender kids are the most vulnerable because they are at the age where they don’t get to have the fulfillment of their rights. Rights can be denied to them.”
Wilde also pointed to the administration’s rhetoric as cause for alarm too. “There’s concern for what people might take as fact within the executive orders,” Wilde said. “There’s a lot of talk about the implications of gender-affirming care for youth, but there’s no real scientific evidence that they are citing with that.”
This story was originally published on Tower on March 2, 2025.