(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Transgender Americans are considering fleeing the nation in droves because they fear for their livelihoods—and their lives—in the United States, Vice reported.
Nooooo don't go pic.twitter.com/ddf51khite
— Keean Bexte (@TheRealKeean) January 11, 2023
Per the report, transgenders are concerned because not all Americans are enthusiastic about their chosen way of life.
Rynn Azerial Willgohs, a 50-year-old transgender, noted that leaving appears ever more viable because “physical attacks against transgender and nonbinary people on the rise and lawmakers targeting transgender people with increasingly draconian legislation that criminalizes their very existence.”
“There’s like 30 states right now I wouldn’t even drive through,” Willgohs said, describing a potential escape route out of the nation.
Per Willgohs, America is a very bad place to live for a transgender because of the rising tide of bigotry.
“All you need to do is look at the news and see how bad it’s going to get in the country,” the transgender said, noting that Americans tend to unfairly profile those in the transgender “community.”
“We’re accused of being pedophiles and of grooming children,” Willgohs continued. “We’re being accused of being a social contagion that makes every child think they are in the queer community. That’s the farthest from the truth.”
Of note, Willgohs suggested that last summer’s overturning of Roe v Wade marked a strike against transgender rights and acceptance in America, specifically insofar as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion which suggested that the high court should reconsider its prior gay marriage rulings as well.
That prompted the Democrat-led Congress to pass the largely symbolic Respect for Marriage Act, which codified gay-marriage protections as the law of the land even though they were under no immediate threat.
Nonetheless, Willgohs and others have decided to look abroad for more tolerant nations.
In conducting research, Willgohs stumbled upon the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’s guidelines on refugee status based on sexual and gender orientation. In short, the guidelines allow for LGBT people to declare asylum and attain refugee status.
“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, this is crazy,” Willgohs remembered thinking. “I can actually declare asylum just because I’m trans?’”
But not all are in a rush to leave the U.S.
A search of YouTube revealed that Vice has reported multiple times in recent years on the experiences of transgender invividuals who are fleeing to the United States while claiming asylum due to safety fears in their native countries.
