Former president Donald Trump’s reelection is igniting fears of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination and federal restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans people of all ages.
At an event in August, Trump promised to sign an executive order “instructing every federal agency to cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age.”
He also frequently said that public schools will not receive federal funding if they promote gender transitioning, NPR reported.
Roughly half of the states in the country passed laws restricting access to gender-affirming care last year. Some states went further — like an Odessa, Texas ban on transgender people using bathrooms that do not match the sex assigned to them at birth.
Following the presidential election, trans and queer people from across the country are looking to Minnesota for safety.
Minnesota’s LGBTQ+ protections, both in the Minnesota Human Rights Act and “trans refuge” legislation, will remain in place regardless of what happens at a federal level, said Kat Rohn, executive director of OutFront Minnesota, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization.
“Immediately following the election, we had a renewed outreach from folks outside of the state,” Rohn said.
Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in 26 states has pushed several hundred households to relocate to Minnesota since becoming a “trans refuge” state last year, Rohn said. Legislation passed last year protects the privacy of patients accessing gender-affirming care and shields medical providers from out-of-state subpoenas.
Many seeking access to gender-affirming care come from neighboring states with bans — North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa, Rohn said.
“This is a unique scenario where folks are thinking about insulation from potential federal policies and continued access to care,” Rohn said.
OutFront has worked with people from 20 states, including states like Texas and Missouri, along the Interstate 35 corridor and southeast states Florida, Tennessee and Georgia, Rohn said.
Minnesota’s relatively strong job market and economy are a draw for those seeking access to care, and the high cost of living for “shield states” on the east or west coasts deters people from states with lower median incomes, Rohn said.
The number of families migrating is “hard to predict at this point,” Rohn said. He added those with the resources to move immediately will do so, but many more need time to think about relocating their families.
Looking for a way out
In the two days following the presidential election, Charley, a Texas native who moved to Minnesota, watched 60 people flood into the Twin Cities Transplant Discord server — the highest spike he had seen in such a short period. Many were speeding up existing escape plans while others realized they needed to leave home, urgently.
Charley, who requested his last name not be used to avoid workplace repercussions, created a Discord group in February to support fellow transplants after his move from Texas a few months earlier. He planned for the group to be a “social safety net” to provide people with community that is hard to find without family or friends in the neighborhood.
Approaching the election, Charley realized he would have to push forward on goals for the following year, such as introducing mutual aid through volunteer ride-sharing and virtual tour guides, as well as coordinating donations of mattresses, warm socks and hats, which many transplants from states like Texas and Florida do not bring.
Many transplants the group has attracted come from Texas and Florida, Charley said, which are home to some of the most restrictive anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the country.
And for someone coming from a state with the federal minimum wage of $7.25, the cost of housing in Minnesota is considerably more accessible than in coastal states, Charley said.
Missouri banned hormone replacement therapy for some adults in June 2023, sparking concern for many trans people, including Charley, that their rights could be taken away overnight.
Worried that Texas would introduce legislation banning adult hormone replacement therapy, Charley and his partner started planning their move as soon as possible.
Beyond the legislation, Charley said it felt “unsafe just to exist.” A cisgender friend of Charley’s in Austin was heckled for walking through a Target wearing pink Converse shoes, he said.
“Anything that signals that you are queer, it puts a little target on your back,” Charley said.
A November attack on two trans women at a light rail station in downtown Minneapolis, with cheers from onlookers, deterred a few people Charley spoke with who had been considering a move to Minnesota. He said it was hard on many members of the Twin Cities Transplant group.
“To me, (bystanders cheering) was the most devastating part,” Charley said.
A place to call home
Housing is a considerable obstacle for many transplants — the housing crisis in the Twin Cities affects everybody, but the absence of a dedicated LGBTQ+ shelter is a risk for anyone relocating without guaranteed access to housing, Charley said.
“And you can’t sleep in your car,” Charley said. “I talked to a transplant last year who was talking about doing anything to get out of Texas and mentioned in February living in a car.”
Charley said the “Catch-22” of finding a job without a local address is another challenge because employers might eliminate out-of-state applicants. To secure an apartment, one needs a job and proof of income, he said.
“The majority of people end up kind of frozen in place as they’re trying to figure out, ‘Where am I going to work, and where am I going to live, and I can’t do one without the other?’” Charley said.
As a realtor interacting mainly with prospective homeowners, realtor Sarah Rostance has noticed most transplants move from below the Mason-Dixon line.
“It’s another world down there,” Rostance said. “To tell people they can’t say a word that someone identifies as is so baffling to me.”
After the election, Rostance, president of Minnesota’s LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance chapter, has felt more urgency from people seeking to move to Minnesota.
The issue of housing is due to the “prices of everything going up,” without wage increases and the lack of new starter homes in the Twin Cities, Rostance said. New single-family homes have four bedrooms, multiple living rooms and a handful of bathrooms, but “nobody can afford it.”
There is also an inventory problem. Rebecca Wegscheid, government affairs director at the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors, said if realtors continue selling at the current rate, there are about two and a half months of supply. A balanced market would have around five to six months of supply.
This leaves families in homes that do not fit their needs, with no option to move into an affordable upgrade, Wegscheid said.
But the market is also seeing a phenomenon called “golden handcuffs,” Wegscheid said, where a homeowner might be reluctant to let go of a low interest rate on their mortgage locked down during the pandemic when interest rates were below 4%.
Now, interest rates are between 6% and 10%, Wegscheid said. The increase feels steep, but it is a return to normal from before the pandemic.
Policies like the elimination of single-family zoning in St. Paul might lead to increased development — and therefore, inventory — that could lessen demand and bring down prices, Wegscheid said.
The rezoning in St. Paul last year allowed for multi-tenant units to be built in every part of the city, Bring Me The News reported.
“A very long period of being extremely lucky”
In late spring of 2023, a staff member of a Louisiana middle school sorted through the library, writing down a list of books to take off the shelves to adhere to new legislation restricting access to “sexual content,” the law states.
Middle school English teacher Estlin, who requested to not have his last name published due to not being out to his family, knew it was time to leave.
Estlin left his job and, for months, lived on his partner’s income as a remote employee for a tech company. They both saved around $6,000 for the move to Minnesota — a state neither had been to before. The couple packed whatever would fit into their Nissan Sentra and drove for two days.
Estlin said they had known they would leave Louisiana since meeting at college in 2016, but the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ laws pushed them to act fast.
Finding housing that would allow a cat and dog was a challenge, Estlin said. To pinpoint the perfect spot, he navigated recommendations on Reddit to create a map of zones that would fit their needs.
Settling on the final unit came after more than 10 apartment tours across Minneapolis while staying in nearby Airbnbs, Estlin said.
Estlin was introduced to Twin Cities Transplants a few weeks after moving. He saw a notice for the first meeting in April and was one of about nine people in attendance. He has since volunteered to moderate the Discord community and help plan events.
Beyond the financial investment of relocating, Estlin said he spent months volunteering and introducing himself to the community before he could secure a position with a school in Minneapolis. He added applying to teaching jobs without connections was a difficult period, filled with rejections and sometimes no response at all.
“I got extremely lucky, but only after a very long period of being extremely unlucky,” Estlin said.
