This story was produced in partnership with Uncloseted Media, a new investigative LGBTQ-focused news publication.
Rylee Schermerhorn, an 18-year-old from Indianapolis, Indiana, is spending her final high school days pet-sitting in the afternoons and planning to go to college to study dental hygiene.
But as a trans woman, she’s worried about President Donald Trump’s executive orders seeking to ban gender-affirming care for patients under 19 through legal action and withholding of federal funds.
It’s why she’s eyeing a move to Illinois, or possibly Michigan, as soon as she finishes school and can afford to. She’s one of many considering moving to haven states as Trump increasingly targets trans people and states like Iowa repeal civil rights protections for the community.
“Illinois is one of the few states that’s been standing up against a lot of the conservative push against our community,” she said. “I want to be able to start my life and do it in a place where I know I’m going to be accepted.”
Schermerhorn, who started on hormones in September and has been out as trans since 15, said her “whole trans experience has been dictated by this state government.”
“I don’t want to wait around and watch my life continue to get worse,” Schermerhorn said. “I wasn’t able to have access to health care until I was 18. Now I’m worried it’s going to get taken away. … I don’t get how they can just change what it means to be an adult.”
Despite a federal judge temporarily blocking the order March 4 — which could hold enforcement of the order until the case is finished depending on the federal government’s expected appeal — Schermerhorn is still stocking up on her medicines.
“This order proved that, even for just a few weeks, it’s possible for our federal government to disrupt the medical care we rely on,” Schermerhorn said. “They’ve proven they can and will shift the goalposts because this was never about minors. I’m a legal adult and I could have been affected. The legal minimums could easily be raised … to them ultimately taking away all of our healthcare.”
Midwest oasis
About 40% of LGBTQ+ youth reported considering moving to a different state because of laws targeting LGBTQ+ people, according to the Trevor Project’s 2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People, a survey of nearly 19,000 LGBTQ+ people ages 13 to 24. Nearly 20% of trans people in that age range had to cross state lines for medical care because of the policies.
There was no exodus, though, as just 4%, or approximately 266,000 youth total, actually moved. But states that passed anti-trans laws aimed at youth saw suicide attempts among trans teens increase by as much as 72% after the bills were signed.
Fourteen states and Washington, D.C., have shield laws for gender-affirming care, which protect patients and providers from legal actions spurred by other states’ laws, though Illinois is considered one of the sole havens for displaced trans people in the Midwest. Illinois law also prohibits discrimination based on gender identity by healthcare providers and requires state-regulated insurance plans to cover hormone therapy.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul vowed last month to protect gender-affirming care in the face of federal funding cuts to hospitals that offered it to people under the age of 19. He and a coalition of attorneys general also secured a win in federal court that directed the government to resume funding that the Trump administration threatened to freeze.
But as trans youth are increasingly targeted by executive orders, some providers — such as Lurie Children’s Hospital and University of Illinois Health — have altered or ended certain gender-affirming care programs despite them being protected by state law.
Asher McMaher, co-founder and organizer of Trans Up Illinois, a trans rights organization, held a protest in front of Lurie Children’s Hospital on Feb. 15 to oppose its decision to pause gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19.
“We were all holding our breath and hoping that Lurie would continue per the status quo,” they said.
Moving out
Many still fear the worst outcomes, especially in states without shield laws.
A 16-year-old high school student from the Western suburbs — who didn’t want to be identified over safety concerns — said their aspirations to double major in STEM and music had already narrowed their college search.
But as the orders rolled out, finding a state where they can legally access gender-affirming care — even as an adult — has become a key factor in identifying the ideal college option.
“I’m trying to narrow it down to places it won’t be hell to live in,” they said. “That’s my main concern.”
After a visit to one dream school in Tennessee, they realized it “wasn’t the environment for me.”
“It’s limiting my opportunities, and that’s the worst part,” they said. “As someone with as big of ambitions as I have, it’s hard to think I can’t do this because of my safety.”
The high schooler’s trans friends are looking to study in more trans-inclusive countries where they feel they would be guaranteed gender-affirming healthcare, though trans people’s passports have also been targeted by executive orders.
McMaher is concerned that this is only the beginning.
“We could be looking at rollbacks that are even more devastating, forcing children to go through puberty they don’t align with or stopping people who have been on hormones after they’ve already been on them,” they say. “Right now it’s 19 and under, but we could be seeing that in the future as any age and all ages.”
Amy Lendian, a 66-year-old trans woman from Florida who started transitioning in 2017, said similar concerns are what caused her to move to Chicago on New Year’s Eve. She and her wife, Anne, who is also trans, decided two days after the November 2024 election that they no longer felt safe.
“We felt Tallahassee would feel emboldened to expand their attacks on us due to the rhetoric from the Trump campaign,” she said. “And that the local MAGA might take things in their own hands.”
Lendian left behind her house, her dream job at Kennedy Space Center, seven grandkids and two great-grandkids.
“I have gotten angry about it, and I have been upset and depressed about it,” she said. “I don’t get to see my family much at all. It was a very tough decision. But we had to do it. We were worried about our safety.”
Chicago was more welcoming than Lendian could imagine, finally allowing her to put her guard down.
“I was always on the edge, ready to fight or flight or whatever,” Lendian said. “And here it’s not, it’s total acceptance.”