Navigating Safety as a Trans Person in Uncertain Times
How to Stay Secure, Find Support, and Plan for the Future by Connor Wolfe
Living in a World That Wants to Erase Us: The Weight of Now
There’s a weight to walking through the world as a trans or nonbinary person right now. You feel it in your chest when you read the news, in your shoulders when you step into a space where you don’t know if you’ll be safe. It’s in the glances, the headlines, the quiet hesitations before saying your name out loud.
Some of us have always known this weight. Some of us are just beginning to feel it. And some of us, exhausted, are wondering how much more we can carry.
But let’s be clear about something: We are not just meant to survive.
Yes, survival is necessary—we have to keep ourselves safe, we have to stay standing. But staying alive is not the same thing as living. We deserve more than just endurance. We deserve laughter that comes from somewhere deep, a love that makes us feel like we belong to the world, a sense of home that cannot be taken from us.
This is about both survival and joy—because one without the other is not enough.
Staying Safe in a World That Sees Us as a Threat
I won’t sugarcoat it—things are getting worse in many places. The laws tightening like a noose. The rhetoric turning violent. The unspoken rules about where we can go, what we can say, who we can be.
So we have to be smart. We have to be careful. And we have to look out for each other.
Know the Terrain
If you’re trans in 2025, the world feels like a shifting landscape—some places pulling up protections, others slamming doors shut. Know the laws where you live.
The ACLU, Lambda Legal, and Transgender Law Center track changes in legislation. Pay attention.
If you’re in a place where rights are vanishing, act now. Change your ID and legal documents while you still can.
If relocation is an option, consider it. If it’s not, have a contingency plan. Reach out to trusted queer/trans groups; there are options—
Stay Connected
Find safe spaces, whether online or in person. LGBTQIA+ centers, affirming therapists, or even just a friend’s living room where you can exhale.
Build a safety net. A few people who know your situation, who will check in if things get bad, who can help if you need a place to go.
If you feel unsafe, protect yourself. Learn self-defense, carry legal self-defense tools if possible, trust your instincts.
Protect Your Privacy
We live in an age where doxxing and digital surveillance are real threats.
Lock down your social media. Be mindful of what you share.
If you’re receiving gender-affirming care, make sure your medical records are secure.
Use encrypted messaging apps like Signal for sensitive conversations.
Survival Tip: If the walls feel like they’re closing in, remember—we are not alone in this. There are people out there who want to help, who see you, who will fight beside you. Find them.
The War on Our Mental Health
The weight of being trans isn’t just about physical safety. It’s the exhaustion of having to justify your existence every single day. It’s the slow erosion of self-worth when every headline tells you that people like you don’t belong.
If you’re feeling that weight, know this: You are not weak for feeling tired.
Step Back from the Fire
Doomscrolling isn’t activism. Yes, stay informed, but don’t drown yourself in propaganda, lies, gaslighting— Set limits. Take breaks.
Mute the fucking noise. Block transphobes. Unfollow accounts that drain you. Protect your energy.
Seek & Consume what lifts you. Read books that remind you who you are. Follow trans creators. Fill your world with voices that affirm your existence.
Find Help, Find Healing
Not all therapists understand trans realities. Find ones who do.
Use resources like Therapy Den and The National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network to find affirming mental health care.
If therapy isn’t accessible, peer support groups can be just as powerful (if not more in my opinion). Online, in person—wherever you can find people who get it.
When it gets dark, reach out. Crisis hotlines exist, but so do friends and allies and so do strangers who’ve been where you are.
Seek Gender Euphoria Wherever You Can
Dysphoria is a thief. It steals moments, days, whole years if we let it. But we can steal back.
Wear what makes you feel like yourself, even if it’s just in your room.
Change your name in your own spaces, even if you can’t legally.
Find glimpses of euphoria—binding, tucking, cutting your hair, growing it out. Let yourself exist in ways that feel good.
Reminder: Your existence is not a debate. You do not have to justify your right to be here. You already belong.
We Were Never Meant to Do This Alone
Isolation is one of the most dangerous things for trans people. Find people who see you. If they don’t exist in your immediate world, go looking.
Build Your Own Family
Not all of us have blood relatives who love us as we are. But family isn’t just blood.
Find your people. Friends, mentors, elders, younger trans folks who remind you who you were and who you’re becoming.
Show up for others, and let them show up for you. You are not a burden.
Find (or Make) Safe Spaces
LGBTQIA+ centers. Trans support groups. That one coffee shop where the barista always gets your name right.
If no spaces exist where you live, create them. A book club, a monthly meet-up, even just a Discord server.
Hold On to Joy Like a Goddamn Weapon
Joy is an act of rebellion. In a world that tells us we shouldn’t exist, loving ourselves is resistance.
Dance, write, paint, scream poetry into the night.
Love and be loved.
Be visible or invisible, loud or quiet—but never let them take your fucking joy.
Reminder: We come from a long line of trans people who fought, loved, created, survived. We are not alone in this.
The Future Is Unwritten—we are the line they cannot cross.
I don’t know what’s coming next. None of us do. The road ahead will be hard—but it will not be empty.
We have survived everything they’ve thrown at us before. We will survive this. But more than that—we will live. We will carve out joy where they said there was none.
Hold on. To yourself. To each other. To the future we are still writing.
Because we are still here.
And we are not going anywhere.
.
.In Solidarity,
—Connor Wolfe
(They/Them) Founder & Publisher, Wayfarer Magazine
Connor Wolfe (they/them) is a writer, publisher, and advocate whose work spans over two decades and fourteen titles, originally published under the pen name L.M. Browning. Their literary contributions have earned six Pushcart Prize nominations, the Gold Nautilus Medal for Poetry, multiple Foreword Review Book Awards, and the Nautilus Silver Medal in 2022. Their innovative approach to independent publishing led to two terms on the Board of Directors for the Independent Book Publishers Association, a TEDx talk at Yale University, and a degree at Harvard University through grant programs.
Wolfe is a lifelong advocate for mental health, trans rights, and radical authenticity—the act of breaking silence to reclaim power. After their TEDx Talk in 2018, they stepped into national conversations on mental illness, trauma, and the intersection of art and survival. Holding a degree in Abnormal Psychology, their work examines how creativity and mental illness shape one another. Their studies in Photojournalism under Samantha Appleton sharpened their ability to bear witness—to capture the unspoken, the unseen, the truths too often buried.
In 2024, Wolfe volunteered in the Collections Department of the Museum of Anthropology at Ghost Ranch, assisting in the preparation of sacred objects for repatriation under the newly updated Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. After wintering along the Rio Puerco on Cerro Pedernal, they are now traveling through the San Juan Mountains with their three-legged black cat, Momo—documenting, writing, and remaining in motion, as all revolutionaries must.
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