Before the 2024 election, Dr. Molly McClain, a family medicine doctor at the University of New Mexico, was seeing an influx of patients seeking gender-affirming care from states like Texas that have banned it. The center is doing its best to accommodate more and more patients from in and outside the state, but there’s still a waitlist, stretching for months for some patients awaiting treatment.

Members of the transgender and gender-diverse community are fearful that it’s going to get even harder to access care, now that president elect Donald Trump has won reelection. Sources who provide or connect people to gender-affirming care told Salon that patients are trying to bump up their appointments out of fear that they will soon be inaccessible.

“People are devastated and terrified about what this might mean for their access to medications,” McClain told Salon in a phone interview. “This is evidence-based and life-saving care.”

The first Trump Administration notoriously enacted a host of anti-LGBTQ policies, including repealing health care regulations that prohibited discrimination based on gender identity, implementing a ban on transgender troops, and rescinding a policy that allowed transgender and intersex inmates to be housed with inmates of the same gender identity rather than their assigned sex at birth.

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Although the Biden Administration reversed all of the above-mentioned rollbacks, the new Trump Administration has shown signs of doubling down on anti-LGBTQ policies, and many are concerned he will restrict access to gender-affirming care. During the election, Trump spent $38 million on anti-trans campaign ads, promised to ban minors from having gender-affirming surgeries, and has said that he would end Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals providing this care to youth.

Gender-affirming care involves social transitioning, puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or surgical procedures. It can be lifesaving for children, and more than 30 medical........

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