Six LGBTQ+ Americans share how they’re feeling about Trump’s election win: ‘Completely numb’

A Reddit thread has brought LGBTQ+ Americans together in sharing their reactions to Donald Trump’s election victory, and the comments are pain-filled and anxious, to say the least.

Donald Trump won the 2024 US election, marking his return to the White House, before it was even confirmed, by declaring that his administration will bring a “golden age” to America and “help our country heal”. 

But many feel his return to power could see the reversal of hard-won civil rights.

On election day (Wednesday, 5 November), a post on Reddit asked, “Americans of Reddit, since today is Election Day, how are you feeling?” It has received more than 24,000 comments. 

Many LGBTQ+ Americans joined in and expressed their concern, with one writing ahead of Trump’s victory that they had “mixed feelings” as his winning would signal that “a large portion of my country accepts hate as a platform.”

“I realise that if Trump wins things will get worse for a lot of people in some very real ways. That worries me, a lot,” they added. 

The Trump-Vance Republican ticket has been vocal and incredibly negative about the LGBTQ+ community in recent weeks, constantly pushing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and promising to enact abhorrent policies.

Another person said: “I’m a trans man with a uterus, married to a man, active in the local LGBTQ+ community, and well known in my conservative neighborhood as a very openly gay and ‘liberal’ person. I’m honestly terrified that violence is going to get too close to home, no matter the results, and one result in particular will end up with me losing a LOT of my bodily autonomy.”

Someone else commented, “Well, not good. I’m an LGBT+ woman (genderfluid, technically), and I’m on anxiety meds and birth control. I want to keep both of them so my period’s don’t hospitalise me from the pain, and so I don’t throw up before large events. I feel screwed over.” 

‘So scared’

“The people who want to see me and my LGBT brothers and sisters suffer absolutely swept,” another person commented, adding that women, people of colours and the LGBTQ+ community will suffer at the hands of a “conman”. 

Another person, who wrote that they “left the polls sobbing”, commented that they’re “so scared for the future” of the US and all minority groups. 

“I’ve gone completely numb,” another comment read. 

Trump’s win over Democrat nominee Kamala Harris will see him replace Joe Biden as president in January 2025, with his running mate JD Vance stepping into the role of vice-president – the position held Harris during the Biden administration.

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