LGBTQ+ Americans Are Disappearing

TL;DR

• Nearly half of LGBTQ+ adults say they are less out than a year ago.
• Two-thirds of trans and nonbinary people report trouble accessing health care.
• The Human Rights Campaign says Trump has nationalized culture-war policies once limited to red states.
• HRC unveiled a new offensive political playbook ahead of the 2026 midterms.
• The strategy focuses on shared values, affordability, and confronting extremism head-on.

In the shadow of the White House, the Human Rights Campaign delivered a sobering message: LGBTQ+ Americans are retreating from public life under Donald Trump’s second administration — not because they want to, but because they feel they have to.

At a press briefing in Washington, D.C., HRC released two reports that function as both diagnosis and directive. One documents the erosion of safety, visibility, and access LGBTQ+ people are experiencing nationwide. The other lays out a strategy to confront it politically, urging Democrats to abandon defensive messaging and instead go on offense.

“These are harrowing times,” said Kelley Robinson, describing a country where parents hide who they are at school events, workers mute their identities to keep their jobs, and couples hesitate before holding hands in public. Nearly half of LGBTQ+ adults surveyed said they are less out than they were just a year ago.

For transgender and nonbinary Americans, the numbers are even more dire. Two-thirds report difficulty accessing health care, as federal protections weaken, HIV research funding is cut, and hospitals turn patients away. Robinson said policies once confined to conservative state legislatures have now been “nationalized,” accelerating what she called a systematic erosion of dignity and safety.

But the briefing was not only a warning — it was a recalibration.

HRC’s new playbook argues that voters are not where Republicans think they are. Research presented by Global Strategy Group shows that no more than 18 percent of voters in any state believe being transgender should be illegal, and that Democrats hold a significant trust advantage on LGBTQ+ issues when they connect them to everyday concerns like affordability, health care, and job security.

Robinson pointed to recent elections as proof: the decisive victory of Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, where culture-war attacks failed to gain traction against a campaign focused on costs, schools, and stability. That win, Robinson said, is a bellwether for what’s possible nationwide.

Other speakers urged candidates to explicitly connect the dots between anti-trans laws, abortion bans, immigration crackdowns, and attacks on protest — framing them as part of the same governing philosophy. Journalist Jonathan Capehart warned that the quiet disappearance of LGBTQ+ people from public life is itself a crisis, one that newsrooms must treat as central to stories about economic and social instability.

Hovering over the briefing was the recent killing of Renee Nicole Good, a queer poet and mother shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis — a reminder, Robinson said, of the human cost of normalized state violence.

Asked what she would say to LGBTQ+ people who feel exhausted or frightened, Robinson didn’t hesitate: “You are enough. Every day that you show up as yourself is resistance.”

HRC says it plans to mobilize up to 75 million Equality Voters ahead of the 2026 midterms — not just to defend LGBTQ+ rights, but to redefine what political courage looks like in a moment when many are being pushed back into the shadows.