Advocate Celeste Trianon on trans Americans fleeing to Canada

From the moment President Donald Trump took office for the second time, his administration has passed a flurry of laws targeting transgender Americans. On Inauguration Day, Trump issued an executive order declaring that the federal government would only recognize two genders: male and female. Since then, he has issued many other executive orders targeting trans women and girls in sports, gender affirming care for youth, transgender military service members and DEI programs that benefit transgender people. These sweeping transphobic policies have many transgender Americans extremely concerned for their safety, with an increasing number considering moving to Canada to escape the climate of fear in the United States. 

Who is fleeing to Canada and why are they moving?

Celeste Trianon, a Chinese Canadian activist for trans rights and law student at the Université de Montréal, has had a front row seat to this escalating crisis. She claims that she knows of at least five trans Americans who have filed an asylum claim in Canada since January. However, she thinks that this is just the tip of the iceberg of the real number of trans Americans fleeing the United States to Canada. “(There are) people who previously moved to Canada from the U.S. for reasons that may or may not be related to transphobia, who now cannot go back to the U.S. because of hate. Other people who've decided to move might have had citizenship by descent, or might have not used a Canadian citizenship for like 10, 20-plus years, are now moving to Canada because it's no longer safe to be in the U.S. anymore,” she says. “It can be people with family, with a spouse in Canada and (who) might have grown up their whole lives in the U.S., (who are) now going to Canada because of hate. Then you have people (who) come here under more traditional visas, like work visas, international student visas—those who applied for university here in order to escape the U.S. You even have some cases of people coming here under a visitor visa, hoping to wait things out.” Trianon has also witnessed cases of families with trans children and the parents have decided to move their family to Canada so their children can have a future.

Trianon knows of at least five trans Americans who have filed an asylum claim in Canada since January, and this is only the beginning.

André Querry

Trianon believes that trans Americans are fleeing to Canada because there is an ever-decreasing amount of places in the United States where they feel safe. “Everywhere across the country, there's many different so-called ‘blue states,' so safe states, where trans people are no longer able to be as safe as they’d like,” she says. “Because unfortunately, there's certain things like passports, which are under U.S. federal jurisdiction. There are other (cases) where the U.S. government is actively holding states hostage...States are trying to defend trans kids when the U.S. federal government policy is to be transphobic.” Trianon also believes that because of U.S. federal transphobic policies, hate crimes against trans Americans are also increasing. She has heard reports of trans Americans being assaulted and attacked in broad daylight, silenced and mocked.

Trianon also believes that trans Asian Americans and other trans people of color will have an even harder time fleeing the United States due to increased persecution targeting their multiple marginalized identities. “A lot of them are being summarily deported. They're being kidnapped off the streets. The U.S. has become a terrorist state. I don't think that's an (exaggeration) anymore. It is a truth,” she says. “But at the same time, there are...a lot of trans Americans who are feeling stuck. I know at least of three trans suicides, which occurred the day after Trump got elected in the U.S. And I suspect the real number to be much higher, probably in the hundreds or even thousands.”

Filing for asylum in Canada

There are a lot of considerations that go into a successful asylum claim. To have an asylum claim legally approved, Trianon says claimants need to provide proof that they are being persecuted and that there is no safe place in their own country where they can go. “Now, with the U.S. effectively sending people to foreign concentration camps and jailing dissidents, etc. I do think we are getting very close to the point where such asylum claims actually start having merit, not just (on) a moral level, but also a legal one,” she says.

The United States has become increasingly unsafe for trans people since Donald Trump was elected.

André Querry

But successfully having an asylum claim granted in Canada can be extremely challenging. For one, many trans Americans are being denied identity documents that are essential for immigration. “There's also the so-called Safe Third Country Agreement, which makes it hard for people not ordinarily residents of the U.S. U.S. citizens can claim asylum here, but what about someone who, say, is a Saudi citizen, who cannot go back to Saudi Arabia because of transphobia, who cannot stay in the U.S. because of transphobia? Where do these people go as well?” she asks, adding that she believes the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) must be abolished. The agreement is between Canada and the United States, and stipulates that people applying for asylum must do it in the first safe country they arrive in.

Trianon also believes that Canadian institutions are not prepared to welcome the potential wave of trans American refugees set to enter Canada. “There's no resources yet, and there's no expertise yet, on what it takes to submit a claim. There's no such thing as an asylum seeker guide for trans Americans moving to Canada,” she says. “Nobody knows whether an asylum claim is gonna be accepted until we start having a pattern of claims actually getting accepted. And once that's the case, it would probably be too late (to save many trans Americans).”

Welcoming trans Americans to Canada

Trianon stresses that it is essential for Canada to start building capacity to welcome trans American refugees. She deems current efforts to be woefully inadequate—too little, too scattered and not organized enough. “There's (no one) that (is) actually doing systematic, on-the-ground work to welcome trans Americans, and to make sure they have the means to either do a refugee claim or just stay alive,” she says. “I'm pretty sure if I had the money to hire one lawyer to take on only trans U.S. asylum seeker cases, that lawyer would be booked within two weeks. And also that's without mentioning the fact that, in general, asylum claims in Canada take three years, which is bonkers and unacceptable.”

She hopes that the newly elected Liberal government of Canada will provide a dedicated pathway for American trans refugee immigration—similar to the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel (CUAET) for Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion—“so they can just, you know, sit out over here and stop risking their lives down south.”

Trianon believes that Canada must start building capacity to welcome trans American refugees.

André Querry

Trianon denounces the current Canadian immigration public discourse which is “intoxicated with racism and especially anti-immigration rhetoric.” She urges Canadians to remember humanitarian considerations in its immigration policies. “People are f*cking human beings and deserve to live. Have we forgotten that? It sure feels right now, with politics everywhere across the world, we are forgetting that people are human beings,” she says. “So, you know, Canadian politicians should be acting—not just trying to prevent a refugee crisis from happening—but knowing that it is already happening, being proactive about it.” She calls on Canadian politicians to make a concerted effort to build enough housing to shelter every American immigrant and refugee that will be coming into the country. “We cannot just pretend that we're like the U.S. We have to be different, we have to be compassionate. We have to love each other's neighbors. And that's the approach I hope we can all take for the next few years, especially to acknowledge each other, our neighbors,” she says. “Understand that each one of us deserves compassion and not to be erased, (thrown away) and killed by our own governments.”