In the world’s current anti-trans status quo, facing bigotry is not something that’s a rare phenomenon. It’s the default. Trans people across the world each have personal stories of discrimination against them, or a loved one, for just trying to exist.

For our community, this is a fact of everyday life. Any trans person who has ever been to a suburban or rural community (and many “safe” urban ones) can recount the amount of dirty glares they get, the furious honking of truck horns while walking beside an otherwise empty road, the endless violent threats from either former loved ones or members of our own communities, the endless mis- and degendering from company staff that will maliciously refuse to acknowledge us as people worthy of respect. The reality that cisgender people often fear a decaying country will fall into is one that already exists for every trans person that dares to exist as we want.

These experiences are backed up by hard data. The nonprofit Advocates for Trans Equality released a nationally representative survey of the American trans community which revealed that 63% of trans people have experienced discrimination severe enough to permanently alter their lives. This includes but is not limited to: eviction, job loss, homelessness, medical discrimination, physical and sexual assault, incarceration, and educational discrimination. Additionally, just under a quarter of respondents report having at least three of these things happen to them.

This is without factoring in the more mundane aspects of discrimination we all experience, too.

In the past year, transphobia has been much more widely normalized, with tons of people feeling they have an excuse to let out attacks against trans people. The scores of individuals behind those numbers will often casually misgender, degender, and flat out insult trans people any chance they get. Coupled with that, violations of these laws can and do lead to discrimination that can permanently impact someone’s life, as data from GLAAD shows that the number of anti-trans hate crimes has increased drastically in the past year, including homicides. Such instances are often directly related to trans people just trying to use the bathroom.

This is all to say nothing of how transphobia overlaps with other aspects of marginalization. Black and Indigenous trans people, for instance, often experience even more severe and more frequent instances of hate crimes, including being disproportionately likely to be victim to physical assault, sexual assault, and homicide. Disabled trans people face increased medical discrimination. Impoverished trans people — rates of poverty are far higher among our communities — face disproportionate rates of many of the above hateful attacks.

The following are four stories, first reported by Trans News Network, documenting instances of anti-trans discrimination from major corporations in the United States. These stories do not encapsulate all transphobia that people experience, even by just these companies – rather, they are individual examples that highlight systemic injustices fueled by individual biases and far-right propaganda that isolates the trans community.

Rebecca is a trans woman based on the East Coast. She completed her legal gender and name change in 2023, and since has just been living her life. In early 2025, she decided to set up a life insurance policy, and reached out to the provider Legal & General America. She submitted her application electronically, and after a brief waiting period, was given an answer in no uncertain terms. “I got a letter from them that said, ‘you've been denied for eligibility for life insurance because of gender dysphoria being on your medical record.’”

Rightfully furious, she didn’t sit idle.

“I was just very angry at the time… I called them and I said, ‘why is gender dysphoria a reason to deny me for life insurance?’ And they just said, ‘I can't really answer that, but we can check with the underwriters and get back to you.’” she tells TNN. “So I followed up with an email and asked them to please check with the underwriters because I want to better understand why gender dysphoria is a reason for life insurance denial.”

Rebecca shared the contents of the email with Trans News Network. It said verbatim, “Applicant has been declined due to gender dysphoria. Possible reconsideration after all surgery is complete and applicant demonstrates one year of favorable psychological adjustment to new gender role with updated records for review.”

“That just blew my mind because they don't know if I'm planning any surgery or not — nor about my psychological adjustment to a ‘new gender role.’ I've been living as a woman for years. I don't know where that comes from or how that makes any sense whatsoever,” she recounted to TNN.

She tried to escalate things by getting in touch with civil rights organizations, but none were able to take on her case. With no communications from L\&GA since, she ultimately sought out, and achieved, insurance with another broker.

Except her troubles didn’t end there.

“The company that did insure me… insured me as a male. Which kind of sucks because men have higher rates,” she said. Exhausted, she stopped pushing after this, because she described how her rates are still low, and she didn’t want to deal with any continued headache.

In response to a request for comment, a representative of Legal & General America said only, “We are unable to comment on policyholder matters due to privacy reasons.”

In the time following our coverage of payment processors pushing the gaming website Itch.io to remove queer and NSFW content from their site, Trans News Network has kept an eye on other platforms that fund independent creators’ livelihoods and the likelihood of their following suit.

One such platform, Patreon, has already been covered by independent journalists like Ana Valens as showing signs that they plan to follow suit, including by restricting any content deemed not safe for work, often including fantasy, queer, and furry content that isn’t sexual in nature.

In response, TNN sought additional sources for more information on whether things were continuing to escalate. We got in touch with a queer former employee of Patreon, who worked there from 2020 to 2021, who described how Patreon’s attitudes towards NSFW content and the LGBTQ+ community isn’t anything new. This employee, who we granted anonymity for safety, described an apathetic attitude by leadership towards anti-trans actors.

This employee claims that they brought to the attention of Patreon executives – including CEO Jack Conte – that several anti-queer actors were using the site. These included Andy Ngo, Jesse Singal, Katie Herzog, and Sam Harris. While many of these figures have since left voluntarily, Patreon staff were nevertheless apathetic.

“They were just feeling cautious about changing anything in their content guidelines that would cause people to shift to a different platform. The end result was them saying, ‘no, we're not really going to do anything. Thanks for bringing it up. We hear you, we see you,’” this employee recounted an executive saying.

This was bounced around to numerous different staff members. Executives told the employee to bring it up to their manager to no avail. They brought it up during company-wide meetings, also to no avail. Ultimately, it took them getting in touch with an executive on the C-Suite for the company to hold a meeting on this issue.

“I was very frustrated by that. It seemed very clear cut to me that if you're doing transphobia, you shouldn't be on the platform because they had similar guidelines for all kinds of other bigotries, but they just didn't want to do anything about this,” they said.

The employee emphasized that many queer creators do still use Patreon to fund their livelihoods, and up until now that’s been working well. This individual also doesn’t want to dismiss every employee there, mentioning that many employees’ support of queer people enables creators to continue doing their work.

“At the time, Katelyn Burns made a blog post about how she couldn't do her journalism work without Patreon. I know there were lots of queer creators on there who could not do the work they did without Patreon,” they said. “I don't want to suggest that I think they're all bad. I feel like it's a net good for a lot of creators.”

But they add that this doesn’t excuse the blatant enabling of transphobia, which helped lead to the current political crises and scares seen today.

“There were lots of really bad actors and lots of people, such as Ngo and Herzog, who managed to make a lot of money on the platform and managed to mainstream a lot of their viewpoints while making a living off of it. Perhaps they wouldn't have been able to, if Patreon had been a little stricter about its content guidelines for transphobia.”

Rinna is a trans woman from Arizona who runs a foster home for cats, and she is currently training to become a firefighter. She doesn’t have a car, and so when she takes her cats to the vet, she often orders an Uber or a Lyft. What she thought was going to be an uneventful drive took a sharp turn when she got into the Lyft, and was immediately met with a bizarre experience, according to what she told Trans News Network.

Undisclosed to her on the app, the driver had brought a large dog in the front seat, claiming it to be a service dog – in spite of there being no vest or clear indicators that this was the case. Further, the driver had started chatting with her about her work running a cat foster home, prompting him to say, “I'm trying to do good myself too. I'm trying to start a brand of inspirational T-shirts!”

To try and show her the type of T-shirts he was making, he showed her a picture on his phone. “You see this? It's an Indian doing a tattoo, and it's an Arab tattoo. I'm white and my wife is Mexican,” she recounts him saying.

Rinna was taken aback. “This is weird,” she said to him, before he raised his voice and said “What the hell are you talking about?”

“He then goes on talking abruptly about how ‘he likes LGBT and stuff like that,’” Rinna remembered. At this time, she was worried about losing her medical care due to federal cuts to gender affirming care off of insurance programs funded by the federal government. She had talked about this to someone shortly before entering the car, but not to this man directly, though she reports he was in earshot.

She recollected how he abruptly told her “that I don't have to care about losing care because firefighter work isn't federal. Its state. But I'm saying that there's still a chance that I could get caught because state stuff is funded by the federal government. In Arizona, everything we do is funded by the federal government. He kept saying no to that, he kept disagreeing.”

“He then asked me ‘why do you think your work insurance should cover your transgender thing?’ He keeps poking me for an answer. ‘What do you think’? I respond that ‘I don’t think I’m going to answer that.’ He asks ‘why not?’”

She was baffled by this entire situation. “I’m just trying to get a ride. It’s not a choice. I should just be able to get medical care. This is a really weird conversation to have.”

“He just keeps going on and on with basic boilerplate transphobic stuff,” she continued recollecting. “He said that because it’s a choice that we ‘decided to become mentally ill,’ we shouldn’t have our care covered.’”

All the while he was doing this, Rinna described how he would go off on random tangents, saying things like “Autistic people are helpless. They can't do anything. They can't work.” His main point, however, remains about arguing that trans people do not deserve medical care coverage.

Meanwhile, he continues driving the Lyft. At this time, she’s nearing her dropoff point. After recovering from the shock, she replies to him: “You understand how dumb that is? That's like saying we shouldn't cover people with type two diabetes because they didn't take care of their body and got diabetes.”

She remembers that he tried justifying himself, arguing that trans people “don’t deserve” to get their work to cover their transition. “What you’re doing is a specific choice,” he continued.

At this point, Rinna was entirely fed up. “I just decided to let him have the final word. I don't want to have my Lyft drivers ask me about my rights and give me a condescending tone. But he was testing me the entire fucking ride — and the rest of the ride was awkward. I think he knew he said something wrong.”

After getting dropped off, she contacted Lyft customer support via phone. “The first time, they hung up on me,” she said. On her second call, she asks for a supervisor, as support was just giving generic answers that didn’t address her situation. Once again, she was hung up on.

“So then I called a third time. I say ‘please don't hang up on me.’ And so they don't hang up on me. But I think after 15 minutes of waiting, I'm realizing that person just put me on hold and didn't actually transfer me. So then I give up for now.”

Eventually, she gets an email from Lyft. This email, which was posted on Bluesky, has been transcribed in full below.

“I'm following up on feedback about your behavior during a recent ride. Specifically, the feedback alleged you made inappropriate or derogatory comments during a ride. As a reminder, Lyft is an inclusive community. We strive for all rides to be both safe and comfortable for everyone, so we take matters like these very seriously. Please remember to always remain respectful of others during each ride.”

Keep in mind that additional reports of this nature may lead to further actions being taken on your account. If you'd like to provide any details or have any questions, please respond directly to this email."

This happened mere hours later. Rinna was furious. “I kind of get fired up again. I'm a bit more angry on the phone. The lady actually stops reading off the sheet because she says, ‘We'll give you $5 Lyft credit.’”

Rinna was insulted. “No refund. Just a $5 Lyft credit,” she said. She continued to talk with the representative, saying that she “just wants to speak to someone who can really help.” The representative puts a note on her account, and says that someone will call her within the next day. To her surprise, the next day they left a voicemail – with no call-back number.

“They said that they fully refunded my ride. And now I'm kind of upset because it took so long to refund my ride. And I don't think I even wanted to refund my ride because this fucker drove me home. He knows where I live,” Rinna said, her voice shaken with fear. This interview was conducted the same day this voicemail was received. “If the ride gets refunded out of nowhere and with a complaint, he knows where I am.”

Not long after, she received an entirely independent text from a separate person, which was also posted on Bluesky. This text is transcribed in full below:

“I'm following up on feedback about your behavior during a recent ride. Specifically, the feedback alleged you made inappropriate or derogatory comments during a ride. As a reminder, Lyft is an inclusive community. We strive for all rides to be both safe and comfortable for everyone, so we take matters like these very seriously. Please remember to always remain respectful of others during each ride. Please know that future reports of this nature may lead to your account being reviewed for a permanent deactivation. If you'd like to provide any details or have any questions, please respond directly to this message."

After hearing about this, Trans News Network reached out to Lyft’s press team for comment. In response, a spokesperson said, “Lyft unequivocally condemns this behavior. Upon investigating this incident, we deactivated the driver, and we've been in touch with the rider. We encourage riders and drivers to report any instance of harassment or discrimination through the Lyft app."

In addition, Lyft said the following with a request that it be on background, a request that TNN denies.

“Our community guidelines and terms of service prohibit harassment or discrimination on the basis of religion, national origin, race, gender, gender identity or expression, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, age or sexual orientation.”

Trans News Network informed Rinna of this response via text. She said that she received an automated phone call from Lyft, and that she “wasn't even made aware the driver's account was deactivated or anything like they genuinely have not reached out at all.”

A Lyft representative followed up with another statement that was requested to be on background, one which Trans News Network also denies. “We can confirm that we have followed up with the rider via phone and email, most recently on Sep 1, acknowledging their concerns, confirming action was taken against the driver, and offering further assistance.”

Rinna received one email from a customer service representative on the date Lyft said. This email is as follows:.

“I'm truly sorry you had to endure such an upsetting and inappropriate experience during your ride. It's completely unacceptable for anyone to question your rights or make discriminatory remarks, and I understand how hurtful and frustrating this must have been for you. Please know that your case was thoroughly reviewed by a highly qualified team member, and decisive actions have been taken against the driver involved to ensure this behavior is not repeated. We take discrimination very seriously and are committed to supporting you. If you need further assistance or would like to discuss this in more detail, I'm here to help. For now, i\[sic\] glad to have helped you with your report and always remember: Your feedback is one of the best tools we have to continue to improve the Lyft platform. Thank you for your proactive outreach. Feedback like this truly allows us to keep our Lyft platform safe.”

She said that she “specifically requested a call,” and that this email, which was sent on September 1, is two weeks late, as the original request was from August 20\. “I still don’t feel good about how little I got to say everything that happened,” she said. “You're basically my only form of communication and I will respond to this email saying everything I just told you,” she said to the author of this article.

One week later, having gotten no response she said, “it seems they only respond when you say something.”

Tilly Bridges is a transfeminine first-time author, having written the book Begin Transmission: The trans allegories of The Matrix. This book is a nonfiction book analyzing The Matrix film trilogy for trans allegories. It contains no sexual content, and is entirely safe-for-work. It was published in 2023 through the independent publisher BearManor Media, a publisher that primarily does not put out queer books, but rather ones focusing on media analysis.

Earlier this year, her book saw an abrupt and bizarre instance of censorship. Hundreds of reviews were suddenly removed from the book, the digital and paperback editions were taken down from the site and removed from people’s devices and both her book and her author page failed to consistently turn up in searches on the site.

“Prior to any of this happening, my book had 103 5-star ratings (and no ratings anywhere below 5!) and dozens and dozens of review testimonials from people who were touched and moved by it, several whose lives were changed by it,” Bridges told TNN. “On August 12 I opened the page to find I suddenly had only 25 reviews… I posted about this to social media, when many of my followers checked and said their kindle versions had been deleted and removed from their devices without their knowledge.”

“Further, it seems searching for both my name and the book title would only sometimes turn up in amazon search results, but often return nothing at all, as if I had never written a book Amazon sold. Internet searches were still turning up links to the missing book formats, but following that link took you to a page on Amazon with a photo of a dog and a message that something went wrong.”

Following this, her manager ordered a hardcover copy of the book to see if that was still available. In a screenshot provided to Trans News Network of the shipping notice, it hid the front cover of the book and said “Item hidden for privacy” instead of its name. According to Amazon’s official policy on this term’s usage, this is only done for things like “erotic media,” “intimate clothing,” “self-help,” and “products used for personal protection.”

“Other followers then confirmed that when placing an order, the title and cover were also censored in the emails they received about the purchase,” Bridges added. She contacted Amazon through their portal, and was told that there was nothing they could do, and that this could only be done “if the publisher asked.” At the time, the publisher wasn’t able to get in touch with Amazon staff.

“I contacted my publisher, who claimed to have no knowledge of the censorship but did tell me that some formats and reviews disappearing has happened to him before, and it had happened again to many of his titles this time.. It’s something he said that happens to publishers with over 500 books from time to time, but usually resolved in a couple days. I really don’t know,” she said, adding that she has been unable to verify if this has happened to any other books besides hers, or if BearManor publishes other queer or trans books.

Trans News Network was not able to verify the claim that this has happened other times with large publishers. TNN reached out to Ben Ohmart, Bridges’ contact with BearManor, who said via email, “Amazon removed 100s of our titles, not just hers, due to a problem on their end which took them weeks to resolve.”

When pressed further for more information, Ohmart said, “It wasn't about that issue, it was completely random and Many[sic] books like ones by Charles Tranberg and Richard Greene, biographies on stars. It was a mistake not intentionally and it took amazon[sic] 2 weeks to figure out what the problem was.”

Tranberg’s last book on Amazon was a 2021 audiobook re-release of a 2018 biography on William Conrad. Greene has published two books on Amazon, being showcases of early 20th century film advertisements. No other statements from BearManor were provided.

Amazon declined to comment on the record, stating that they could only provide comment before publication on-background. If any comment is provided, this article will be updated accordingly.

Bridges added in an email from September 2 that her book has since been put back up fully, with some hiccups along the way. “Two days ago most of my reviews and all of my missing formats returned, but all of the ‘products related to this item’ beneath the book listing were almost exclusively pornographic material,” she said.

She continued, “Then just yesterday all of my reviews reappeared, and now the ‘products related to this item’ are back to being books about film criticism, gender studies, and trans authors. I've also had one report from a reader that the Kindle version of my book that was deleted from their device without authorization mysteriously reappeared (this only happened last night, so I don't know if this is true for all who lost their Kindle versions). I have no idea if the title and cover are still being censored in shipping notifications to people who purchase it.”

“It almost feels as if they're backtracking on what they did, but who knows. It's a completely baffling situation.”

Trans News Network was able to confirm Bridges’ initial reports, having had issue pulling up her book’s page and, when successfully done, revealed a low number of reviews. Currently, her book’s page is up, and there is no issue accessing it nor are there issues in seeing reviews.

Bridges reports that nevertheless, this has hurt her livelihood.

“I can only surmise that it’s hurt my income, because not only do I not get detailed sales breakdowns, I get my royalties incredibly late for reasons my publisher said have to do with when and how sales are reported to him? Again he keeps everything very opaque, so I only know very little,” she said.

“My next royalty statement should arrive in November, I think, but will be for the six month period that ended in March of this year. So I won’t even know generally how sales from now have been affected until March of 2026.”

These four stories are just a handful that reveal the breadth and intense transphobia that trans people have to go with on a day-to-day basis. The vast majority of the time, we are not able to get what happens to us publicized, and our voices often go unheard. Most trans people have a story of either themselves or a loved one experiencing discrimination This impacts countless livelihoods. Sometimes it costs trans people their lives.

Ultimately, there is only one way to truly solve this issue – solidarity and support networks that prioritize helping trans people. Trans people often go through hell and back trying to fight to stay alive, and oftentimes we find ourselves dismissed and belittled for even talking about what we face. The benefit of the doubt is constantly given to the cisgender individuals that take our rights away, while we’re seen as loud, curmudgeonly radicals who just want attention.

Yet, we face constant pressure to hide our experiences and pretend they never happened. Bringing it up in any environment beyond our own communities is often seen as domineering or being ‘ungrateful’ to any allies that claim to support us. In worst-case scenarios, it triggers more discrimination. Many trans people are silent about this, and the few that do speak up do so at great risk to their own reputation and careers.

Cisgender allies need to recognize the privilege they hold, the ignorance that comes with it and the need to work to protect the trans people in our communities, provide material support and give us a platform. Likewise, trans people need to band together and continue to fight against this oppression on every front we can. We must fight mercilessly against bigotry, put pressure on companies that deplatform us and rally support for those in our communities.

Likewise, we must organize support across marginalized identities. Black and Indigenous trans people of color are much more likely to experience discrimination, as are disabled trans people, as are impoverished trans people, as are trans immigrants. We must recognize who is being explicitly targeted, and protect them as much as possible.

The best way to build these networks is to connect with those around you, and identify areas that your community needs help with – be it assisting homeless encampments with supply runs, organizing unions for exploited workers, providing rental assistance for, fighting for environmental rights, or resisting attempts from fascists to occupy your neighborhoods.

There are countless ways to help your community and build support, and the sooner that we plug in and build bridges with each other, the sooner that there can be support networks for each of us. This is especially true if you are cisgender, white, higher-income, able-bodied, or benefit from any other kind of privilege. Build these bridges, and help those in your community that need it. This is the only way we can truly fight back against the discrimination that we all live with.

—Edited by David Forbes