Don't kid yourself: the sphere of freedom is shrinking. Trans people wanted to live their lives, but the political right, led by Donald Trump, turned them into demons, and the political center, in the form of respectable white people, helped make that demonization seem respectable. Kamala Harris urged Americans to choose liberty. “We’re not going back,” she said. Many people agreed, but the country did go back. Reversals on trans rights, the argument goes, could open the door to rollbacks on other rights, including birth control, gay marriage, interracial marriage and more.

Yet the future remains uncertain. People will fight, and just as importantly, they will find joy in the struggle. That is the spirit Evan Urquhart described in an interview below. After writing for The Atlantic, Vanity Fair and other outlets, Urquhart founded Assigned Media in 2022 to cover transgender news. He said there is reason for hope because, even with the bigotry trans people face, the level of prejudice is still lower than it once was. Greater public awareness, he said, also creates more opportunities to normalize trans life. Above all, he said, trans people know who they are.

“You can’t put toothpaste back in the tube,” Urquhart said. “We’re out, we’re everywhere, and even if our lives are harder, we’re not going away.”

Even so, he said, conditions will likely worsen before they improve. “The presidencies of Donald Trump represent a phase shift for American democracy, one that has made it impossible to return to the way things were,” he said. “I think if you look at the totality of the actions of Trump himself, his administrations, and his judges, that’s an inescapable conclusion. ... It’s too unsettling ... So people tell themselves this is just trans issues stuff, nothing to do with them.”

The Supreme Court has ruled that states can ban transgender athletes, even though the number of such athletes is vanishingly small. That has raised a broader question: why are states focusing so much attention on a group with so little power?

Urquhart said conservative activists identified trans women’s participation in women’s sports as a perfect wedge issue. The stakes appear relatively low, sports are not necessary for survival, and only a small number of trans people compete. The right has since expanded its attacks to other parts of trans life, including identity documents, restrooms, and even the removal of references to trans women from rape protections in federal prisons. Sports, however, has been the longest-running issue, which is why it had time to reach the Supreme Court.

As a wedge, he said, the issue helps cement the idea that trans people should be treated as members of their birth-assigned sex, weakening the broader principle that equal treatment requires room for people to live as their authentic selves. The legal fight over sports has also given opponents a way to normalize restrictions that are easier to frame as narrow or technical than broader attacks on identity and medical care.

Asked what Democrats, allies and trans people have done in response, Urquhart said the prevailing view has been to let the sports fight go. Most Americans, he said, have been persuaded to see it as a common-sense effort to keep men from overwhelming women’s sports. Because so few people are directly affected, he said, the instinct has been to retreat and regroup.

He said that approach also misses an educational opportunity. Because sports are a lower-stakes issue, he argued, there is room to get people curious about the science, including how hormones affect the body and the differences between trans people and cisgender people of the sex they were assigned at birth. In his view, the history of medically transitioned trans women competing in sports has shown that none dominated any sport. He said that can prompt genuine curiosity, which can be useful for education. By contrast, he said, emotional questions such as whether a 14-year-old should begin hormonal medication tend to replace curiosity with fear.

Urquhart said so-called radical centrists have been central to the politics around transition. In his view, they have put fear ahead of liberty and treated right-wing attacks as mere reactions rather than deliberate attempts to “punch down.”

He said centrists want simple answers to complicated problems, including the challenge of a president they see as completely unsuitable, unethical and mendacious, as well as climate change and rising inequality. They want to imagine the country is still living in an endless 1990s, when the Overton Window was narrow, both parties agreed on many issues, and voters rewarded compromise. From that perspective, he said, it is appealing to focus on a minority that many people in their social circles already consider somewhat strange and simply shift positions with little cost.

But, he warned, the damage will not stop with one group. Some observers say the ruling and broader campaign against trans rights could help lay the groundwork for challenges to gay marriage, birth control and possibly interracial marriage. “The sphere of freedom is shrinking,” he said. The concern is not only symbolic: once courts and legislatures accept that some people can be excluded from equal protection because they are unpopular or few in number, the line between a targeted exception and a broader rollback can become harder to defend.

Asked whether there is enough public awareness of that danger, Urquhart said the presidencies of Donald Trump amount to a phase shift in American democracy that has made it impossible to return to the old status quo. He said that conclusion follows from the full record of Trump, his administrations and his judges.

He also said that conclusion is frightening, which is why many people avoid asking what these precedents could mean beyond trans rights. If a state legislature can ban a safe and effective treatment for trans people, he asked, could it also ban vaccines, antidepressants, birth control or ADHD medications? He said many people want the disturbance to remain confined to the trans community, not necessarily because they hate trans people, but because it is unsettling to imagine a far-right court deciding equal protection does not apply to trans people in sports simply because there are not many of them. If that logic is accepted, he asked, who else might be excluded from equal protection?

“It’s too unsettling to ask the question,” he said, “so people tell themselves this is just trans issues stuff, nothing to do with them.”

Urquhart pointed to Connecticut, where the state Republican Party is trying to ban trans women from women’s sports, but the effort is receiving little traction. He said that may reflect a future in which some states and regions protect equality under law while others dismantle it. “Legally speaking, the same person in Connecticut is different in Alabama,” he said. “Is that our future?”

He said blue states have largely rallied around their trans communities, which he described as encouraging. He added that the far right appears to want to federalize fascism and make it impossible for states to protect trans people, but said that project may be more difficult than expected.

As difficult and frightening as the erosion of rights is, Urquhart said, much has changed. More people now know trans people, and even with some backlash, prejudice is not nearly what it was when he was young. Trans people also have more ways to understand and express themselves than ever before.

He said he cannot predict the future, but he knows one thing: “You can’t put toothpaste back in the tube. We’re out, we’re everywhere, and even if our lives are harder, we’re not going away.”