LGBTQ+ Americans are Calling for Help in Record Numbers

LGBTQ+ Americans are requesting support in record numbers, a charity said.
According to data provided to Newsweek, Rainbow Railroad, a group that provides services worldwide including travel, financial grants and information support to LBGTQ+ people at risk of discrimination, fielded its highest number of requests for help from LGBTQ+ people living in the U.S in 2023, since it was founded in 2006.
A total of 1,682 people contacted the charity, an increase of more than 500 percent from 2022, when 270 people contacted Rainbow Railroad. In 2020, only 106 people contacted the non-profit and in 2021 the charity received requests for help from 149 people. The 2023 figure means the U.S. was the third-biggest source of requests the charity dealt with that year, up from the eighth in 2022.
Rainbow Railroad did not provide a breakdown of the reasons why people contacted them or specific data showing the states that people contacted them from. However, they said the top concerns highlighted by U.S. residents when asking for help were increased fear of persecution and violence as well as threats from community members and family members and employment discrimination.
Rainbow Railroad’s senior adviser for U.S. strategy, Kathryn Hampton, told Newsweek that people contacted them from states where laws had been passed regarding LGBTQ+ rights and that those who contacted them asked for support relocating to other countries, including Canada, moving within the U.S. and financial assistance.
The data comes amid a changing legislative context for LGBTQ+ Americans. Last year saw the passage of a number of laws regarding LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. that critics said were damaging to their rights.
Texas, for instance, passed legislation in May 2023 prohibiting health care providers from providing certain procedures and treatments for people under age 18 experiencing gender dysphoria.
A state law in Florida, called the Parental Rights in Education Act but dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by critics, bans teaching staff from instructing public school students on sexual orientation and gender identity. It was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis in March 2022 and expanded in 2023 to cover all school grades.
Legislation affecting LGBTQ+ people has also been passed this year. In July, transgender athletes in Nassau County, New York, were banned from playing at county-owned facilities unless they compete on teams matching their birth gender or on coed teams.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has sued the county in response, calling it “an act of discrimination.”
Rainbow Railroad said in an email to Newsweek that the increased figures could be attributed to rising awareness of the charity’s work but said requests for help often coincided with the passage of legislation affecting LGBTQ+ people.
In 2023, 86 percent of requests from the U.S. to Rainbow Railroad came directly from U.S. citizens. This marked an 826 percent increase from the previous year in which the charity said it received more requests from refugees living in the U.S.
Of the 1,462 people who disclosed their gender identity to the charity, the largest proportion (24 percent) of those who requested help in 2023 were transgender females, 22 percent were transgender males and 15 percent said they were gender non-conforming.
Some 14 percent of those asking for support services were cisgender male and 12 percent were cisgender female.
In total in 2023, Rainbow Railroad was contacted by 15,352 people around the world from countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uganda and Kenya, which made up the other top five countries that contacted it. The charity also resettled those seeking help from other countries to the U.S.
Since the start of 2024, 478 people from the U.S. have made requests for help.
Arizona State University professor Julia Himberg, author of The New Gay for Pay: The Sexual Politics of American Television Production, told Newsweek there had been increasing “attacks” on LGBTQ+ rights in the last year, meaning the data was “disturbing” but not “surprising.”
“To some, the increased number of people in the U.S. requesting help may be surprising, especially because of the progress narrative that has dominated the country in the last two decades,” Himberg said. “That narrative tells us that the U.S. has steadily improved the legal and social lives of LGBTQ+ people and made us much more visible and accepted in society. Yet, in reality, there has also been an uptick in the number of targeted local, state, and federal attacks on LGBTQ+ rights and protections [527 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 2024 according to the ACLU],” Himberg said.
“When you add that the U.S., like many other countries, increasingly normalizes open hatred of and violence against those perceived as ‘different,’ or ‘other,’ the data is disturbing, but not in fact surprising.”
A spokesperson from the Justice Department told Newsweek it was committed to protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ people, including by targeting people who have targeted the community and by addressing workplace discrimination.