As part of LGBTQ Nations January issue, we asked readers to tell us how one year of the second Trump administration has affected their lives and what they hope LGBTQ+ leaders and allies do differently in 2026. We received dozens of submissions and will be sharing them throughout the month (you can also still submit). Here is what Grace Hansen, a 60-year-old pansexual transgender woman, had to say. Related 2025 was horrific for trans people. Heres how 2026 could be much better. How has living under the second Trump administration affected you personally over the last year?From the vantage point of January 1, 2026, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the answer to how the second Trump administration has affected me is simple: It has turned my existence into a logistical problem I must solve daily. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Professionally, the impact was absolute. For decades, I managed complex IT projects for global giants and, most recently, for Sanford Health. I am a builder of systems. But this year, I watched the federal government systematically dismantle the data structures that acknowledge LGBTQ+ people exist. When the administration stopped collecting Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) data, it wasnt just a policy change; it was an erasure. I found myself in meetings discussing how to retrofit systems to comply with mandates that essentially deleted my community from the healthcare record. The cognitive dissonance of building the digital closet I might be forced to inhabit became too much. The pressure on corporate DEI initiatives silenced our employee resource groups and dimmed the lights on authenticity. Consequently, on November 1, 2025, I left Sanford Health. I traded the safety of a corporate paycheck for the uncertainty of a writers life because I could no longer remain silent in a system designed to mute me.Culturally, the stage, my sanctuary for 38 years with The Rude Band, has become a minefield. The passage of federal and state obscenity laws, which weaponize the presence of trans bodies as prurient, has cast a shadow over every performance. Venue owners are nervous; they fear losing liquor licenses if a concerned citizen reports a trans woman in a sparkle dress as a danger to minors. Furthermore, South Dakotas HB 1259, the Bathroom Bill, criminalized my presence in public restroom facilities. Now, when I play a four-hour set at a civic center, I have to plan my hydration and bathroom breaks with military precision, terrified that a simple biological need could lead to an arrest. Personally, the toll is measured in fear. With Kristi Noem now at the Department of Homeland Security and Governor Larry Rhoden (R) executing the anti-woke agenda in Pierre, the state-federal pincer movement is complete. My wife and I have updated our wills and powers of attorney, fearing that a hostile Supreme Court might dissolve our marriage rights. We have a Go-Bag fund liquid savings set aside not for retirement, but for emergency relocation to Minnesota should the state attempt to detransition adults or further criminalize my healthcare.Yet, despite the Red status of this project called survival, I am still here. They have made it harder to work, harder to play music, and harder to breathe, but they have not made it impossible. I left the corporate world not to hide, but to speak louder. I am bruised, but I am still playing.What do you hope to see from LGBTQ+ leaders and allies in 2026?As a project management professional, I evaluate the current strategy of the national LGBTQ+ movement and see a project in critical failure. The strategies of the last decade, visibility, assimilation, and corporate allyship, did not survive the first year of the second Trump administration. Moving forward, I need leadership to execute a formal Change Request. We must pivot from public advocacy to operational insurgency.First, we need a massive redistribution of resources. For too long, national organizations have hoarded resources in coastal strongholds like D.C. and New York, while red-state outposts are starved. Here in South Dakota, organizations like The Transformation Project are the only thing standing between trans youth and total erasure, yet they operate on a shoestring budget while facing the full weight of the state government. I want to see national leaders liquidate the galas and funnel that capital directly to the front lines. We need to buy buildings to serve as safe community centers that cannot be cancelled by a nervous landlord or a hostile city council.Second, we must build a logistics network for survival. With the federal government erasing SOGI data and threats to use the Comstock Act to restrict mailed pharmaceuticals, we are facing a healthcare blockade. Leaders must stop relying on the law to protect us and start building the Underground Railroad of the 21st century. We need secure, encrypted supply chains for hormone delivery and funded travel networks to move refugees from South Dakota to sanctuary states like Minnesota for care. This is not dramatic; it is logistics.Third, we need a narrative pivot. The language of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has been effectively weaponized against us. In the Midwest, arguing for validation does not win votes. I want leaders who can speak the language of the prairie: freedom, privacy, and limited government. We need to frame gender-affirming care as a parental rights issue and bathroom bills as government overreach. Stop trying to teach gender theory to farmers; start showing them how the government is invading their privacy. Finally, I need leaders to weaponize economic hard power. My departure from Sanford Health in November 2025 taught me that corporate allyship vanishes the moment the political heat turns up. We need to stop applauding corporations for changing their logos in June. Instead, LGBTQ+ pension funds and shareholders must ruthlessly punish companies that comply with state mandates to discriminate.I am tired of leaders who tell us to hold on. I want leaders who hand us the tools to dig in. We are the firewall. Reinforce us.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.