Transgender people facing ‘existential fear’ in Florida look to California for acceptance

Alice McGuire remembers the moment she began to feel “existential fear” about living in Florida.

The 37-year-old transgender woman was working as a custodian at Disney World when she was approached by a male park guest. He told her that she was “never going to be a woman.”

“He made it a point to say it in the most politically correct way possible that I need to die,” McGuire said.

There were other incidents — harassment, catcalls and more.

“I’ve had people attempt to just, like touch me and violate me without my consent whatsoever, just because I exist. I was like ‘Wait a second dude, nobody gave you permission to touch me,’” McGuire said.

Now, McGuire has had enough. She’s moving to California.

This summer, together with her partner, Niccole Scheib, 35, and Yoda, their 7-year-old Boston terrier-pug mix, she’s fleeing her home after watching it grow progressively more hostile toward its LGBTQ population.

According to the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, transgender people make up roughly 1% of the nation’s population. However, they occupy a much larger proportion of conservative state lawmakers’ attention. State legislatures have moved to pass bills restricting everything from what bathroom a transgender person can use to what gender-affirming therapy they can access.

“What we’re seeing is just states trying to further marginalize this already very vulnerable population,” said Christy Mallory, legal director for the Williams Institute.

States like Texas, Idaho and South Dakota are all in seeming competition to create the most inhospitable environment for trans people. But, “Florida stands out as a particularly bad one,” said Erin Reed, a Maryland-based activist and journalist who tracks anti-transgender legislation.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has signed into law a series of measures that are punishable by jail time. Trans people are barred from using bathrooms matching their gender identity and from receiving gender-affirming care. They expand the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law to block schools from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity. The state can remove transgender children from the custody of parents who affirm their gender.

Reed maintains a map on her Substack showing the most dangerous states for transgender people to live in. Florida stands alone with a “Do Not Travel” designation.

Fundraising websites like GoFundMe are filled with people trying to raise enough money to escape conservative states.

A June survey from Data For Progress found that 51% of transgender people have either considered moving out of their state or have already done so.

“I would like to go somewhere I feel more accepted and safe, and I would hard-pressed to find another place other than California,” McGuire said.

Out in the Sunshine State

McGuire met Scheib on a dating site in 2018. Scheib had just moved to Central Florida from the state’s panhandle; McGuire was coming off the end of a 12-year relationship with a woman that produced a son, now 8. McGuire’s ex and son now live in Pennsylvania.

McGuire wasn’t out at the time, meaning she was still presenting as male. She said she was “going through some pretty dark stuff,” and that her son was the only reason she didn’t take her own life.

They moved in together after two-and-a-half years. The reveal didn’t come all at once.

It started when McGuire said she wanted to buy a skirt. Scheib, who was supportive, recalled her partner being petrified of going alone to a Forever 21 store, so she went with her.

Still, McGuire was afraid Scheib would leave when she told her. Why would she want to be with her?

“It’s kind of hard to put words into when you actually have to finally tell somebody,” she said.

Even after the Forever 21 trip, Scheib said it was a shock when McGuire told her.

“It caught me completely off guard because she hid it so well,” she said.

Scheib said it took her a little time to come to grips with the news, but that her love for McGuire hadn’t changed. She was “still the same goofball I fell in love with.”

“It was baby steps but I supported her from day one,” Scheib said.

Before coming out to her family, McGuire would leave the house wearing men’s clothes and then change when she arrived where she was going, Scheib said. The prospect of telling her family filled McGuire with dread.

“I was horrified that I would get basically disowned,” she said. Ultimately they were accepting of her.

In the summer of 2022, McGuire started hormone replacement therapy. While she was worried about it at first, she said her experience was more positive than the horror stories she had heard. She had been afraid that the hormones she was taking would change not just her body, but her personality.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, hormone replacement therapy for trans women can result in mood changes, anxiety and depression.

“It’s a very subtle change though, it’s not something you’re going to notice right away,” McGuire said about changes to her personality.

McGuire said she was fortunate in finding a clinic, BLISS Health in Orlando,that specializes in caring for the LGBTQ community and offers counseling in sexual health, trauma, and transgender issues, according to its website.

BLISS also runs a program that, upon completion, will pay for people to change their name and gender marker; McGuire is a recent graduate.

But as McGuire watched the news and saw other states beginning to pass draconian anti-LGBTQ laws, “it started getting more and more terrifying” that the same was going to happen in Florida, she said.

Finally, she and Scheib made the decision that they needed to get out. In March, Scheib launched a GoFundMe to help finance the move.

In the meantime, the two of them are trying to stay as safe as they can be.

“We don’t go anywhere alone. It’s always together unless it’s at work,” Scheib said.

Still, McGuire, who now works at Universal Studios in Orlando, said she is unafraid despite having a public-facing job.

“I pretty much deal with people on a day to day basis, face to face, and the one thing I refuse to do is cower in the face of this madness. I won’t do it. I refuse,” she said.

The case for, and against, California

California, particularly under Gov. Gavin Newsom, promotes itself as a progressive bulwark against the wave of red state policies. But for all its reputation as an LGBTQ beacon, the state has many of its own imperfections.

Evan Minton, a Sacramento transgender activist and former Capitol staffer, said he struggled to find doctors versed in transgender issues. He repeatedly battled his insurance provider over coverage of medically necessary treatment.

“Just the bureaucracy of being trans is enough to drive anyone to their knees,” Minton said.

When Dignity Health near Sacramento denied Minton a hysterectomy, he took it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Though Minton ultimately prevailed, he said medical providers like Dignity are still able to close their doors to trans people seeking gender-affirming care. And with hospital consolidation, that means people in many parts of California are unable to receive that care, including rural portions of the state.

A spokesman for Dignity Health referred The Bee to its website, where it maintains a section about providing care to the LGBTQ community, including transgender people.

The website states that when certain gender-affirming treatments are not performed at one of Dignity Health’s Catholic facilities, “in these instances providers transition a patient’s care to other providers within a reasonable distance, including our non-Catholic facilities.”

Minton said that for some people, travel isn’t an option.

“If you’re stuck in an area where that’s the only hospital around, ... you can’t afford to go get health care anywhere else,” Minton said.

He added that trans people are also still subject in California to discrimination in hiring and on the job, despite the fact that California law prohibits it.

“And so that all contributes to trans folks being disproportionately in the lower economic sphere, and that contributes to the homeless population,” he said.

Meanwhile, California has seen an uptick in right-wing extremist activity, often targeting transgender and other LGBTQ people. Even something as routine as a school board vote on a resolution to declare LGBTQ Pride Month has resulted in violence breaking out. Witness the brawl outside the Glendale Unified School District board meeting earlier this month.

“These MAGA Republicans are seeing these as footholds and so they’re trying to encroach and perpetrate cultural wars that we were lucky enough to put behind us and have behind us just a few years ago,” Minton said.

Minton added that anti-trans sentiment has always been simmering in California, but that recently it has come to a boil.

There’s also the garden variety hardships that come with living in the Golden State: Lack of affordable housing, high cost of living and skyrocketing homelessness.

While California’s famously good weather may appeal to many, it is the political climate that draws people like Reed.

“California is a wonderful state. California is doing a lot well right now,” she said.

Just as Reed keeps a list of dangerous states for trans people to live in, she also tracks states that have protections in place for that population. California is on the list.

“SB 107 was a big part of that,” Reed said.

Senate Bill 107, which Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, authored and Newsom signed in 2022, is aimed at protecting young people who come to California from other states seeking gender-affirming care.

It bars doctors from releasing transgender youths’ medical information to out-of-state authorities and blocks California law enforcement agencies from enforcing out-of-state warrants for violating laws barring gender-affirming care. It also empowers California judges to assert jurisdiction in custody cases where a trans child is in the state to receive such care.

“I wanted to make sure that California would not in any way enforce these horrific laws in our courts,” Wiener said. “To me it was really important for California to push in the opposite direction, to support these families and if necessary to grant them refuge.”

This year, he has bills in the Senate to require health insurance providers to be more culturally competent with transgender patients and to ensure that LGBTQ foster children are placed in affirming homes.

“California has an obligation to serve as a counter-balance to the hateful laws that red states are passing,” Wiener said.

Minton said he’s seen California come a long way on trans issues. For example, the pink, blue and white transgender flag flew above the Capitol for the very first time as part of the Transgender Day of Visibility last March.

“I’m continuously grateful to live in a state like California where our leaders actually care about trans people,” he said. “These laws that they’ve passed have helped thousands and thousands of trans youths and adults lead healthier, happier and more successful lives.”

The California Dream

McGuire has never seen a mountain. She wants to find Madeline Kahn’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And then there’s the California music scene.

“There are so many musicians and bands that are huge influences on how I even think,” she said. “I find it interesting that a lot of those bands come from California.”

As for Scheib, she’s looking forward to making a new life out west.

“Starting fresh. I would love to call this woman my wife. And being able to have a gorgeous wedding in California would be lovely,” Scheib said.

The two have even discussed the possibility of adopting a child once they get settled in.

For Assemblywoman Lori Wilson, D-Suisun City, a co-author on Wiener’s SB 107, making California more hospitable to transgender people is personal; she is the first California lawmaker to have an out transgender child.

She said that the Legislature is committed to making California more affordable, and thus more accessible to people coming here from other states.

“I think that the wonderful thing about our state is we have 58 counties, and so I think in order to experience the California Dream any one of those counties can do that,” Wilson said.

For McGuire and Scheib, that dream will hopefully be found in Southern California.

McGuire works at Universal Studios in Orlando as a resort transit assistant. She’s planning to transfer to that theme park’s California counterpart, where she will work as a parking assistant. She hopes to eventually apprentice as a soundtrack engineer or IT worker for the theme park, so that she can get a full-time job with benefits.

Scheib, who is currently unemployed, said she is hoping to get a job at Disneyland; she has previously worked at Disney World.

The plan is to move at the beginning of July. They’ve already rented a truck, and they are working on finding housing in the area, looking at West Hollywood, Downey, Anaheim and as far afield as Moreno Valley, where McGuire said housing is “a little on the cheaper side.”

“Hopefully we can be in California by my birthday, that would be excellent, what a present,” McGuire said.