Resisting gender fascism

Abstract In this commentary, we explore the implications of the 2024 US elections on trans lives. While we focus on the United States, we situate anti‐trans politics within emerging fascist movements around the world, as the elections have impacts beyond national borders. We examine four areas of impact: the body, public space, legal geographies and mobilities. Trans healthcare and bodily autonomy are under attack in a myriad of legal and legislative venues across the United States, with devastating consequences upon the health and well‐being of trans people, especially youth. These attacks are complemented by legislation that criminalises trans existence in public space, including renewed ‘bathroom bans’ and bans on drag and other gender non‐conforming performances. Undergirding all of these efforts is a fascist attempt to ‘eradicate transgenderism from public life’ in order to safeguard the ‘purity’ of the fascist body politic. This imperative is evident in emergent legal geographies of trans lives, which are increasingly imperiled by the denial of state identification and documentation. Ironically, trans mobility depends on these volatile regimes of legal recognition, and renewed anti‐trans politics perniciously constricts the capacity of trans people to flee jurisdictions where they are being legislated out of existence. We conclude with a brief meditation about what resurgent gender fascism means for the discipline of Geography, arguing that geographers have an ethical and intellectual obligation to protect trans lives and resist fascism.