Inside FLUX's Fight to Protect Trans Lives: Why Existence Is Resistance
As anti-trans attacks escalate, leaders ask Democrats: ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’
No gargantuan earthquake, avalanche, tsunami or firestorm compares to the global catastrophe triggered by Donald Trump’s pursuit of an authoritarian American presidency.
And yet the chaos created by the daily whiplash seems to have inured us to our crumbling democracy: international military strikes without legal authority or Congressional consent; unidentified armed masked ICE kidnappers deporting non-criminals such as gay stylist asylum seeker Andry Romero; Vietnam War draft-dodger Trump seemingly declaring war on American cities; and the steady drumbeat of contrived “emergencies,” paving the way for Trump’s gaslighting “election integrity” project to undermine upcoming elections.
The brazen warmongering, lawlessness and deportation cruelty are beyond shocking. The once-trusted US Supreme Court, led by blatantly corrupt Justices and liars who swore that Roe’s reproductive rights were “settled law,” now operates a “shadow docket” with unexplained pro-Trump rulings, including temporarily lifting court-imposed racial profiling restrictions on roving immigration stops in Los Angeles.
Most lower courts are still defending the Constitution. The Legal AF podcast points out that Trump lost six cases in six courts in just eight days. “Courts found that Trump violated, among other things, the Posse Comitatus Act, the Alien Enemies Act, the First Amendment, the separation of powers, and the Fifth Amendment’s due process guarantees.”
However, in the clouded atmosphere of everything everywhere all at once, Trump toadies are ubiquitously enforcing Project 2025 mandates. Gay attorney Chris Geidner notes in his Lawdork Substack, that the Justice Department is “trying to send 19 trans women to men’s prisons with the DOJ explicitly denying the existence of trans women.”
On the economic front, Trump - who appeared baffled by the word “groceries” – is being trolled by California Gov. Gavin Newsom for failing to lower food costs. Fears of inflation and Trump’s erratic obsession with tariffs and taking over the independent Federal Reserve have experts like Paul Krugman calling the moves dangerous and “a five-alarm fire.”
The latest jobs report suggests an impending recession, which is terrible for LGBTQ+ jobseekers since AI eliminates applications and resumes with references to DEI, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Last Aug. 2024, the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law reported that over 8 million workers in the U.S. identify as LGBTQ and that employment discrimination is “persistent and widespread” and rarely addressed.
“Almost half (47%) of LGBTQ employees reported experiencing discrimination or harassment at work (including being fired, not hired, not promoted, or being verbally, physically, or sexually harassed) because of their sexual orientation or gender identity during their lifetime,” the Williams Institute reported.
Discrimination against Black LGBTQ workers is high at 51%. Additionally, 59% of Black LGBTQ adult workers are under the age of 35, and 81% are under the age of 45.
A survey of LGBTQ Latinx employees found 58% reporting discrimination or harassment at work; 65% are under age 35; 12% identified as transgender or nonbinary.
At 82%, transgender employees experience the highest rate of LGBTQ+ discrimination at work; 71% were under age 35; 50% were people of color.
Interestingly, transgender employees “were more likely to report these experiences than cisgender LGBQ employees (47%) and nonbinary employees (59%).”
Trans defiance or, as FLUX International President Queen Victoria says, “Existence is Resistance.”
Polling is critical now as the government officially tries to erase us.
A Feb. 2025 Gallup Poll determined that 9.3% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or “something other than heterosexual” in 2024. This figure “has nearly doubled since 2020 and is up from 3.5% in 2012, when Gallup first measured it.” Additionally, “more than one in five Gen Z adults -- those born between 1997 and 2006, who were between the ages of 18 and 27 in 2024 -- identify as LGBTQ+.”
Overall, Gallup reported that 1.3% of US adults are transgender. The Williams Institute expands on that, saying that 2.8 million people ages 13+ identify as transgender. Of those: “Three-quarters of people aged 13 and older who identify as transgender are under 35; One quarter of individuals who identify as transgender are between 13 and 17; Among transgender adults, roughly one-third identify as trans women, one-third as trans men, and one-third as nonbinary.”
What is fair about the US government denying 2.8+ million transgender people their humanity –individual liberty enshrined in the First Amendment right to free speech and free expression?
The first test of America’s humanity starts with the upcoming gubernatorial race in Virginia. Meanwhile, freaked out Democrats are giving permission to “uncomfortable” voters to ignore anti-trans attacks for the “greater good” of winning elections?
As the City and County of San Francisco notes in “Trans Women in Sports: Facts Over Fear,” Republicans making public policy based on 10 trans athletes in the United States of America.
“This bizarre focus on trans people, who make up approximately 1% of the population, is demonstrated by the fact that as of March 15, there have already been over 745 anti-trans bills introduced in state legislatures across the country in 2025 alone,” the report says. “Trans people are estimated to make up 1-2% of the population of the United States; however, trans people make up less than less than 0.002% (10/500,000) of US college athletes, and even fewer of recent Olympians (0.001%) identify as trans.”
John Oliver devoted 42 minutes of his HBO show to this absurdity, prompting a public exchange with anti-trans cheerleader, JK Rowling.
“There are vanishingly few trans girls competing in high school sports anywhere and even if there were more trans kids, like all kids, they vary in athletic ability and there is no evidence that they pose any threat to safety or fairness,” Oliver said, underscoring the transphobia. “You can basically say anything you want about trans people, as long as you tag on ‘in sports’ after it.”
The latest annual FBI crime report, however, is no joke. Violent crime in 2024 declined, while hate crimes based on race, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity increased. GLAAD’s May 2025 ALERT Desk Report found the equivalent of 2.5 incidents every day for one year, more than half targeting transgender and gender nonconforming people.
Hate inspires fear.
When I last saw FLUX leader Queen Victoria Ortega at a news conference in West Hollywood last April demanding the release of Andry Hernandez Romero, I told her it was brave of her to show up. She said she was afraid, too, but it was important to be there. Queen Victoria may dress elegantly and carry a purse – but she is not afraid of being on the front lines.
Queen Victoria is the Chief Visionary Officer at the Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center that straddles Hollywood and West Hollywood. Queen Chela Demuir is FLUX’s International Vice President, President and Founder of Unique Woman’s Coalition. Commander Scottie-Jeanette Madden, a writer and producer, is FLUX’s International Advocacy Director.
I asked Queen Victoria and Scottie-Jeanette for a Zoom interview about what FLUX – an affinity organization under the AIDS Healthcare Foundation umbrella - is doing to help trans and nonbinary folks deal with the pervasive fear. Our Zoom quickly turned into a relaxed conversation.
A longtime trans activist, Queen Victoria talked about FLUX as “a catalyst for change for our communities through inspiration and empowerment.”
She focused on the positive news “that trans people continue to exist and will continue to do so. Because, in the words of another leader, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, ‘we're still fucking here.’”
Scottie-Jeanette explained that FLUX produces three large scale events a week, creating safe community spaces.
Last March, FLUX presented findings from a landmark 3-year Health & Wellness Survey, Creating Social Spaces, Creates Social Change. The insights, the survey says, “serve as a foundation for actionable change—guiding targeted advocacy, informing policy recommendations, and shaping future wellness initiatives. More importantly, this work underscores the resilience, determination, and agency of trans and nonbinary individuals in striving for holistic well-being.
“Integral to this research is FLUX’s unique approach of ‘Partying with a Purpose,’ which seamlessly integrates social engagement with advocacy….creating affirming spaces that celebrate identity while prioritizing health and wellness.”
“Our job is to create safe spaces and this [Center] is one of them,” said Scottie-Jeanette. But FLUX is also trying “to create safe space for our entire community through our political advocacy and our policy and legislative initiatives. We take service to community really seriously.”
Ironically, given the times, “the meaning of the word ‘flux’ is to be everywhere and everything all at once,” said Queen Victoria.
What do you tell people who are afraid?
“I don't tell them anything,” Queen Victoria said. “Our job is to be a mirror, right? Sometimes you forget how powerful we are, right? And I just think that it's time to listen” and enable people “to see how fabulous they already have and always have been and are.”
“We all know we've been through some shit,” Queen Victoria said. But “we are built for this moment….We come out of our door and shift energy and shift space every single day. And as we operate from that sense of power, we are unstoppable.”
What about Democrats betraying trans people?
“Whenever any of the Democrats turned on their own morals of the party, they lost,” Scottie-Jeanette said. Remember, “if we do not hang together-- and this is the only cis man I ever quote—says Benjamin Franklin, ‘We shall surely hang separately.’”
“Reject all of the arguments against us. It's ridiculous. It doesn't have anything to do with our humanity,” she said. “We're not a political message.”
Queen Victoria would address all anti-trans voters, echoing Stonewall icon Sylvia Rivera who was booed on New York’s Pride stage in 1973 after calling out an ignorant crowd:
“What the fuck is wrong with all of you?"
Please see the conversation we had in the video below: