America Is Increasingly Unsafe for Black and Trans People. Will Canada Help?

When conservative commentator Michael Knowles used his speech at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference to call for the “eradication of transgenderism” from public life, Zara Sluys X knew she would no longer be safe living in the United States.

A biracial Black woman, Sluys X had already been subjected to violent and dehumanizing anti-Black racism her entire life in the United States — including being shot in the head with a BB gun as a child by her white babysitter.

“The doctors say if he had been a step closer, the BB pellet would have penetrated my skull and killed me,” Sluys X told The Tyee.

In January Sluys X came to B.C. with her husband, who had access to Canadian citizenship and was sponsoring her immigration.

But Sluys X says the relationship deteriorated.

Now living in transitional housing for domestic violence victims, Sluys X is preparing her application for Canadian asylum on the grounds that the United States is not safe for Black or trans people.

Last year, 32 trans and gender non-conforming people were murdered in the United States, most of them shot. This is likely an undercount due to misgendering of victims by police and family members. But over half of those counted were Black trans women.

A 2021 study from the University of California, Los Angeles, found trans people overall were four times more likely than cisgender individuals to experience violent victimization.

Cait Glasson, an Ontario-based LGBTQ2S+ advocate, foresaw the need for trans asylum in 2023 and started an online parliamentary petition calling on the Canadian government to extend the right to claim asylum to trans and non-binary people facing exclusionary legislation in their home countries.

She specifically cited the United States and United Kingdom for the introduction of trans exclusionary legislation. In the intervening years, more laws have been passed.

Glasson’s petition received over 160,400 signatures, the third most signed petition at the time.

Glasson, who is assisting Sluys X with her application, says the petition was born out of fear that Canada will deny asylum to trans refugees as it did to Jewish refugees in 1939.

“They went back to Europe, where a third of them were killed in the Holocaust,” she said.

Hate speech and gun laws

The Tyee sought an interview with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Minister Lena Metlege Diab, but she was not made available.

Instead, a spokesperson for her office shared an emailed statement that explained the asylum process for anyone crossing the Canadian-U.S. border.

“We cannot speculate on future policy decisions nor comment on internal U.S. government measures,” the statement reads, adding the ministry does not collect statistics on asylum seekers by gender or sexual orientation.

Sluys X believes she may be the first Black trans American to claim asylum here, but she is not the first trans American.

Reuters reports that 245 out of 55,000 asylum claims in the first half of 2025 came from Americans, a higher number than in any full year since 2019. They confirmed this includes at least two trans people.

Earlier this summer a Canadian Federal Court judge ordered a stay of deportation for Angel Jenkel, a non-binary American, because immigration officials had not considered “current conditions for LGBTQ, non-binary and transgender persons” in the United States.

Victoria E. Thomas, an assistant professor of media and public engagement at Simon Fraser University, is researching Black cisgender and transgender communication practices.

It has never been safe to be Black, let alone Black and trans, in the United States, says Thomas, who is a Black American.

“We could think about police brutality, we could think about segregation, we could think about the war on diversity and diversity training,” she said.

Since January, 43 federal bills and executive orders were introduced that negatively affect Black people, including eliminating environmental protections; ending federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs; dismantling the U.S. Department of Education; and deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C., a majority-Black city.

Another 987 anti-trans bills have been introduced across 49 U.S. states since January; 122 have passed so far. One-third of Trump’s 36 executive orders negatively affect trans people, including banning trans girls and women from women’s sports, eliminating public education about gender identity and ending gender-affirming medical care for minors.

Earlier this week, Trump told reporters he had “no problem” with the idea of banning the flying of Pride flags in Washington, D.C., after a correspondent from the right-wing Real America's Voice news network claimed it represented domestic terrorism in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death.

Canada also has police brutality, anti-Black racism and transphobia, Thomas says. But it differs from the United States in two ways: laws against hate speech and fewer guns.

“Freedom of speech in America covers hate speech. That’s why we can have things like the KKK and a lot of these discriminatory practices,” Thomas said.

As most murdered trans Americans were shot, she added the country’s gun legislation “makes any person who has any type of oppression, any type of diverse identity, unsafe.”

Asylum hurdles

A. Connie Campbell is a Vancouver-based lawyer specializing in LGBTQ2S+ immigration and refugee claims. She is aware of just one successful Canadian asylum claim by a trans American but says more trans Americans are applying now.

Applicants must prove they face persecution in their home country, Campbell explained, such as a denial of public services, politically motivated legal prosecution because of identity or risk of physical harm the government can’t or won’t protect them from.

Claims have to be made on “something more than experiencing discrimination,” she said, unless “the discrimination is so pervasive that it cuts you out of society altogether.”

That includes harm or failure to protect from harm at every level of government, however, which complicates claims.

Despite no evidence the accused shooter is a trans person, right-wing U.S. politicians, media and pundits have claimed “transgender ideology” is behind last week’s assassination of right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk.

The U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to subpoena the private medical records of children and young adults who received gender-affirming care, Campbell points out. And it’s also contemplating a ban on gun ownership for trans people.

“Do the courts or the vagaries of American federalism allow the state and local governments to adequately protect their residents from the depredations of the feds?” Campbell said. “That’s a bit of an open question at this point.”

There’s an additional problem. Campbell doesn’t think Canadians would support mass asylum programs as they did for Syrians and Ukrainians, given recent federal immigration cuts and politicians calling to further cap or suspend immigration.

If the government were to offer asylum to trans Americans, Campbell said, it would “balk at the number of people who might take them up on that offer.”

“Open-ended... programs are eventually politically unpopular or not feasible,” she added.

But Canada prides itself on its history of taking in Black asylum seekers from the United States, Sluys X noted.

“The last time my people were brought here, it had to be clandestine with the Underground Railroad,” she said.

“Is there ever going to be a means that my people can be recognized in needing refuge with the help of the government, and with the help of the general populace as a political zeitgeist? Or will it always have to be behind closed doors?”

Glasson has also launched an online fundraiser to support Sluys X.