Editor's Note: This story was reported by Sage Lee as part of the Spring 2025 Kalamazoo Voices of Youth Program. The program is a collaboration between Southwest Michigan Second Wave and KYD Network in partnership with the YMCA of Greater Kalamazoo, funded by the Stryker Johnston Foundation. The Voices of Youth Program is led by Earlene McMichael. The VOY mentor was Maya James (writing). 

Imagine living in a town where few understand or accepts you for who you are, and, in a moment of devastating loneliness, you meet a kind person online — someone who understands what you’re going through and accepts you for who you are. 

Imagine that person tells you to move to New York with them, so you do. When you get to New York, the person you were expecting isn’t alone, and a group of seven people take you to a hotel, where they then torture you for a month until you die. 

This is what is believed to have happened to 24-year-old Sam Nordquist, a transgender man from Minnesota, who was lured and deceived, enduring weeks of starvation, physical abuse and sexual assault, until he died in February of this year. 

Violence against the LGBTQ+ community and People of Color isn't uncommon. It isn’t the first time someone who identified as either — or both, in Nordquist’s case — has died in a horrifying way. But Nordquist’s story has shined a light on how dangerous the world still is for young transgender people. 

Loren Burnell is the executive assistant at Grand Rapids Pride Center, a non-profit organization that supports LGBTQ+ people. They see many transgender people struggle with violence and discrimination.

“Especially recently, it seems the misinformation that is being hatefully spread by conservatives is taking off in a lot of spaces,” Burnell says. “The narrative now, that all trans people are predators, is unfortunately something we do hear very often.”

This stigma around the transgender community makes it hard for trans people to feel safe in various spaces.

The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a national advocacy organization for youth, commissioned The 2015 National School Climate Survey. which shows 75 percent of American transgender students feel uncomfortable in school and are more likely to experience verbal and physical harassment and physical assault than their peers. Over 10,000 LGBTQ+ youth were polled.

That was a decade ago, and a year before President Donald Trump was elected the first time. Since then, the number of transgender youths feeling unsafe in school rose to 81.8% when the study was done a second time. The 2021 National School Climate Survey shows an almost 7% jump, at a time when transgender people coming out of the closet is also going up. 

“We work with a lot of trans youth who seem to have an increase in bullying in schools lately as well,” Burnell says. “A lot of a similar narrative, kids are ‘too young to know’ or the disgusting mutilation lies.”

While schools aren’t always safe spaces for trans youth, other leaders are working hard to keep their spaces comfortable for transgender people.

Rev. Rachel Lonberg is the minister at People’s Church, a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Kalamazoo. The church’s local and national websites emphasize a welcoming and inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ people. 

“We don't have any gendered bathrooms in our building, and we have queer and trans folks on our staff who have served at the highest levels of leadership,” Lonberg says. “The last time we did a survey, about a third of our church members were somewhere in the LGBT umbrella spectrum.”

Having supportive spaces helps transgender people be their authentic selves, a point driven home in the Netflix documentary, “The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone,” about transgender rights activist Georgie Stone. She was the youngest Australian to receive hormone blockers at 10 years old. 

Throughout the documentary, Stone’s support group is depicted as her family, and a couple of friends with whom she leans while she was in court to fight for transgender rights. Stone helped change laws in Australia that made it easier for transgender youth to access hormone blockers and replacement therapy. 

Transgender rights have become a highly politicized issue. In an interview with Voices of Youth Kalamazoo correspondent Braylon Youker, former Michigan House of Representatives member Mark Schauer shared his professional opinion about how the topic is playing out in politics.

“What the Republicans are doing now on transgender issues, it’s sort of creating a policy by anecdote,” says Schauer, a Democrat. “It’s become a wedge issue, just purely a political issue.” 

Burnell and their colleagues are working hard in Grand Rapids to make the city more accepting of transgender people, but say it’s difficult when there is so much hate surrounding the LGBTQ+ community. 

“This is the exact result of the rise of transphobia and the hateful misinformation and fearmongering being spread,” Burnell said. “The more this misinformation gets spread, it creates a culture where transphobic violence is acceptable, and not just acceptable, but promoted and normalized. More transgender people will die as a direct result of this hate.”

But creating affirming spaces takes work, even among those with good intentions who have committed to the cause. 

Despite its inclusive staff and building, Lonberg says that People’s Church still has a long way to go to fully accept transgender people. 

 “I think people's hearts are in the right place and that's not always enough,” Lonberg says. “There's learning and listening and being willing to be a little bit uncomfortable, perhaps as you're doing that to try to live out the values that we say we possess.”

Sage LeeSage Lee is a student journalist at Loy Norrix High School in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is a transgender advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community through his journalism. He is on the staff of his student newspaper, Knight Life, where he draws, writes, designs, and photographs. Sage also does ceramics at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and has sold his art at the KIA Holiday Art Sale, Art Hop, and at other events.