A local nonprofit serving the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community is holding a name-change clinic on Saturday, January 11, anticipating a crackdown on transgender and immigrant rights under the incoming Trump administration.

Rae Rowe and Lynn Nguyen launched the Paper Lantern Project last May to expand AAPI voices and reduce the stigma in conversations around gender and reproductive health.

The day after the November election, the pair started a mutual aid fund that covers everything from gender-affirming care, to child care needs for appointments, to funding for abortions. They also began organizing the name-change clinic, to help those who worry they could be targets of the new administration.

“We wanted to offer a clinic to help people feel best prepared for their legal documents and just having some validation in their identities,” said Nguyen.

The clinic will provide legal help to immigrants, transgender and nonbinary people or adoptees who want to change their names or gender markers on identity documents. 

“There’s a big concern that rights will be stripped away,” said Rowe. “I think that a lot of people have seen online that this next administration can potentially turn [against] trans people in reducing their rights or their access to gender-affirming care.”

President-elect Donald Trump has promised a federal ban on gender-affirming care and threatened to restrict federal ID cards to the carrier’s sex assigned at birth. He also announced plans to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. 

“Trans immigrants specifically are at higher risk of being targeted by ICE and CBP as well as just regular law enforcement,” said Ash Tifa, a transgender health advocate and legal expert who will take part in the name-change clinic. 

“I make it a focus of what I do to make sure people are empowered, make sure their documents or gender marker matches the gender they want it to be and to lower the risk of being targeted,” she added. 

There are three forms applicants need to file, Tifa said: an application for a name change, a background check and a proposed order for the name change. Once filled out, those forms have to be submitted in the county of residence along with a $285 fee.

For foreign nationals who are unable to return to their home countries to request a name change on their passport, Tifa recommends that they make sure their name is consistent on all U.S. documents and keep proof of the name change with other IDs in case of an identity check by police or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

Tifa has also received questions from nonbinary people worried that the X marker on their identification could put them at risk.

“For immigrants, it does put people at risk as if it is a very tangible marker of transness or existing outside the gender binary,” Tifa said. She advises those with concerns to revert to a male or female marker and use that consistently in all documents.

As part of the name change process, applicants need to pay additional fees to update their driver’s license, Social Security card, passport and other documents. But anyone receiving any kind of public assistance is eligible for a fee waiver, Tifa said. 

Paper Lantern Project’s mutual aid fund can also cover some of the name-change fees — even on the day of the clinic. Requests for help began pouring in as soon as AAPI Gender and Reproductive Justice Fund was established, Rowe said. As of mid-December, the fund had more than $2,000 in requests. 

Registration is open until the day of the clinic and Paper Lantern Project will have translators on site, based on the needs of those who register. 

“One of the biggest barriers for AAPI people is that there are not enough language translators available,” said Rowe. “Refugees are working jobs where they might not necessarily have the flexibility required to meet with a language translator.”

Rowe and Nguyen launched the Paper Lantern Project after a national organization for AAPI racial, immigrant and reproductive rights left Minnesota. Both organizers had been advocating on gender and reproductive justice and saw a void in care and advocacy that had to be filed. 

“When you think of these topics, you don’t really see Asian women or Asian, [gender] nonconforming people being centered,” said Nguyen. “We just wanted to make sure our community had a voice at the table.”

Remembering the spike in hate crimes during Trump’s first term, Nguyen and Rowe say the community is apprehensive about the next four years. 

“Every time Trump said something incendiary about AAPI people, we saw hate crimes rise,” said Rowe, who added that trans people face the same kind of backlash. “There is concern about physical safety for people, I think people are really worried about their own mental well-being as well.”

Minnesota became a “trans refuge” state in April 2023. The law protects patients who receive gender-affirming care in Minnesota, even if that care is barred in their home state. And it has led some people to move to Minnesota, especially as surrounding states passed bans on gender-affirming care for minors. 

“It becomes more self-evident every day how important it is for Minnesota to be a trans refuge state,” said state Representative Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, who sponsored the bill. “No matter what happens in D.C. … our systems are designed now to protect trans people.”

But even if care is legally protected, access to services for the AAPI queer community is still limited. And last fall, two trans women were physically attacked in downtown Minneapolis. 

“People deserve to walk the streets as their true and authentic selves without fear,” said Rowe. “Can we guarantee that in Minnesota? We’ve seen and the answer is very unfortunately right now ‘No’.”