The 2026 midterm results gave trans Texans a moment of genuine relief after years of relentless attacks, but caution is well-earned. Democrats swept Texas in a historic landslide, yet some incoming leaders have already distanced themselves from trans people. For couples like Pat and Taylor Blanchard, who had been saving to leave, the question is now whether the open door becomes a real one.

What Taylor said when the results came in

Pat and Taylor Blanchard are lifelong Texans, public servants, and a married trans couple. They had been saving money to leave the state they love. And then the results came in.

"As soon as we found out that the shift in Texas happened like it did this past week, I actually teared up and looked at Pat and said, 'we might not have to leave.'"

I keep returning to that sentence. Not the politics, not the polling, not the landslide margins. Just that: we might not have to leave. That is the sentence that tells you what the last few years have actually cost trans Texans. Not an abstract debate about bathroom policies or legal definitions. A couple who love their home state, sitting down to work out whether they can afford to flee it.

Pat put it plainly: "It's just been an onslaught, a nonstop series of attacks against us." And they are not exaggerating. The list is long: Senate Bill 8, which requires state entities to enforce birth-sex bathroom rules, made daily working life for trans state employees like the Blanchards both harder and, as Pat says, absurd. Ken Paxton's office has issued policies and opinions that function as discrimination without needing the scrutiny of a legislative vote. Taylor asked Paxton's office for help with a disability issue and was turned away, told that protecting disability rights was complicated because Taylor is trans. There is a clerical error on Taylor's birth certificate that the state has simply refused to fix. These are not grand constitutional questions. They are the small, grinding indignities of being treated as someone whose problems do not count.

What 'cautious' actually means

Republicans spent hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-trans political advertising in the lead-up to these midterms. The voters responded with what Pat called "a resounding denial" of that message. That is genuinely significant. It means the strategy of using trans people as a wedge, spending at that scale, running that many ads, did not work. That matters.

But the relief comes with real reservations, and those reservations are not timidity. They are hard-won realism.

Senator-elect James Talarico and Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa both walked back prior support for trans people during their campaigns. Taylor was direct about it: "The disappointment of Talarico and Hinojosa throwing us under the bus. We were both really hurt by that. Just because if they're going to fold that easily and throw us under the bus, that doesn't instill a lot of faith, for me personally, in them."

Pat's framing is a precise description of the difference between a government that is hostile and a government that might be persuadable: "At the very least, we're in a position where we can actually argue with them, which is not something that I can say for the Republicans." It is a low bar, and also, for many trans Texans right now, a meaningful one.

The difference an Attorney General can make

Much of what has made daily life so difficult for trans Texans has not been legislative at all. It has been what Pat calls "bureaucratic discrimination": policies, opinions, and decisions issued by Ken Paxton's office that do not require a vote and do not need to survive a court in the same way a law does.

Nathan Johnson, the incoming Attorney General, has said he will review those policies and the ongoing lawsuits. That review could change a great deal, quietly, without headlines. It is exactly the kind of unglamorous, structural change that makes real life better or worse for real people, the kind that rarely gets covered the way a big legislative fight does.

Emmett Schelling, executive director of the Transgender Education Network of Texas, described Tuesday as a "collective exhale" across the state. He also made the economic point clearly, and I think it deserves to be heard: trans people face significant workplace discrimination. If you cannot hold steady employment, the rest of life becomes precarious. When politicians talk about economic issues, trans Texans are inside that conversation, whether they are named or not.

Normal people, trying to live their lives

Pat's message to Texans who do not know any trans people was simple: "We're normal people. We're normal Texans like them. We're just trying to live our lives."

Taylor added something that I think is underappreciated: "It doesn't stop with us. A lot of the ways that Republicans were trying to attack trans people will affect cis people too." That is true, and it is the kind of thing that tends to become visible only after the fact, when people realise that laws written to target one group have consequences that reach further than their authors claimed.

The Blanchards are still watching. So is TENT. So, I expect, are trans Texans across the state. The election was not the end of anything. It was, possibly, the beginning of a conversation that was not available before. That is worth something. Whether it is worth enough depends entirely on what the incoming leadership decides to do with the door that has opened.

I hope they walk through it.

If there is a news story you would like me to cover then just let Sammy know.

Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Specialist, Medical Educator, and advocate for trans people and their families.