Why some LGBTQ+ couples are rushing to get married before Trump takes office again
When singer-songwriter Morgxn woke up the morning after Donald Trump’s re-election, the first thing he did was apply for a marriage license.
Morgxn, who is gay, is based in Nashville, Tennessee—a state that voted strongly for Trump. She and her boyfriend, Gabe, had planned to marry on November 30, but the election results convinced her of the importance of that decision.
“I feel married to this man. . . I don’t see that the government told me that I am married is what makes me get married,” he said. “But knowing that if Trump were to win, it would feel very important to me to have a legal protection that straight people don’t have to worry about.”
Morgxn posted on TikTok sharing the information of a couple applying for a marriage license. “We know the Supreme Court has signaled that it wants to ‘bring marriage back to the states’ and we all know how Tennessee will respond,” the video caption says, referring to a similar opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas after the Supreme Court overturned. Roe v. Wade in 2022. Thomas said Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark case that legalized same-sex marriage at the federal level, in a word, says the Court “has a duty to ‘correct the error’ established by those precedents.”
Amidst the fear and confusion of Obergefell may be transformed under Trump’s middle name, many LGBTQ+ couples have posted videos—both humorous and not—about getting married earlier than originally planned. And with a strong majority in the Supreme Court that will only grow, there are fears that the right to same-sex marriage at the federal level could be challenged and overturned.
Currently, there are a handful of states that have included the right in their constitutions. While ballot measures protecting same-sex marriage rights were passed in California, Colorado, and Hawaii last Tuesday, there are 32 states with constitutional amendments or bans that would go into effect when that happens. Obergefell repeal, affects 61% of LGBTQ+ adults, according to the nonprofit Movement Advancement Project.
Morgxn received dozens of comments and DMs from users expressing similar concerns about their wedding plans in the days following his post. Three days later, he shared another video suggesting that he and his mother, a paralegal, could help couples in Tennessee. It went viral, receiving nearly 130,000 views.
“It was not built for us. Let’s do it ourselves”
“I think people who are bullies and people who are looked down upon, unfortunately, tend to look at the show and say, ‘It wasn’t made for us. Let’s do it ourselves,’” he says. So she created a Google Form asking her followers if they would like a Nashville-based public wedding in December, which she hopes will feature a city official like Olivia Hill—Nashville’s City Council at-large and the first transgender person. person to hold elected office in Tennessee-shall administer. In the first 15 hours, the form had received 21 responses.
Deirdre Alston, photographer and owner of Deirdre Alston Photography, has seen a similar interest in wedding favors. After Trump’s reelection, “I was sitting at my kitchen table feeling powerless and worried about how I was going to be affected,” she said. Fast company in the email. “The first thing that came to my mind was my marital rights. I thought about all my couples getting married in 2025 who might be affected Obergefell destruction.” (Disclosure: Alston is the daughter of Fast company editor Lydia Dishman.)
Alston, who has been photographing weddings for nearly a decade, took to Instagram, posting that she will be offering free, 15-minute photo sessions to couples who want to get engaged at the end of the year. The program took off, especially after his industry friend shared a TikTok offering a similar service, which at press time had garnered more than 144,000 views. The two have received questions from about 30 weddings so far.
TikTok “seemed to be a good way to get information out and the algorithm was distributing it to people who needed it,” Alston wrote. “Even if we shoot about 30 photos before the end of the year between the two of us, that’s 60 people who will have the right to get married no matter what happens down the line.”
Alston also created a spreadsheet with information on more than 200 other photographers, videographers, florists and planners across the country who expressed interest in offering their services for free.
For Morgxn, the community he’s seen come together in and out of his comment section is bittersweet.
“I think this is what we were meant to do—to come together, build a community, and find this. But I don’t wish for that. And just because we were created for this doesn’t mean we wanted it [it],” he says. “We are used to the government not giving us something and we have to figure out how to do it as a society.”
