A reporter has come forward with a developing story that at least two – and possibly as many as eight – transgender young people have taken their lives following Donald Trump’s victory.

As reported by MIC, Guardian writer Zach Stafford tweeted that he was investigating eight trans youth committing suicide in the wake of Trump's presidential campaign win. He later told MIC the number may range from two to eight. Stafford tweeted that families involved were unwilling to speak to press, and that other young people have made suicide attempts.

Crisis hotlines for LGBTQ youth have seen their traffic rise exponentially since the election result. The Trevor Project has had user numbers double, according to Steve Mendelsohn, the deputy executive director for the hotline, and now more volunteers were being called in to help. A post by the project on Facebook said they had recorded over 300 calls in the space of 24 hours.

“Young people have been reaching out more and more since the election,” Mendelsohn told MIC. “They're very anxious and frightened. They have a fear that the gains we've made over the past few years could be undone.”

According to the Williams Institute, 41 per cent of trans and gender non-conforming people have attempted suicide in the U.S.

In the last year alone, Republicans waged a war on LGBT rights, having attacked same-sex adoption, pushed ‘religious freedom’ bills that would legally allow people to discriminate and stood against bans on gay conversion therapy. Trump told right wing and religious interest groups he would sign the First Amendment Defence Act which would actively legalise discrimination, and also confirmed that he backed the opposition to transgender people using the bathroom of the gender they identify with.

Concerns have also risen now that Trump has the power to bring in more conservative, anti-LGBT supreme court judges, which could set back any signs of progression in the law. He claimed he would be considering overturning equal marriage, as Pink News reports.

Elsewhere, a gay man in Santa Monica claims he was attacked by Trump supporters on election night, according to NewNowNext.

“People started launching homophobic slurs at me from afar,” Chris Ball said. “They were saying things like, ‘We got a new president you fucking faggots.’”

Ball was struck on the head with a bottle and needed five stitches.