Two Bay Area organizations, Bloom and Peacock Rebellion, held a legal clinic last month for transgender people. For eight hours, in a small space off 23rd Avenue in Oakland, walk-ins could meet with volunteer lawyers to sort through the ins and outs of getting their name changed and gender corrected on government documents.

By the time the clinic had ended, the volunteers had helped nearly 75 people with their paperwork. Some of them had also received financial assistance.

“I think a lot of people take the documentation for granted if they’re not trans,” said Lexi Adsit, a trans woman who works with both of the organizations. “There’s a number of instances where your identification can come into play. When you’re at the DMV, when you’re pulled over by the police, when you’re applying for a job ... the list is endless.”

Adsit had only recently applied for her own name and gender changes. Like many trans people, she began to feel a certain anxiety after Donald Trump became president-elect. “It started to feel urgent,” she said. “I have a court date in February.”

Securing government IDs with accurate information has always been a difficult task for trans people. The process can be expensive (the initial court order, in California, costs more than $400) and time-consuming for those who don’t know how to navigate the many bureaucratic steps involved, which vary by state and form of ID.

A Trump presidency, advocates worry, threatens to make the process even harder.

In the weeks since election day, transgender advocates say they have seen a dramatic increase in the number of individuals looking for help changing their name and gender markers on official documentation. Clinics, like the one in Oakland, have been held in response all along the West Coast — in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, Seattle and Portland — and as far away as Atlanta and New York.

“Trump ran on such a clear platform of intolerance,” said Kris Hayashi, the executive director of the Transgender Law Center in Oakland. “There are real concerns and fears about what that will mean for a wide range of targeted communities.”

Though transgender issues rarely came up during the 2016 campaign — and Trump, as with many areas, rarely offered a coherent stance on trans policy issues, including the North Carolina bathroom bill — Hayashi and others point to various signs that some of the progress the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has seen over the past eight years could be rolled back.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence has taken a number of anti-LGBT stances. As the Supreme Court readies itself to take up the bathroom issue, Trump has pledged to nominate a conservative jurist as soon as he takes office. And, if the Republican Congress succeeds in dismantling the Affordable Care Act, many trans people could be left without access to much-needed health care.

Almost immediately after the media called the election on Nov. 8, trans organizations and advocates began to rally. Facebook posts popped up asking people to start stockpiling hormones should access to health care and providers be cut off. The hashtag #TransLawHelp gained traction on Twitter as people sought to offer legal help for those looking to change their names and gender markers on official documents. Web-based spreadsheets were passed around where trans people could list their financial, legal and medical needs and donors could indicate what they were able to provide.

The Trans Assistance Project sprang up out of one of those spreadsheets after it became clear that the need for financial assistance with IDs and health care was larger than expected. The group is now a nonprofit, run out of Portland, Ore., and Oakland, but offering support nationwide. Already, organizers say, they’ve given $8,000 to trans people who needed financial help procuring their documentation. (They also raised money for the three trans women killed in the Oakland Ghost Ship fire.)

“It’s been really hard for our community,” said Phos Ivestei, the organizing director for the Trans Assistance Project. “This has been a big punch. And it’s on everybody’s mind.”

Given that many transgender individuals live on the margins, financial support can be invaluable, especially as court, state Department and Department of Motor Vehicles fees begin to stack up. “Those fees are sometimes waivable, but that can delay it,” Ivestei said. “Who has that kind of time?”

Ava Summers was one of the recipients of the Trans Assistance Project funds. She said she’d been meaning to update her documentation for a while, but finding the time and cash was difficult. “I don’t really have disposable income at all.” But Trump’s election motivated her. “Especially for me and the people around me, Mike Pence in particular ... it’s really scary.”

Summers, who lives in Portland, said she’s on track to get her Oregon driver’s license as well as an expedited passport, all of which will ultimately cost hundreds of dollars. The process won’t be quick — she has a “messy bureaucracy” to move through. Securing a court date, the first step, takes at least 14 days. Still, the prospect of getting identification with her name and gender on it, is comforting.

Constantly seeing a name you no longer use on your ID “feels really uncomfortable,” she said. “You are something else and not having your documents say that can be really, really hard.”

Hayashi, the director of the Transgender Law Center, said these efforts are heartening. “There’s been this real upswell in people who see the need, understand it and are wanting to help.” But, he cautions, “the need is very vast and there’s definitely much more that needs to be done.”

Ryan Kost is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rkost@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @RyanKost

Changing name, gender marker: what’s involved

The process for changing a name and gender marker on government identification involves many steps and can often be expensive. The first is obtaining a Decree Changing Name and Gender from a court. In California, this process would include:

Filling out four court forms for a petition of name and gender change.

Having a physician fill out an affidavit affirming you have “undergone clinically appropriate treatment for change of gender.”

Filing these forms and paying a $435 fee.

Attending a court hearing and providing an additional form at that time.

Receiving the Decree Changing Name and Gender.

The court decree may be required to make changes on subsequent documents, including birth certificates, Social Security cards and passports. Detailed information about the processes for changing those documents, and other resources, can be found on the website of the Transgender Law Center: www.transgenderlawcenter.org/resources/id.

Source: California Courts (www.courts.ca.gov/genderchange.htm)