Pretty much all states have red parts. Moving to a very blue part of a very blue state seems like a best case scenario. And they wouldn’t have far to go. No need to get new license.
Seattle is pretty close. I was at the airport there recently and they actually had giant unisex bathrooms in the airport. Just a ton of stalls for anyone to use. Men, women, boys, girls. I thought I walked into the wrong one for a second. That seems like a good indicator of a trans-friendly city.
There are only ~2 states where you can live in a rural area and be surrounded by liberals: Vermont and Hawaii. Any other state, no matter how ostensibly liberal, has vast Trumpy territory. Basically everywhere else, there’s a massive urban/rural divide. The Eastern and Western parts of Washington and Oregon, respectively, could hardly be more different despite being ostensibly in the same respective states.
For a female oncologist with a trans daughter wanting to move from rural Oregon, I can’t emphasize enough that the Portland metro should be Plan A. Mom won’t have to change any licensing, and the daughter won’t be any more at risk in Portland compared with Seattle, SF, LA, San Diego, or any other west coast urban center. Housing costs here are, in an objective sense, bad, but at the same time are the best of any city on the west coast. There are some land mines as you get further from the heart of the metro areas – like, don’t go to Newberg, OR, it’s an anti-trans shithole, and even Salem’s county went for Trump – but there’s no west coast metro area that’s going to be appreciably safer than Portland for them, and if they don’t believe that, then they’re feeding on too much right wing propaganda.
Having grown up in the Seattle area (and with family still there) and now living in the Portland area, anywhere they’d feel safe fleeing rural Oregon to in Washington will have a close counterpart in Oregon with a lower cost of living, unless you have a specialty like aerospace engineering that requires you live in Washington. Oncologists are needed everywhere.
Wife and I moved to central Illinois a couple months ago and have been pretty happy with things here. Very reasonable CoL, trans friendly laws, several cities with active LGBT communities, and a governor already taking a strong stance against Trump. Only one trip to Chicago so far but it seems like a really awesome, world-class city too.
And even living in a fairly rural area, we feel much more kindness and respect from the conservative crowd than we did back in PA.
Don’t do it Grue, keep with us in the post mortem thread where we speculate endlessly on why Dems lost and attack everyone else. That’s what’s best for your mental health.
@RiskyFlush I agree with all that’s said about Portland. Elsewhere in the US it is hard to imagine a place where it’s easier to be trans than LA, but I bet NYC and SF are comparable. All obviously extraordinarily expensive.
Internationally I really have no idea, but I think that many of the places I would personally want to go are pretty difficult to get permanent residency, work etc. I hope things don’t get to the point where being trans is enough to get asylum in a place like Switzerland. Maybe that’s where we’re headed, but I do believe that California will be safe in at least the near-term future.
Oregon isn’t blue. Oregon is a couple of blue cities surrounded by pissed off rural red country side. There are pictures of the Klan marching in Ashland back before color pictures.
Blue state has a meaning that is commonly understood. Oregon consistently votes Dem for pres, has two Sem senators and mostly Dem representatives in the house. That’s clearly blue.
Yes, cities are blue and rural areas are red. That describes most states.
All have their own problems and issues with trans rights. none are perfect. But I can’t emphasise enough the difference that living in a country with a functioning democracy and public health systems would make.
