cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13932170
This will have been drawn from the work of Erin Reed Though its worth noting her only firm, DO NOT TRAVEL, so far, is florida. Though the rest are of course still dangerous.
I really wish my friends and family would understand this. This is something that I have to worry about, all of the time. It causes me constant and immense stress.
“I would not be welcome here if they knew.” - this is what I have to be aware of, all of the time. I do volunteer work and often drive out to rural areas - stopping at gas stations where they’d leer at me if I wore a mask inside 2 years ago… - am I safe if I get pulled over?
I’ve sat at workplace trainings and heard the things that they think about people like me - debating on if there’s a way that I can say something that won’t call attention to myself. I turn on the news or scroll through Facebook and see an endless stream of debates on whether or not I should exist.
All I want is to inject myself with testosterone (which my insurance does not pay for). I want my drivers license to say M. I wanted, and paid for, a mastectomy. Testosterone makes me strong enough to carry folding tables for homeless shelters. It helps me turn my anger into energy. It helps me exist.
I don’t understand why that bothers people so much. No one gave a shit ten years ago. My Pentecostal family were happy to call me their son. Trans people are just a convenient boogey man as part of a long term backlash strategy against gay and women’s rights.
am I safe if I get pulled over?
Honestly, that seems a big concern for my mom about me and I’m not sure if she even thinks I’m trans. Its just things like me growing my hair out that make her worried about more less favorable treatment if I were to get pulled over. My mom is an extremely butch lesbian, so I’m sure she’s had her own experiences but she hasn’t said much along those lines.
I may not be trans, but I’m brown, this helps too.
It’s much more nuanced than that, different parts of some states act very differently from the rest.
Take Colorado for example: the same state that was the first (along with Washington) to legalize recreational weed, but it’s also where Boebert came from.
Yeah this map would have much smaller areas. If you broke it down into safe counties or something
Idk, it would just look different. There are also trans friendly places within the omitted states (e.g. Austin, Texas)
I think it would prob be a population density map. Higher populations like cities tend to be better at accepting people (massively generalizing)
All LGBT are safe and welcomed in Oregon and Massachusetts, my two home states in my life :)
I love living in blue states that value people and their rights
Unfortunately, not all of our states are safe. While the population centers are mostly ok, there are plenty of places that are not safe. I had an acquaintance (gay) describe Eastern Washington as “fine as long as I don’t act too gay”.
Yes you’re sadly absolutely right. I live in Oregon these days and the PDX area is quite nice but if you go south east, it is like you describe with eastern WA.
Piece of shits have to have their bigoted safe-spaces i guess
lucky, those are all the best places! ❤️
As if having good morals leads to a pleasant living environment.
as someone who is temporarily stuck in FL and moving back to NYC soon, i assure you: even if the laws were friendlier here, this place would still be a hellhole.
I’m surprised Arizona made the cut.
As someone who lives there, I’m not. We’re an extremely purple state.
Yeah, they’ll shoot you as you crawl down a hotel hallway on your hands and knees no matter who you are.
Yeah but that’s a problem in every state.
I’m really proud of AZ. Nobody ever thought about us but we could feel the tide turning for years. Then in 2020 Trump got a surprise. But it wasn’t a surprise to anyone in the state.
Yeah, especially since I know trans teachers who are leaving the state due to the environment in public education.
That sucks. Teachers are one of the professions treated the worst by our society. Losing any that are qualified and aren’t bad people / bad at their job is a terrible loss.
Arizona in 2024 is very different. Blue leadership has led to things like actually holding people accountable for false electors, may be the 4th state to open up election interference case now that the GOP is out of the picture in terms of leadership.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/signing-arizona-attorney-generals-2020-election-probe/story?id=108864060
As a southern California I couldnt be prouder, doesnt mean they can drive for shit though.
This is total bullshit, I live in the state not pictured and I know tons of trans people who are openly accepted by the community
That’s great. I’m really glad to hear it. It’s not that they don’t exist. It’s that they are subject to violence under the law.
Certainly as important as the green book!
waves from behind enemy lines hiiii
People may not like the weather in Chicago, but it’s not that bad, the summers are generally pleasant, winters are tolerable if you dress appropriately, we have a nice lake nearby, four seasons, and the people here are sane, practical midwesterners. Why are people going to Arizona with decreasing available water, where the Republicans want to pass hunting migrants for sport ( https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/arizona-bill-shoot-kill-migrants-property-trespass-border-rcna141147 ) if they cross your property? Why are they going to build tens of billions of dollars of semiconductor fabs in Phoenix ( https://www.ft.com/content/d0fe3dda-7ea4-4d37-9564-71a129b9002f ) in a place with declining water? Are the tax breaks really worth it?
I’m sorry, but honestly this reads like someone who lives in a bit of a bubble. Essentially every state has bigger cities filled with LGBT people who live there fine.
filled with LGBT people who live there fine
Fine or not it’s still nice to not have a government that might take away more of your rights every other day.
I agree, sadly basically every state is going for your rights, just different ones.
Can somebody give me a better explanation of how NH keeps ending up red on these maps? As a trans person who’s lived in both NH and VT for very large parts of my life, I’ve found that they’re really, really similar when it comes to trans rights. Hell, NH is one of the few states to cover laser hair removal and electrolysis for facial hair under medicaid for trans people. Vermont doesn’t even cover that and has repeatedly shot down any attempts to add it.
Also even though both states cover breast augmentation for trans people, Vermont refuses to cover it for me because I have a deformity and require a slightly different procedure which they go out of their way to explicitly exclude, whereas in NH that procedure is explicitly also covered.I’m assuming there’s something deeper and more sinister going on in NH if it’s red even despite that. I wouldn’t doubt it tbh. I can’t move back there because they intentionally illegally shut off people’s disability benefits hoping they just won’t bother to appeal the decision, so I’m not blind to how awful the state can be.
Let’s be honest: Is there anything worth visiting in those missing states, anyway? Sure, Disney World is in Florida, but have you ever been to Florida? It sucks. Hot and humid as shit. Rains every single day at about 5pm. Gators and Floridians everywhere… Even the magic of Disney doesn’t outweigh all that.
Friends and Family?
Spent a cumulative 5 or 6 hours driving in Florida. I saw orange groves, retirement communities, trailer parks, and barren highway. THAT’S IT. Hell, I was hungry coming off the plane and decided to pick something up on the way to where I was going 90 minutes away. I did not see a single food place. That’s unheard of in civilized states.
Atlanta has cool stuff like conventions. Savannah’s city center part is a nice place. Ohio has some really big events. I can’t think of any other reasons to go
National parks in many of them.
Yeah, Utah has Arches, Canyonlands, Zion; Wyoming has Yellowstone and Devil’s Tower, Montana has Glacier… And I know I’m leaving out a ton. I hate Utah’s theocracy, but the landscapes are mesmerizing. Everyone should get to see those wonders without fearing a lynching.
Cajun food is great. Basically, southern food in general is good. You can’t get boiled peanuts up north. Besides food? Not really.
Minnesota State fair. Boiled peanuts were added in 2022.
Next?
But then you have to be in the Midwest…
Well, but you have an international airport close by, a major mall, rent’s in the mail, and you can always find a parking space. Women out number the men two to one and there’s parks and zoos and… Shhh.
southern bbq
I mean… Dave Anderson’s Old Southern BBQ is called southern… Won some awards.
To be fair, I have only had BBQ in Texas and Memphis, so grain of salt.
https://www.oldsouthernbbq.com/
Else you have black market st. Paul - wouldn’t call it “southern” when it’s -10 degrees and they are smoking up some pork, but damn good smoked BBQ.
my buddys been to an old southern bbq restaurant a handful of times. he says its either the best bbq youve ever had or the driest shit on earth 😂 and its not even a different location
Yeah Famous Dave seems to have lost a step since he sold his namesake…
Do you know how easy it is making boiled peanuts?
Its literally just peanuts boiled in salty water forever
Super easy in a slowcooker or even a regular pot
You can have them whenever and wherever you want
Note: the above is talking about raw peanuts, which are very hard to find up north. Doing this to a bag of roasted peanuts will make you very sad.
Apparently, Utah can be added to this. Though they vote overwhelmingly Republican they are surprisingly supportive of lgbtq rights , at least according to a video I saw yesterday.
I think it was called Why is Utah Weird? I think Bobbybroccoli did it.
Anyone from Utah with a different experience, please correct me so I don’t spread any more disinformation.
Edit: Just read down about 30 comments and apparently I was gaslit by a YouTube video. Whoduhthunk?
Yeah no… They have bathroom bills that require you to have appropriate sex change documents. It’s one of the spots bathroom gestapo check your papers. Also trans care for youth has been banned and 4 anti trans bills have passed in the 1st quarter of 2024…Utah ain’t safe gov’ner.
The video was well researched and overall a very good description of life in salt lake, less so in other counties like st George. As he said in the video 80% of the population resides in “the valley”, and he didn’t really concern himself with the rest of the state. I also wouldn’t choose to live in Provo or Spanish Fork as a queer person despite them being in the valley, but I wouldn’t consider them dangerous or actively hide it there.
That would have been from the channel ~~Half as Interesting for anyone… Interested. ~~ Wendover Productions. My bad - Half as Interesting is front he same people, but shorter-form content.
Close, but it was actually on Wendover
Oh thanks I forget they’re technically two separate channels.
I just watched a video about Utah and apparently Mormons are pretty tolerant of just about everyone and even though it’s a red state they’re pretty progressive on social issues.
Take with a grain of salt, my source is a YouTube video.
Edit: I was misinformed lmao
they’re really not, slc has a pretty progressive community but it’s in direct opposition to the mormons. they’re officially accepting of gay people, but as long as they don’t do anything gay. they aren’t ok with trans people who transition at all.
utah also recently passed bathroom laws for all govt controlled buildings and schools and there are ones for colleges in the works.
generally mormons will be nice and accepting if they think they can convert you, but that’s about as far as it goes
https://www.advocate.com/religion/2018/10/08/mormon-leader-lgbtq-advocacy-comes-satan https://www.advocate.com/religion/2019/10/03/mormon-leader-gender-assigned-birth-eternal
https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2024/01/30/utah-transgender-bathroom-ban-goes/
Yea this may be the case for some mormons, maybe, but they as a whole are not very tolerant at all. We had a mormon in our school who was very vocal about his dislike about a couple where one was trans. He pretended to be a nice guy, but his views were gross when they came bubbling to the surface.
I dont buy that mormons are a tolerant group for a second.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/topics/transgender/understanding?lang=eng
“Church leaders counsel against elective medical or surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex (“sex reassignment”). Leaders advise that taking these actions will be cause for Church membership restrictions.
Leaders also counsel against social transitioning. A social transition includes changing dress or grooming, or changing a name or pronouns, to present oneself as other than his or her birth sex. Leaders advise that those who socially transition will experience some Church membership restrictions for the duration of this transition.
This reminds me very much of the “hate the sin, not the sinner” that never actually happened.
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/official-statement/same-gender-attraction
Let us be clear: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that ‘the experience of same-sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is.
Mormons are not at all tolerant. Just because they aren’t calling for the death of LGBT people, and are still willing to take their tithes, doesn’t make them tolerant.
Christianity is all about being tolerant actually. Its just that most Christians dont care
There is a reason why I don’t mention that I am an atheist when I travel to Utah.
Mormons tend to be nice … to your face. As soon as you leave they’re likely to act like you’d expect followers of an extremely socially conservative, regressive, patriarchal religion would.
And I’m not saying all Mormons are like that – there are good people that are mormons, but it’s in spite of what the church teaches about gender, sexuality, and sin.
You got gaslit
Utah teen lgbtqia+ suicide rate is very high. I’ve got a friend who is a therapist out there and i do not envy them. The Mormon church tries to say that they love and accept everyone but if you push them they will clarify they can love someone but they hate the sin. Ask yourself, how can you love someone when you can’t accept a fundamental part of them? If you practice your gayness/etc you will be treated differently by Mormon church standards. You will lose out on church privileges and be ostracized.
I saw the same video, thanks for the correction before I started spreading this false fact.
