leave the United States in the near future

To where, though? The fascists are rising around the world. If you have the ability to move to the EU and get citizenship, then that’s a great option. But it’s expensive. And if you don’t get citizenship, you risk becoming basically stateless.

And again, it’s a global phenomenon. The UK’s labour party is as bad as the GOP on trans issues. France, Germany and Canada keep seeing their far-right parties make gains every election cycle.

IMO the safest thing for trans people to do is move to a placxe within the US that is trans friendly. That’s most of New England, most of the west coast, and certain midwest cities.

Well, you’d be amazed how many people are asking this question. Maybe you wouldn’t, now that I rethink it.

But I’m going to tell got what I’ve told friends, modified for a stranger.

If you have a good support network in your location, you have to factor in the fact that nowhere has fully shifted public acceptance of trans people yet. There’s places it isn’t as bad for sure, but even the best places have their flaws.

So it makes more sense to stay somewhere you’re familiar with, with people around you that can and will protect you as much as anyone can be protected.

If you aren’t close enough to someone willing to kill or die to protect you, that you can get to them for help if the worst case scenario happens, then you have to move closer, flee to whatever slightly better place you can, or be prepared to fight for yourself and your community.

You gotta plan for the worst case scenario, and hope it isn’t that bad. That’s how you stay alive.

But there’s also the truth that the more people flee, the less support is left for those that can’t. There’s a strong argument to be made that if you have the resources to flee, you could apply them to building a safety net as best you can in your location.

Nobody can decide what’s right in this kind of situation except you. Whatever choice you make, as long as it doesn’t involve harming others to get to whatever situation you need, you make that choice.

I can’t offer you what I’ve offered my people, a place to hide in extremis, a decently stocked safe house with someone willing to fight for you, no matter what that means. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find that in others, or that you can’t build it for yourself and your community.

If you decide to stay. If you look at this and see the worst case as a realistic possibility, but decide not to leave, you get armed, you get trained, you get ready. You stand ready.

You, both as an individual, and “you” as in the trans community; you’re not alone in this. There are people out here willing to fight for you and with you, at any scale that fight takes. There are people preparing for the worst that will help you, and plenty that will help at less severe scenarios than the worst. Some of us cis and/or hetero folks out here do see the danger signs, are horrified at how bad it might get. We see you. We love you, and we will do our best.

If the immigrant round can tell you anything, it is that there is no safe place in a fascist nation.

Nowhere.

The immigrants are todays first line in the “first they came for the…” Poem.

Your medical history has likely been scraped and due to your “transgenderism” (wh press sec used this ism) have been added to the list of deviants.

You either leave and survive or you stay, fight, and hope to win.

If you are not a fighter, others are.

Too few left Germany when they had the chance.

It is ultimately you choice.

It’s safer in the front lines apparently, I suggest you go or be ready for anything; contact friends and connections, talk with like minded people and form groups

Antifa and Marxist communities generally accept people of all kinds and are welcoming, even if you do not agree to every policy of theirs they will generally protect you as long as you help them or work with them

I’m in a similar boat - well-settled trans homeowner in a safe city at the peak of my career. I looked into moving to other countries, and there are certainly safer choices now, but the anti-trans hate has spread its tentacles across the globe at an alarming wait. Personally I’m in the “wait and see” camp. I believe in the next few years we will see which countries are truly trans friendly, and will understand the extent to which the US will try to erase trans people from existence. I only hope that there will be a window of opportunity to relocate once we have all the data. The safer option may be to roll the dice and pick another country now.

I was faced with a similar decision many years ago. At the time, I don’t think I could have enumerated all the problems I saw as clearly as you did above. Instead I was just filled with a vague sense of dread about trying to make a life in the US vs. a hopeful opportunity abroad. It made any long term planning nearly impossible, and it became clear that the future was somewhere beyond for me.

It was a good decision. It was still hard, as life tends to be. Culture shock hits hard after about one year and the glow of the honeymoon period wears off, and then a longer term acclimation process begins. Strictly staying within the social circle of the expat bubble is not recommended. Becoming part of the community, putting down roots, learning language, forming new friendships, following the different laws and social customs are all long term deep challenges. It also means family and friends are more distant. Those relationships change for better and worse.

Seek a good US tax specialist accountant early on for advice. The US still expects citizens to file taxes and report FBAR, even if the amount of tax owing is zero due to tax treaties.

Final advice: Whatever you choose, do it for positive reasons. The long term is a marathon and you need something to sustain you. It’s better to run towards something rather than run away.

i’ve been replaying a similar discourse in my mind since it became clear to me that trump would win the election; but my situation is different than yours in that i’m a gay cisgendered neurodivergent who relies on prominently gay sex positive physical spaces to be a happy, productive, & functional member of society.

such places have already been under assault by city and state authorities well before maga became a thing and they get VERY little support from the larger LGBTQIA communities; so when these places are forced to shut down, there’s is little to no support from anyone to defend them. the end result is a locality with deeply sanitized gay spaces that are socially acceptable to cis-gendered neurotypical straight people, and those spaces end up becoming only capable of servicing gay mainstream clientele and usually have more straight patrons than gay ones. (ie austin, texas; phoenix, arizona, san jose, california; etc.).

to make matters worse: it doesn’t matter that these places are located in “safe for now” areas since places like San Francisco, New York, or Chicago have been perpetrating these shutdowns at the same rate as non-safe areas like Texas, or Mississippi, or Georgia.

I fully expect for all such spaces in this country will be shutdown as a result of the american fascists that are now in control of our federal government as well as by the blue-maga governors/mayors where the last few remaining spaces still exist; as they have been doing since the 1980’s.

the place i live in now has several such spaces and i’ve decided that; once the first of these spaces is forced to shutdown here; it will be my first danger warning sign and that i must start the emigration process before the rest are shut down and i end up enduring the psychological hell that i experienced in austin.

like yours; my neurotypical gay friends alike don’t see the danger that’s coming our way and their exit strategy is to go to canada. they don’t seem to understand this new brand of conservatism is much more malleable than other conservative pushes in the past and this malleability allows it to spread beyond the united states and into the rest of the anglosphere. It’s so effective that it has also spread into the other language spheres are closest aligned to the anglosphere (eg german, french, italian, polish, etc.). so it’s only a matter for time for canada to likewise be caught up in it and they’re about to take thier first step with Pierre Poilievre in their next election; france & germany will also join where italy & poland have already gone.

i’m hoping that the cultural differences and historical animosities between the anglosphere hegemony and latin america are enough to stymie the same conservative influence that has befallen most of europe & north america so far; because that’s my exit strategy. i have legal entitlements there that guarantee my emigration goals; unlike the 10 year wait and likely rejection from canada under a conservative government. most importantly: they have a sliver of the sex positive spaces that i require to be happy and i hope that the american fascists are unable to destabilize latin american in the future as they had done in the past.