I don’t know how people can stand to live in some of those other states — you know, the Republican states. Some people can’t, and they’re starting to leave places like Texas to move to colder but more welcoming states like ours.
The family moved 1,200 miles to St. Paul last summer after Texas took steps to limit pediatric access to gender-affirming care and investigate parents who sought it for transgender children.
“It got very bad, very quickly,” she said.
Advocates expect more families to move to Minnesota, which has positioned itself as a refuge while other states have restricted access by transgender people to bathrooms, sports teams and medical care. Minnesota, under its new “shield law,” won’t support any state’s prosecution of parents or doctors providing gender-affirming care for children.
They’re coming to us from the usual suspects…Texas, Florida.
A Florida dad limited his search to six states with shield laws and job prospects after deciding that his home state had become hostile to his 8-year-old transgender boy.
“The rhetoric started to ramp up and we could envision a time that we needed to move and decided to be proactive,” said the father, Daniel, who moved to St. Paul. He spoke on condition that only his first name be published, because his wife and children are finishing the school year in Miami.
If you’re interested in escaping your local hell hole, Transforming Families Minnesota seems to be one place you can contact. They also have a useful list of resources.
It’s going to get crowded if everyone moves here, though. A better solution would be for everyone’s state to kick the haters out of power and make your own local Minnesota. Until that miracle occurs, though, please do move North. You make this place even better.
A few weeks ago our daughter told us that a member of a search committee at her university in Boston described the unprecedented flood of highly qualified applicants as refugees fro Florida.
It is heartbreaking. These families are refugees, being persecuted for no other reason than who they are, by a hateful and violent regime.
They can bypass WI. For now. Gerrymandering is on the block. Maybe. Just maybe soon.
A while back our local LGBT group here in Ireland welcomed four gay refugees from Pakistan, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
And now certain states in the US are welcoming refugees from other states.
This is what I call a “yardstick”: an event or situation that clearly measures and shows you exactly what is going on around you.
Canada and Scandinavia stand ready to receive those who cannot find a place at the Blue states after the rush.
BTW Sweden got a lot of well-trained health workers from the Middle East 2015-2016. It took 3-4 years for them to train the new language but now we have the benefit of their skills without paying for their schools.
And I assume there will be a stream of Russians when Putins rule collapses.
Returning to Minnesota- can you maybe build a northern annex to Disneyworld? The uneven terrain in the southeast corner might be a great setting for a castle.
Special!
https://youtu.be/0H6re3PCP3E
May I suggest you kick them hard enough that they land on Snake island.
Island? The Falklands are green and pleasant. Or at least green.
But Kerguelen is where I would maroon the haters.
But that can’t be right! All the people are moving there for the taxes and the freedom, I keep hearing right wingers crowing!
There are other safe states for trans people. Or “safer”.
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/1171069066/states-protect-transgender-affirming-care-minnesota-colorado-maryland-illinois
And if the very fact we’re talking about safe states for a tiny persecuted minority doesn’t chill you to your bones – you just ain’t paying attention.
It’s really reminiscent of the mid-19th century. We can’t call it the Underground Railroad now, since passenger rail isn’t much of a thing anymore. Perhaps the Underground Interstate?
Nothing new about this.
People have been fleeing the midwest and South for the West and East coasts since long before I was alive for various reasons involving positive factors such as opportunities and negative factors such as escaping persecution.
In California and the whole West coast decades ago starting in the 1960s, there was an influx of LGBTQI people from places like Iowa and Utah.
No state will be safe once the trolls known as Republicans rile up enough boneheads to vote for them so they have enough states to demand a Constitutional Convention.
That’s a fine looking giant statue of Minnesota, but it got me wondering what that big diagonal swoosh was supposed to be, down its middle. Not the Mississippi, surely, so what?
Turns out it’s a real thing, which it seems I should have known, had I gone to school in California rather than just moving here as an adult:
https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/great-states-minnesota-1.1/activity/
@ ^ rblackadar : Minnesota’s has a zipper?
Maybe something to do with the Mesozoic era’s interior seaway that split the continent with a shallow sea back in the Age of Dinosaurs? Guessing before I click the link for the fun of it. Probly wrong. Aussie typing here.
Hmm..school in California a clue? Surely not a line of surf even given the number of lakes and potential for waves there nor an oddly linear long orchard of oranges given the temperatures..Faultline?
As of May 1st there are 11 states plus Washington DC that have explicit legal protections for transgnder folks. https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trans-bans-court-fights-and-legal
While the diagonal swoosh is depicts the geographic regions of Minnesota that region is defined by the Mississippi’s course through Minnesota. The Wikipedia article “Geology of Minnesota” gives a couple of views of that aspect of the state. As you can see the Mississippi cuts across those formations.
The swoosh is about climate. Minnesota has three general zones: the western prairie, the eastern deciduous forest in the southeast, and the northern coniferous forest. The line marks their rough boundaries.
With all the educated people moving to your state, it is going to look like those Simpsons episodes set in the future, maybe with Lisa as governor driving a flying car.
Meanwhile, the hater redneck states will regress to Handmaid’s Tale / Mad Max status.
Florida might do somewhat better on account of wealthy retirees. Imagine a Ayn Rand story with only old people.
Former Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade is moving from Florida to California to protect his trans daughter.
Florida is going to get hit with more and more severe tornadoes and hurricanes due to climate change that isn’t happening. Already home insurance has gone up two fold and is the highest in the USA at 3 times the average.
Then it gets worse.
Due to rising sea levels and Florida being barely above sea level, there will be more and more problems with flooding.
Florida’s “Don’t say global warming/ climate change” rule didn’t stop climate change from happening. It’s “don’t say gay” law won’t stop gay people from existing either.
I personally know people who have fled Texas for MN. Mind, one of the parents had family from here so they had a soft space to land. But this isn’t just one family, this is dozens. And it was hard for them; the mom had to leave HER family, her home, her Austin behind to come to place that I happen to love, but I know comes with its flaws. If Austin is to be kept “Weird” the Twin Cities are painfully “Boring”. And the whole insular nature can be hard to break into (ask me how I know!) and especially their senior year of high school.
I wish the refugees luck; all of them, even the ones internal to the US.
Well, maybe they could get King Canute so he could order the tide to stop coming in . . .
@16 anat — I wonder what’s the hold-up in Oregon.
How about a trade? Unfortunately, we have a few rabid right-wingers in our lovely little part of California.
We left a wine and food appreciation group because of some of the men in the group who were bragging about how great they were because they were conservatives. They were also bragging about how easy it was to go to Arizona or Nevada to buy guns which are illegal in CA. They started bragging about the number and kinds of guns that they owned.
The mass shooting in Uvalde happened two weeks later. We’ve lived in South Texas, and I knew Uvalde well.
That was when we left the wine and food group.
I would love to send those yahoos to the south in return for some of their LGBT citizens and folks from other persecuted groups.
Come to California! We have wine!