Sorry to all the trans people in Alabama, this is horrific. Just a reminder, there’s a reason Alabama always ranks at the bottom of every state ranking list - it's because the state govenrnment is a dysfunctional trainwreck made up of Republicans that ran on a platform of discrimination. They spend all their time defending discrimination rather than actually trying to serve their citizens.
If you want to escape your shithole state, Minnesota is a trans refuge state and we love our trans folks in the Twin Cities! There are certainly some Minnesotans in rural areas that would fit right in in Alabama, but you will never see them unless you go looking for them.
That sadly doesn't help trans people who were born in Alabama and already left, since that's where their birth certificate would still fall under. Or if they got their license in Alabama, they may have trouble transferring it to their current state if their documents don't match up.
It's incredibly state dependent on how that works. Birth certificates can be ruined by your birth state, but that's not the only way to manage things. Since federal identification still wotks, you can get a passport instead of a drivers license/state id, it'll do everything except let you drive. You can also get your social security card updated too. As far as I know, that's all that's required to get set up with new identification in a different state.
Some months ago, I suddenly realized my birth certificate could be problem, I was born in a red state but only lived there for less than a year as a baby before my mom moved us back to a state in New England. And of course I ended up being trans. So I looked up my birth state's rules and just couldn't stop crying, I even left work early that day because I was so upset by it. Fuck the right, fuck the bigots.
Yes, all are welcome in Minnesota, even in those rural areas. There are some backwards people but, as a lifelong Minnesotan, I choose to believe its just because they haven’t met or known any trans people themselves.
There are good people everywhere in the state, but there are some real bigots in the furthest places. Let's not forget the COVID-19 protests at the governors mansion, or COVID-19 survey workers facing intimidation and racism.
The dread in my stomach I get from reading shit like this is too much to stand at times. I feel so much horror and doom over this and how much worse it could get. I am ok for now in WA state but like for how long.
Idk y'all. I consider myself quite left. I don't like Democrats. I hate their positions in Gaza. A part of me understands not wanting to support them over this. But another part of me questions how you can just look at this. This and the horrific stuff happening after abortion bans and not see how dire this shit is. I fear for my life if trump wins. This shit is only the beginning. Panic attacks whenever I see this shit and know how much worse it'll be if trump wins and project 2025 is allowed to happen.
Idk what I'll do if he wins. I feel so damn hopeless and afraid
That's what I don't understand about many U.S. lefts. I do understand that the Democrats ain't perfect and that they have some weird positions. But your elective system (which is kind of screwed from the start anyway) only has two possible outcomes, dems or reps. And the two of them are not equally bad, so why take away votes from the by far not that bad option, strengthening the really bad option?
Because the people with that holier than thou attitude believe that if they just convince enough people, their socialist/progressive third party that gets one vote every election will definitely overtake both Dems and Republicans in a total landslide, and will immediately stop the genocide in Palestine and the war in Ukraine once they're in. Or they're a tankie accelerationist and want trump to win because they think it will lead to a revolution and their perfect political utopia will be in place in mere weeks. They'd just rather die of old age, suffering in a corrupt and polluted fascist hell decades after all their friends were culled, than ever admit that they are wrong or ever accept they will never live to see their desired future.
Edit: I realize I sound super rude and aggressive in the last sentence, sorry. I say they'll never live to see it because something like eliminating capitalism is an extreme long term goal. It can't happen overnight, or in a single geneation. It's too deeply engrained in the entire operation of the world as it stands. It has to be pruned back until it can be removed. It's like that one phrase, something like men plant trees in whose shade they'll never sit, or something like that. I don't think I'll live to see it either, but I would love to. I'd definitely prefer a socialist society, capitalism has been the cause of all my life's traumas. But you just can't get the world to change that fast.
Honestly I think that is just the extremely online left. Everyone I know IRL is like, yeah, the dems suck, fuck capitalism, but can you imagine how much worse it would be under Trump?
This is why I'm Vote Blue No Matter who since 2016. I'm privileged to be white and cis and all that, and sometimes I am tempted to withhold my vote or vote third party because the Dems frequently piss me off with how they drop the ball. But I learned in 2016 how absolutely terrifying a Republican presidency can be for my trans and nonwhite friends, and that matters to me more than almost anything.