I'm gay and I've spent a lot of fun nights in Boise, Idaho because a gay friend of mine lives there with her wife. We always have a blast. She has a great career in Boise and I don't think she's experienced more homophobia there than when she lived in New York City. (I know she had at least one bad experience in NYC as she was cat-called once right before I met her and her then girlfriend.)

I think a lot of coastal elites have no idea what they're talking about when they speak about the extreme danger of being different in middle-America.

Here's a counterargument (counter-anecdote, really): I'm different in other ways (foreigner), I found living in middle-America a nightmarish experience of prejudice and outright hate. Being cat-called once is child's play compared to living in the mid-west while foreign.

One can be gay (and of the white majority) and not broadcast it, whereas when you're not-white, you're foreign. You can speak with a flawless accent, play varsity baseball, drink Bud at the bar and cheer for the home team, but in the eyes of the bigoted, you still aren't anything beyond your skin color.

This is not to discredit what other discriminated people have to undergo, but as someone who is not white, there's an extra burden to living in middle-America.

And while roadtripping throughout the Midwest, sometimes people would toss racial epithets at you in the most indirect way; e.g. Just a mutter as they pass you. The only time I felt directly threatened was while stopping for gas in rural Indiana, and again that was with a group of teenagers who probably had nothing better to do.

Even with all this, I don't regret my upbringing in the Midwest. It's fostered an understanding of the inequalities that exist in America. And as I get to the age of potentially having kids, I wonder if I want to move back to let them experience this as well.

City vs. not is the key distinction. Racists/sexists/etc. exist in equal numbers in less populated parts of every state. Interestingly, the immigrants who primarily live in cities tend to be similarly racist/sexist as the Americans in less populated parts. My point is to challenge the idea that middle america is relatively bad.

As for the "non sequitur", it was exactly NOT a non-sequitur. What I meant is to point out an unfortunate irony thats it's human nature to discrimate. The people in middle america were once immigrants. The current immigrants in cities in my wide variety of experiences have surprised me with their discriminatory tendencies. I've been at several well known universities so it's not an education thing either.

Gotcha. I'm glad you're challenging me because it's making me refine my thoughts.

Middle America often denotes the Midwest, but this is the wrong connotation and I shouldn't have used it.

Middle America is any region in America where there's a stagnation of thought due to lack of new people and new ideas. Urban or rural, Midwest or coastal. And next time, I'll use the term "homogenous towns" to avoid this ambiguity over geography.

Thank you.

I suspect you are undervaluing the impact a region's law and culture can have. Being murdered is not the only danger of being trans in America.

LGBTQ individuals are the single largest target for hate crime. [1] Trans women, in particular, seem to draw both violent crime, hate speech, and legislation that makes their lives considerably more difficult.

Trans individuals more frequently suffer secondary health impacts simply for fear of using public restrooms. They may not use a restroom when they need to, or deliberately dehydrate themselves to avoid having to use a public restroom.

Even without violence, being the target of aggressive/hateful language when in public is not something anyone should have to deal with. It's an emotional burden that can lead to other emotional and physical symptoms of anxiety and depression.

When legislation like NC's HB2 goes on the books, it can make trans people targets. (See instances where people stood outside public restrooms 'checking' for trans individuals, or in Washington state, where the I-1515's initiative chairmen encouraged men to follow women into the restrooms to deliberately make them uncomfortable so they'd sign the initiative.)

The danger is definitely there, across many axes. Some of the dangers are subtle, and may not be obvious on casual inspection, but it definitely feels like there's extreme danger even in communities as liberal as Seattle -- let alone in areas where there's less tolerance.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/16/us/hate-crimes...

However, you're also understating the threat of violence against trans people[1]. My best friend in the world had their world turned upside down after a murder in Philly[2]—a city with a strong queer community, one of the strongest I've ever seen. I don't think you're truly safe anywhere at the moment as a trans person.

Finally, there's this super depressing article on wikipedia about trans murders specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_tran...

[1]: http://www.thetaskforce.org/static_html/downloads/reports/re... (You really have to dig, but I recommend eyeballing the entire report to get a full idea to the extent to which trans people are subject to discrimination, harassment, and assault).

[2]: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Transgender-Rally-...

(Note the states with little warning triangles, indicating that the state has passed legislation that prevents cities or other municipalities from enacting their own non-discrimination rules.)

Everyone I know that lives in NC is upset about it. The only bright side is that it hasn't been and can't be enforced.

Many don't know that HB2 also originally included provisions that took rights away from workers to sue for discrimination. Months after, they took that part out, but left the rest of HB2 intact. They could have just killed it, but the legislature was just too fucking stupid.

In 2010, NC got the first Republican majority in their state legislature since 1900. They created HB2 in response to something completely innocuous, went completely off the rails, and have been in no way actually representing NC's citizens.

Despite the NC Republicans Gerrymandering several years ago, they should be soundly defeated in all elections in the near future. It just won't be soon enough.

There's socially liberal islands in my home state, like Ann Arbor, Ferndale, and to a lesser extent Grand Rapids, but get too far outside of those towns and you'll have people asking you to leave their store because you're holding hands with your same-sex significant other, yelling slurs at you out of their car windows, telling you unprompted that they're going to pray for your soul, etc. I have a friend that was exorcised and then disowned when he came out, my high school principle gave me a talk about how me being out was reflecting negatively on the school and I needed to change my wicked ways, etc. It's a huge load off my mind to be somewhere where it's a non-issue.

As for myself, I'm a Latino immigrant and as much as I'd like to know a lot of America, there are places I'm just afraid to travel to.

If you're going to move to a "tier 2" / "tier 3" size city, stay out of the bible belt. Unless you're into that sort of thing.

Think about it, how racially integrated is the Seattle (or Portland) metro exactly?

Pretty much everyone in this thread takes issue with that statement, but I've got a question that hasn't been raised yet: what exactly does "elites" mean in this context?

I can't imagine what it's like to have that issue and also fear for your safety on a daily basis. That sucks and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

But that's rural Missouri. As I said in my other comment, urban centers are more or less progressive places all over the country.

I can only imagine how much faster my social stamina would be depleted if everyone around me were constantly arguing about whether it would be better if I didn't exist at all, or if I just went far away, never to return.

Really? I thought diversity was a good thing? I know I wouldn't want to live somewhere where everyone thought the same thing I did. Sounds boring.

Put another way: it's not a matter of living where "everyone agrees with you" but where "not everyone disagrees with you". Those aren't the same!

Diversity of ideas is definitely a good thing, and, unless you hold fringe views, it means a fair number of people do agree with you. If everyone disagrees with you either you're a real outlier or, more likely, there is less diversity of views on that particular axis.

But, say you're a gun nut and the people surrounding you are decidedly anti-gun-ownership - there's no shared goal, and no obvious resolution to your differences. If the people surrounding you make progress towards their goal, it goes against yours. There's nothing to do but fight. And fighting is exhausting.

For instance, a lot of people around here enjoy football--so many, in fact, that it leads people to assume that everybody likes it. I don't. I think it's a fundamentally flawed sport, and not particularly interesting to watch. But since it's so popular, it's all that anyone ever seems to talk about, especially around the time of the big university rivalry game.

After the last pro game in February, I breathe a sigh of relief, thinking it's done until late summer, and maybe the sportos will turn to baseball or soccer or volleyball or lacrosse or water polo as a topic of conversation. Nope. Let's instead immediately speculate on next football season.

Do other sports even exist around here? Can we talk about both Team Whyachi bots getting knocked out of the Battlebots tournament early? Maybe talk about non-Democrat and non-Republican political issues? Maybe you've read a book lately? No? All you know is football? Oh, great; you can also talk about how you go to your conservative Protestant Christian church more than once in any given week.

This is why the spouse and I actually got excited to see a guy with visible piercings and tattoos. And to hear two lesbians with hideously thick Bostonian accents celebrate at a game. It's even sort of interesting to hear grown-ass adults talk about catching Pokemon. When everyone is the same, doing and saying the same thing, it is so tediously boring that it hurts. That is exhausting.

So if people around here are generally hostile towards homosexuality, a gay person must feel worse than I do when people start talking about specific players on specific teams and upcoming scheduled games and the keystone play of some past game and just shut up, shut up, will you please shut the hell up about football for once?!

It makes me wonder how people even further from the norm than myself can even find the strength to get up out of bed in the morning, or, once risen, get through the entire day without destroying some ignorant blatherer with a beam of pure rage exploding from their foreheads.

It's not just about being around people who are different, but having enough different people around you that you can't just assume everyone else is like you. If you don't know that someone is Muslim, and make a derogatory comment about Muslims in front of them, that person might not feel secure enough socially to confront you about it. So they keep their religion secret from you, and you might continue crapping on something important to them, without anyone ever telling you that you shouldn't do that.

If, on the other hand, you live in a city where anybody could be anything, you are more likely to encounter situations where you are the minority in some way, and therefore will probably be more sensitive to how it feels when a local majority tramples over your opinions.

You just have to realize that other people might not share your opinions, interests, and values, and if yours are part of the local majority, other people might just be humoring you to fit in better, or irritated at the constant reminders that they are not part of the dominant tribe.

That feeling may or may not be an accurate representation of actual danger.

Who do you think nominated Trump? We should all be concerned that such a big slice of America sees nothing wrong with promoting a pugnacious narcissist fueled by a message of hatred. Just look at the healthy segment of evangelicals excusing his behavior even though the man hasn't a Christian bone in his body. All because Trump furthers their bigoted agenda.

I know people have this idea that our schools all teach creationism and gays aren't welcome, but it's simply not true.

That's fine with me though, I like the peace and quiet that I'm afforded -- and can do without hysterical urbanites as intolerant as the imagined middle america they fear.

And who are these people constantly saying they'll pray for them? A trans person walks into a store and people just start annoying them?

You have to pay for what you want at the store. That involves a person. That person then tells that they're praying for you to be someone you aren't and never will be.

Do you somehow not encounter people in your everyday life?

As for being oppressive -- it's far better for people who disapprove of you to be saying "I'm going to pray for you" rather than have them say "I'm going to run you out of town at gunpoint and set fire to your house". The latter is the default response for most cultures and most religions across most of the planet.

Sounds like a good way to escalate an already uncomfortable situation. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Holy crap do people project much.

My point was just that the person who said to avoid the South due to proposed discriminatory laws was basing their judgment on something that doesn't reflect a particular city's tolerance or intolerance. There are intolerant people in the rural areas of every state, which is just a function of low levels of diversity and sometimes poor histories of education.

Cities are probably relatively liberal -- or at least, cosmopolitan -- in most parts of the country compared to non-urban areas nearby, but that doesn't mean that New York City, Atlanta, Kansas City (either of them), and San Francisco are all equally so. It doesn't even mean that cities in some regions aren't far more conservative and/or intolerant than non-urban areas in other regions.

Source: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/08/chart-of-the... , also I lived there for 25 years.