A Quiet Migration
Families are moving away from states with new anti-trans laws
Not sure if you’re aware of this, but across the U.S. there’s a quiet migration happening of LGBTQ families moving away from states that have implemented new anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ laws, to less restrictive states like Vermont and Massachusetts.
Because we’re making a movie about this very thing, these stories have definitely caught my attention.
Our local LGBTQ youth org, Outright Vermont, has been fielding calls from parents all over the country seeking to relocate. A realtor in Texas is helping families move out of the state in what they call the “Rainbow Underground.” And if you go to GoFundMe, you’ll find scores of families who are raising money to relocate.
Below are a few links:
NECN: “Family Moves From Texas to Vt., Fearing Climate for Trans Youth” Link here.
A family that recently arrived in Vermont moved approximately 2,000 miles from their previous home in Texas, because they said that state’s climate for transgender youth left them feeling unsafe.
"Our kids are great. We love our kids," said J., a father of two – one of whom is transgender. "We want the best for them."
J. and his wife, V., said they wanted to make a fresh start in New England, in a place they thought they’d have strong civil rights protections for their child, Pearl, and for other transgender youth.
"There was a lot of people who didn’t understand me," lamented Pearl, 9, describing their life in Texas.
NPR: “As conservative states target trans rights, a Florida teen flees for a better life.” Link here.
Conservative states across the country are pushing a record number of bills that target LGBTQ rights, particularly transgender rights. That's forced residents like Josie to rethink where they want to call home.
In just a few days, Josie was moving more than a thousand miles away from St. Augustine – and her parents – to start a new life in Rhode Island. Her aunt and uncle live outside Providence, and she'll stay with them and attend high school nearby.
The Hill: “Realtor helps LGBTQ+ Texans leave state through ‘rainbow Underground Railroad” Link here.
“I don’t feel like Texas is my home anymore,” Lewis said simply.
He ended up selling his home through a real estate service launched last summer by the Dallas-based broker, Bob McCranie, who sought to help LGBTQ+ people list their homes in Texas and then connect them with an agent in another state.
Boston Globe: “As bans on transgender care for minors grow, a migration of sorts is underway” Link here.
They were leaving behind grandparents, friends, and a community that supported them. But they were also leaving Texas, a state that no longer felt like a safe place for their family — a place where state officials ordered child abuse investigations of parents who helped their children access transgender-related care and where a new law barring kids from taking puberty blockers and hormone therapies was about to go into effect.
Oh, one more thing:
It’s been a long time since a movie — much less two movies — have caught the national zeitgeist. If you haven’t seen Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” or Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” I can enthusiastically recommend both. Barbie was a lot fun and felt like a blockbuster with indie film cred, while Oppenheimer was that rare biopic that’s both fascinating and worthy of its subject.
Criterion Channel has also released, for free for a limited time, an excellent 1981 documentary about Oppenheimer called “The Day After Trinity” which is also quite good and added more light to this complicated story.
You can watch it here.
