How trans friendly is your neighborhood

[Foxglove]

This thread caught my attention because "How trans-friendly is your neighbourhood" strikes me as a very different question from "How trans-friendly is your town/city/country".  After all you can probably find trans-friendly or at least trans-neutral spots almost anywhere.  But here we're talking about the people we actually live among.

Thus I was very interested in seeing how people rate their neighborhoods, and I decided to take an actual count, now that this thread seems to have pretty well played out.  I rated the responses on this thread as "friendly", "unfriendly" or "middling".  Obviously, how you interpret somebody's reply can be a bit of a judgement call at times, so if somebody wants to go back and do their own count, they might come up with a somewhat different result from mine.

At any rate, according to my count, what we have on this thread is 22 trans-friendly neighborhoods, 7 middling ones and only 4 unfriendly ones.  It's for reasons like this that I personally am optimistic about whether we transpeople will ever gain full acceptance into society.  There are plenty of awful people out there, there's no doubt of that.  But we do find plenty of friends and neutrals as well.  We need to look on the bright side.  Because there definitely is a bright side there.

[Rotika]

I live in the tx, ft hood area. Sadly most ppl here are "thugs" and are undereducated or brainwashed by their loads of redneck/hillbilly heritage. There are some decent ppl here.. But theyre mostly army douchebags that dont really care for facts. They believe what yhey want to believe. For instance.. Music was playing in a store the other day.. It was "Scar tissue" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And i heard this guy say "omg i hate country music"..
   That's a very very light example of the type of stupidity that makes up the majority of those around me. It gets worse but you get the idea.
   I want to move but college is really good here. I want to transition while im getting a degree in entrepreneurship/business. Transition/college will take roughly 4 years.. And when i'm finished with both I can go job hunting as ME.

[LizMarie]

My neighborhood has been grudgingly tolerant (not accepting). I live in small town that is a suburb to Houston, Texas. I already know there have been whispers and looks my way from people who knew me before. What's funny is for those that didn't, I apparently almost always pass and they don't know. It's all a very stark lesson in hypocrisy.

I look forward to moving eventually, something I can't quite do yet. But when I do, there are trans-friendly neighborhoods in Houston, proper, that I look forward to visiting to find a place to live.

[captains]

I recently moved to Seattle for a few reasons.  But one was definitely the thought that there aren't many better places in the world to transition.

Coming from a slightly different perspective as a guy, but this does remind me of something a slightly older trans man said to me the other day, re: living in Portland, OR --

"The gay guys went to San Francisco, the lesbians went up to Seattle, and all the trans kids came here. [beat] Actually, that's not true any more. Half of Seattle transitioned." 

[katiej]

Yay for Seattle!  That's why I moved here. 

[- Rachel -]

I can personally attest that Seattle has been a great place to transition.

[CrysC]

Seattle is definitely a great place, especially for us.

[katiej]

There are a lot of us from Seattle here.  We should start a real life Seattle chapter of Susans 

[SorchaC]

When I first went full time everyone knew who I was as I lived in  rural West Cumbria UK and had taken many of the locals on holiday through my job. Those who I hadn't knew me as I was the only one who lived local that drove about in a 40ft blue bus. Seriously behind the time attitude wise and it wasn't nice. I suffered abuse intimidation and threats of violence by my neighbours and when I went shopping. Being alone and without friends I had no support and it did effect me until after 4 years I managed to move to another area.

I've since emigrated to Australia and have absolutely no issues. I'm not sure anybody knows I'm trans. I've spoken to some of the neighbours and there hasn't been anything said and they always seem friendly when I see them so I'm happy enough with where I now live

Hugs

Sorcha 

[Nicole]

When I first went full time everyone knew who I was as I lived in  rural West Cumbria UK and had taken many of the locals on holiday through my job. Those who I hadn't knew me as I was the only one who lived local that drove about in a 40ft blue bus. Seriously behind the time attitude wise and it wasn't nice. I suffered abuse intimidation and threats of violence by my neighbours and when I went shopping. Being alone and without friends I had no support and it did effect me until after 4 years I managed to move to another area.

I've since emigrated to Australia and have absolutely no issues. I'm not sure anybody knows I'm trans. I've spoken to some of the neighbours and there hasn't been anything said and they always seem friendly when I see them so I'm happy enough with where I now live

Hugs

Sorcha 

I find that we are a very open people, its changed over the last 10 or so years, but the movement has been so great

[SorchaC]

I find that we are a very open people, its changed over the last 10 or so years, but the movement has been so great

Before coming here last November I'd very little experience of Australians apart from what I'd seen of them at sporting events and that wasn't always flattering to Australia's reputation. Being a serious soccer fan in my old life I spent allot of time attending matches but post transition there was no way I'd have gone to a game. Since coming here I've attended Cricket matches alone which is a measure of how confident I am in my ability to be safe so I believe that you are right about being open. If folks have worked me out and I'm sure that's happened as I'm not that good at passing they certainly haven't felt the need to say anything either to me or to others while I could see or hear them 

Sorcha 

[Misato]

I live in a conservative suburb of the Twin Cities. Just as when I lived in a liberal hood of Minneapolis, me being trans is a non-issue by and large. Even when I go back home to Green Bay people seem to be generally supportive. Thinking that reminds me of how my heart warmed when I saw this:

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/local/2014/09/11/green-bay-schools-embrace-transgender-students/15452009/

[stephaniec]

I'm quite lucky to be transitioning  in a suburb  of Chicago. Chicago has a quite large LGBT community  . the burb I live in is a college town, so far so good absolutely no problems.

[Lady_Oracle]

Gosh I envy so many of you living in accepting places. I really can't wait to move and finally feel truly comfortable and safe.

[Nicole]

Before coming here last November I'd very little experience of Australians apart from what I'd seen of them at sporting events and that wasn't always flattering to Australia's reputation. Being a serious soccer fan in my old life I spent allot of time attending matches but post transition there was no way I'd have gone to a game. Since coming here I've attended Cricket matches alone which is a measure of how confident I am in my ability to be safe so I believe that you are right about being open. If folks have worked me out and I'm sure that's happened as I'm not that good at passing they certainly haven't felt the need to say anything either to me or to others while I could see or hear them 

Sorcha 

I'm a member of the MCC (that was fun explaining to them about myself), and find that Australian sporting events the best to attend, I am away from the garbage (public) but you never see fighting (yet to see a fight at the AFL in a lot of years) and apart from the drunken gobos the crowds are pretty good.
I love cricket, always a great day soaking up the sun

[SorchaC]

I'm a member of the MCC (that was fun explaining to them about myself), and find that Australian sporting events the best to attend, I am away from the garbage (public) but you never see fighting (yet to see a fight at the AFL in a lot of years) and apart from the drunken gobos the crowds are pretty good.
I love cricket, always a great day soaking up the sun

I don't understand AFL but have wanted to attend some NRL but it just never fitted in with what was going on. I could and should have gone to last nights Grand Final but decided against it on cost grounds. Looking forward to Cricket World Cup as I have tickets to a couple of matches and after enjoying last years BBL even though my team lost both games I watched I'm looking forward to that starting again in a few weeks  I may even go to some Test Cricket this year

Sorcha