Quote from: Paula Christine on July 27, 2014, 01:47:34 PM
It may just be Oregon, but I've been told Spokane is T friendly

Parts of it is, but I would be careful over there. The East side of the mountains is fairly conservative compared to the West side. Also, if you are Native American, you should be a little wary.

Are there truly trans-friendly cities?  Sadly, I think there are just cities that are somewhat less unfriendly than others.   The fact remains that there are transphobic douchenozzles everywhere.   Some of these people are basically harmless, but transwomen still get beaten, raped and killed in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and even West Hollywood.  We still have to have our guard up everywhere we go, and there are some neighborhoods where I would not even go in broad daylight nowadays.  A transwoman was recently beaten within inches of her life by a group of men at Hollywood and Vine.  Not the best neighborhood, but certainly far from the worst and somewhere that I still go fairly frequently.  Avoiding places where violent crime is common or where groups of younger men congregate is my best advice.

What about Philadelphia or Chicago? Those are both trans friendly cities.

Quote from: jesselampel on July 29, 2014, 04:05:49 AM
What about Philadelphia or Chicago? Those are both trans friendly cities.

I've actually heard really bad stories about Philadelphia.

Quote from: Kylie on July 27, 2014, 12:05:46 PM
Just out of curiosity, how hard is it for a US citizen to get a work visa and become established in Australia?

I got a response from the embassy today, which I'll try to summarize here (it's quite long).

It's really easy to get a working visa for a year, which lets you get temporary "casual" employment with a max of six months from any one employer. If you're under 30, especially if you're a student, there's a two-year visa available.

Anything longer than that is less common, and generally only granted to "skilled" workers, like doctors, nurses, sailors, and the like. They've actually got a long list of things the Australian government feels are trades they could use more of. It's a lot easier to get one of these visas if you're willing to settle in a place the government asks you to. It's also possible to get one of these extended working visas through a sponsorship from Australian employers. Other than skilled workers, permanent visas are given to those with "refugee" status.

Less clear to me from reading this, is how self-employment fits in, so you're not being literally employed even if you do "work" in the country by selling your craft. I'm awaiting the answer to this.

Outside of this "skilled" visa, the other route to permanent residency/emigration has to come from an Australian citizen sponsoring you.

If you're looking for more information on emigrating to Australia you might check out this forum which caters to Americans living in or wanting to move to Australia. (Edited to fix a typo.)

The Boston area is pretty decent for us. The health care is excellent at Fenway. I've never experienced harassment with the exception of not getting that one job, but that actually happened in New Hampshire. I live full time, got hired at a great job and I'm always out doing stuff.

I don't know about how true this is anymore but back in the 90's, Trinidad Colorado had quite a big transgendered population for that sized city. I do believe it was at once called the sexchange capital of the US. Now I can't say for sure about today but a lot went there for SRS. I have been through there countless times driving a truck between Denver and Aluquerque NM and there was a ittle truckstop on the outskirts and I think there may have been a couple of transwomen working there. BTW I wasn't gonna' ask them about it but you might want to look into it.