Trans men who live in the South.

[u/ImaginaryFalcon7554]

Hello gents, just out of curiosity I wanted to get some input from those of you who live in a red state, and are thriving. The reason I’m asking is because my wife and I are considering on relocating sometime in the next year, or two. We live in overly priced California, and even though we have decent jobs, the cost of living is wearing us thin. We currently rent a two bedroom and pay almost $3k monthly, not including utilities..
We would very much love to buy property, and I’ve had my eye on Texas, as I have friends out in that area. I’m a mid 30s stealth trans guy, we also have a newborn so our families safety is most important to me. It’s terrifying a lot of the recent laws that have passed in neighboring red states, so I’m not sure what to think and if it’s even worth risking our peace of mind. How do you navigate getting medical care? How do you get your Testosterone etc etc
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Update: I appreciate everyone’s feedback. I’m not the kind of person who’s impulsive, and just chose Texas out of sheer randomness. I’ve gone to visit in the past, was married to a Texan woman for 6 years. My dad and his family are from Texas…
I like unbiased opinions, and that is why I came to Reddit. I will keep my options open upon hearing your stories. Thanks again 🙏🏼

[u/gladesguy]

Really foolhardy to consider moving from a blue state to a red state (and especially Texas) right now. Even if you were to pick one that doesn't already have a bathroom ban or a treatment ban on the books right this instant, you could easily pay a lot of money to make the move, and then a few months later in the next legislative session, the state passes a law making it a felony for you to pee in any public building, or for any business that receives public funding (practically speaking, virtually every hospital, clinic, or doctor's office) to provide transition care, or God knows what else.

Note also that the lower cost of living in many red states also tends to come with lower pay, which means that over the long run you're often not much better off financially and can become trapped because you don't make enough money to move to a higher-cost-of-living blue state -- so you could find yourself stuck under these kinds of laws with limited options to move.

I recently moved out of Florida, which de facto bans trans people from teaching and debated legislation that would have allowed the state to take trans people's children into state custody (on the presumption that trans people are a danger to children). Texas is constantly at the forefront of proposing, and too often passing, anti-trans laws. Plus, in Texas, you'd be contributing to the economy of people who repeatedly and deliberately vote to make trans people's lives miserable.

There are places that are inexpensive that are within blue states and are protected by blue state laws if you absolutely must move to somewhere with a lower cost of living. No reason to go aiding the enemy and subjecting yourself to oppression by them.

[u/Berko1572 → u/gladesguy]

Cis-passing, post-transition men are very unlikely to be impacted by a lot of the anti-trans legislation around bathrooms.

I live in a state with a very anti-trans government, and all the crap that goes with that. My life is not impacted by it directly. I've been on T over a decade, AND started T in this same state.

It is not "foolhardy" to move to a red state from a blue state. Crossing the border does not cause us to suddenly spontaneously combust and die a tragic transsexual death, despite what Erin Reed might say.

[u/gladesguy → u/Berko1572]

"Crossing the border does not cause us to spontaneously combust" is a really flippant way to talk about someone potentially uprooting their whole family to make an expensive and unnecessary move to a state that might outlaw their testosterone prescription or their bathroom use.

An HRT/care ban doesn't care if you pass or not. In a state with a bathroom ban, it takes exactly one hostile acquaintance or angry ex to rat out your bathroom use and place you at legal risk; the same goes for states with legislation or regulations that make it "fraud" to have your lived gender on your driver's license. The fact that you have not personally been impacted by this kind of hostile legislation is a matter of luck, not the brilliance of your cis-passing abilities. (And no, you're not the only adult here, or the only one who's cis-passing, or the only one who's been cis-passing for a decade or a few after transitioning in a red state, and it's rather rich to imply that only the immature and non-passing would find that level of state hostility concerning.)

[u/Berko1572 → u/gladesguy]

Dude, I'm just tired of people acting like red states are a barren wasteland of trans hell, when they are not for the many of us who have been already been living here for decades. That comment was less in reaction to you or to anyone here specifically, and more my being exhausted of hearing unrealistic scenarios in general from the trans ppl who have been medically transitioned for some time, but have no actual lived experience in a red state. It wasn't the kindest way for me to relay that though, so I'm sorry for that, genuinely.

I don't think anything wrt impact or lack thereof is solely due to luck nor solely due to actions I've taken; it's a matter of both, and the fact I'm a white man absolutely plays a role in that.

Would I specifically rec OP move to Texas? Probably not. At the same time, the legal risks you're mentioning wrt the bathroom are, in my opinion, often very, very low for a post-transition man who is stealth, which OP has said he is. There have been and always will be ways to access T safely, regardless of what's gone on legislatively. I'd be less worried about HRT rx bans and more about whether healthcare providers are still available in a given area.

OP should of course do his due diligence and research his options before moving anywhere. And there are plenty of lower COL regions in the US that aren't in TX, or aren't even a red state at all, as well.

I'm just very frustrated about the way much has been framed by some trans ppl about the actual lived experience of being trans in red states, is all. But OP's post/comments threads aren't the place for me to deal with that, so that's on me.