As if having good morals leads to a pleasant living environment.

As someone who lives there, I'm not. We're an extremely purple state.

Yeah, especially since I know trans teachers who are leaving the state due to the environment in public education.

I'm really proud of AZ. Nobody ever thought about us but we could feel the tide turning for years. Then in 2020 Trump got a surprise. But it wasn't a surprise to anyone in the state.

Arizona in 2024 is very different. Blue leadership has led to things like actually holding people accountable for false electors, may be the 4th state to open up election interference case now that the GOP is out of the picture in terms of leadership.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/signing-arizona-attorney-generals-2020-election-probe/story?id=108864060

Cajun food is great. Basically, southern food in general is good. You can't get boiled peanuts up north. Besides food? Not really.

Wyoming and Montana have absolutely amazing mountains. I say that as someone who lives in the third best mountains state. They have mountains as good as ours but without as many people in them.

Alaska is simply amazing, one of the best places I’ve ever been in the summer. I can’t wait to go again.

Otherwise nah fuck that shit

Atlanta has cool stuff like conventions. Savannah's city center part is a nice place. Ohio has some really big events. I can't think of any other reasons to go

Friends and Family?

Unfortunately, not all of our states are safe. While the population centers are mostly ok, there are plenty of places that are not safe. I had an acquaintance (gay) describe Eastern Washington as "fine as long as I don't act too gay".

Yeah this map would have much smaller areas. If you broke it down into safe counties or something

I only learned about this maybe a year ago, so I'm linking a source, in case anyone else missed this horrific part of history.

The Arizona GOP is batshit insane and they're slowly losing their grip on the state because of it. The only reason Sinema was there to block the federal minimum wage law was because she ran a very progressive campaign. (And the state held a grudge so hard she's not even trying for another term) Katie Hobbs is governor now and Adrian Fontes is the SoS. They aren't going to swing back anytime soon and those insane bills are not going to make it past the governor's veto.

That said, just like anywhere in the west, be aware that much of the rural area is fueling that radical GOP branch. But Phoenix metro area, Tucson metro area, Flagstaff, Camp Verde, Winslow, Prescott, and Williams were fine when I live there ~5 years ago. Except Sedona. Everyone wants to go to Sedona to see the red rocks. You will be seeing them from your car in the eternal traffic jam that is Sedona. Go to the Grand Canyon instead, it's better anyways.

they're really not, slc has a pretty progressive community but it's in direct opposition to the mormons. they're officially accepting of gay people, but as long as they don't do anything gay. they aren't ok with trans people who transition at all.

utah also recently passed bathroom laws for all govt controlled buildings and schools and there are ones for colleges in the works.

generally mormons will be nice and accepting if they think they can convert you, but that's about as far as it goes

https://www.advocate.com/religion/2018/10/08/mormon-leader-lgbtq-advocacy-comes-satan https://www.advocate.com/religion/2019/10/03/mormon-leader-gender-assigned-birth-eternal

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2024/01/30/utah-transgender-bathroom-ban-goes/

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/topics/transgender/understanding?lang=eng

“Church leaders counsel against elective medical or surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex (“sex reassignment”). Leaders advise that taking these actions will be cause for Church membership restrictions.

Leaders also counsel against social transitioning. A social transition includes changing dress or grooming, or changing a name or pronouns, to present oneself as other than his or her birth sex. Leaders advise that those who socially transition will experience some Church membership restrictions for the duration of this transition.

This reminds me very much of the "hate the sin, not the sinner" that never actually happened.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/official-statement/same-gender-attraction

Let us be clear: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that ‘the experience of same-sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is.

Mormons are not at all tolerant. Just because they aren't calling for the death of LGBT people, and are still willing to take their tithes, doesn't make them tolerant.

No, no, no, no, no. I moved to Utah five years ago and this is absolutely not the case and I'm not even LGBTQ. A couple of vignettes:

Exhibit A.

Exhibit B: I had a workplace procure a costume for me. They didn't like my lack of Mormon Jesus. This was a prominent finance firm in SLC.

I too watched that Half as Interesting/Wendover productions video, that's not what it said. In fact he explicitly said that's not what he's saying.

Lmao, good one. 🤣 The Mormons contributed over three-quarters of the funding to get Prop 8 passed in California.

https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/10/the-mormon-money-behind-proposition-8/209748/

Yea this may be the case for some mormons, maybe, but they as a whole are not very tolerant at all. We had a mormon in our school who was very vocal about his dislike about a couple where one was trans. He pretended to be a nice guy, but his views were gross when they came bubbling to the surface.

I dont buy that mormons are a tolerant group for a second.

Mormons tend to be nice ... to your face. As soon as you leave they're likely to act like you'd expect followers of an extremely socially conservative, regressive, patriarchal religion would.

And I'm not saying all Mormons are like that -- there are good people that are mormons, but it's in spite of what the church teaches about gender, sexuality, and sin.

You got gaslit

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/The-Trevor-Project-2022-National-Survey-on-LGBTQ-Youth-Mental-Health-by-State-Utah.pdf

Utah teen lgbtqia+ suicide rate is very high. I've got a friend who is a therapist out there and i do not envy them. The Mormon church tries to say that they love and accept everyone but if you push them they will clarify they can love someone but they hate the sin. Ask yourself, how can you love someone when you can't accept a fundamental part of them? If you practice your gayness/etc you will be treated differently by Mormon church standards. You will lose out on church privileges and be ostracized.

Certain cities like Chapel Hill or Durham on the piedmont are quite tolerant. But go into the coastal area and foothills and you might need to be careful.

NH is a “Live free or die” kind of state….dying seems to be what they are doing these days because they sure as fuck are not living free….