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Trans people are fleeing red states for Seattle. The city can’t keep up.
(www.washingtonpost.com)
The city can’t keep up.
HIRE THEM.
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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Haha I love the enthusiasm! Washington does a great job at enforcing employment protections. Generally.
I worked for many many relief situations like these. One quick way to both have the funds to settle people is to hire them on the spot doing relief work. Once all the relief is done, then you can rebudget to what the hired are actually good at, and assign them proper jobs.
Take loans if you have to, the influx pays for itself in a year or two.
I'm not super involved with the orgs in Seattle myself, but I agree this is a great approach.
There are amazing places to live here that are just outside of Seattle but still on the west side of lake Washington. With the light rail it’s an easy trip to Seattle. Don’t be discouraged. The people here are welcoming.
Even the surrounding cities are still pretty supportive, especially Tacoma and Olympia.
Please come here! We want to help!
Not to be too 'doomer', but It's important to note that while seattle is fast becoming the trans mecca, thurston/king/pierce counties make up some of the highest cost of living areas in the country. On top of that, our social services are being absolutely crushed right now between the massive population influx and the Trump admin being bastards. I work with several charities and many of them are closing their waitlists because they're thousands of people long. It's quite a bit better out here for queers of all flavours, but it's also one of the most brutal capitalist hellscapes in the world and overlooking that reality is the root cause of our horrifyingly massive queer homeless population.
The bottom line is that if you don't have housing or work lined up before moving, you need to be very careful. It can take months to find a new job (it took me almost 1.5 years to land my current position in tech) or even just to get on EBT, let alone getting into social / low income housing (many of which are turning to lottos in the interest of fairness). Even homes in Olympia, which do not have remotely convenient access to seattle (some of the worst traffic in the world during peak hours is the I-5 corridor between seattle and olympia) are averaging more than $500k.
The peninsula is another option. While still expensive, it's definitely much cheaper than anything else on the other side of the sound
Most queer folk on the peninsula are doing everything they can to get away from there. Very pretty, but there is fuckall out there besides small town weirdness and fent/heroin...
I'm trans and live out here. None of my queer friends are trying to leave. The times have changed. Kitsap is especially queer friendly now. Not sure what fent/heroin has to do with anything - Seattle has that too.
... Kitsap county isn't part of the olympic peninsula.
Yes, it's its own. But it still is on this side of the sound, and much of the same things apply to it, and it is a cheaper option than Seattle.
My friends aren't all in Kitsap, no. Many of the friends I have live in Sequim and Port Townsend. They're both queer friendly areas with prominent queer communities.
Alright. And while your anecdotal evidence is as valid as my own, I will put out that house prices in Sequim average ~$500k, and PT is around ~$650k (for reference, seattle is ~$850k. Median rent in Kitsap county is ~$1750/mo for a 1br)
Yes, being in one of the trendy neo-suburbs of seattle is likely to be more queer friendly - but it's still not exactly affordable to live there. If the goal is "a jobless trans person can afford to live there on savings while they get established" in western wa, you start looking at towns deeper on the peninsula or western WA in general - places like Elma, Aberdeen, Moclips. I'll freely admit that I didn't consider places like Port Townsend in my initial cautioning - because it's not a place someone can easily afford to move to, especially from one of the states queer people generally are fleeing from.
(edit: clarity)
It doesn't resolve the issue, for sure. But my original point still stands that it's cheaper over here.
Sure, fair enough. Unfortunately my original point that it's inordinately expensive to live here also still stands. It's cheaper on the various peninsulas, but not all that much - and those various sound towns don't have much in the way of community support infrastructure.
If you are trans and reading this article, understand that it means you can and should come here to live if you feel unsafe where you are. We will figure out a way to make a place for you to be safe here with us in Seattle.
There are escape routes all around. The US is in the middle of a trans genocide and will pursue it to its end if they don't implode first. On the east coast, NYC is a safehaven under Zohran, and there are others in the surrounding states.
Take this from a trans NYer who fled the US
I feel a vague sense of unease about this based on how the USA generally views and treats refugees.
The key difference is that at least with internal refugees, most of the people fleeing are still US citizens and can vote to protect their interests. We could end up with a situation where some states have massively inflated trans populations. If a state ends up with 5% its population as trans, suddenly that creates a huge voting block that will make it impossible for any Democrat politician from that state to not support trans rights.
International refugees arrive at a place with nothing but a hope for kindness and compassion. Internal refugees are already full citizens simply exercising their birthright to live where they please.
The Pacific Northwest has generally been a safe haven for the LGBT+ community.