They Arrived: Portland Is Becoming a Haven for Gender Refugees
Thousands of people are leaving Texas, Florida and other states that are waging a culture war on LGBTQ+ people. Portland needs them.
Does it? I guess antifa can use some new recruits.
John Welsh, a 46-year-old father of two, moved to Portland a year ago, and he has a message for the thousands of people fleeing because crime and blight make the city feel unsafe: Try raising a transgender teenage daughter in Texas.
Welsh and his wife began to see that Portland was a better place for them when they came on a house-hunting trip in June 2021. They were out looking at properties, and their daughter, Ess, then 15, used her bus pass to go to the Japanese Garden from their Airbnb in Irvington.
"My wife said, 'You know, that's the first time in as long as I can remember that I've felt safe with her just going out and about somewhere,'" Welsh recalls.
That feeling helped seal the deal. Welsh and his family joined thousands of others leaving Texas, Florida and other states that are waging a culture war on LGBTQ+ people, especially those who are transgender. Many of these gender refugees are moving to Oregon because of its tolerant laws and lifestyle.
The influx is welcome, especially in Portland, where well-documented factors (crime, taxes, remote work) have resulted in population declines for the first time in a generation. Multnomah County lost population in the three years ending in July 2022, according to Portland State University's Population Research Center.
But tolerance--along with Mount Hood and great beer--could be the thing that keeps Portland vibrant.
A June poll by left-wing think tank Data for Progress showed that 43% of transgender adults and 41% of young adults ages 18-24 have considered moving to escape anti-trans legislation. Some 8% of both groups have already moved, the poll says.
...
"Should this trend persist," Reed writes on her Substack, "we may witness the largest domestic migration crisis since the Dust Bowl."
Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling that people cannot be forced to engage in messaging which goes against their beliefs, lefties are announcing they won't serve conservative people, or they won't serve "churches that don't fly the pride flag."
Thanks for identifying yourselves -- now we know who to avoid.
A former actor who appeared on The Sopranos ten years ago, Michael Imperiori, announced that conservatives weren't allowed to watch his old show:
i've decided to forbid bigots and homophobes from watching The Sopranos, The White Lotus, Goodfellas or any movie or tv show I've been in. Thank you Supreme Court for allowing me to discriminate and exclude those who I don't agree with and am opposed to. USA ! USA! (sic)
Already way ahead of you, buddy. (Was he the stupid kid who gets shot in Goodfellas? I love when he gets shot and died.)
James V. Barcia
@jamesbarcia
I accept these terms. It's better than unknowingly filling the pockets of business owners who are closeted leftists. The transparency is appreciated.
I approve of this. The internal migration of conservatives to red areas and freaks to blue areas, combined with both sides boycotting each other and thereby creating separate economies, make the National Divorce easier to achieve.
Shocking no one, MSNBC's racist dullard Joy Reid confirmed what no one had any doubts about whatsoever, that she was admitted to Harvard only due to racial preferences.
She's pretending that she only needed affirmative action because she went to a "small school" that Harvard never heard of. She claims she otherwise had "great grades and SATs."
"I got into Harvard only because of affirmative action," Reid said. "I went to a school no one had ever heard of in Denver, Colorado, in a small suburb. I didn't go to Exeter or Andover. I didn't have college test prep. I just happened to be really nerdy and smart and have really good grades and good SAT scores."
She continued, "But someone came to Denver to look for me. A Harvard recruiter flew to Denver, and I met me up with her at the Village Inn Restaurant and did a pre-interview to pull me into Harvard. I was pulled in -- affirmatively."
If that were true, Joy, you wouldn't have needed affirmative action. So I am assuming that your grades and SATs weren't quite as "great" as you're claiming. (Although, admittedly, a lot of Asians and whites with "great grades and SATs are in fact rejected from Harvard. Bad personalities! Not diverse enough!)
CNN: Ruling that the government cannot censor citizens' speech is an "aggressive," "activist" ruling by an out-of-control rightwing partisan.
Let's face it, the whole Constitution is an aggressive, activist, right-wing document.
This first asshole delivers the David French position: the government has free speech rights, and is allowed to "jawbone" you -- threaten you -- into censorship activities it is forbidden to take itself.
MSNBC argues that if you just claim that censoring the right is a "national security issue," you can go ahead with it:
Tom Elliott
@tomselliott
MSNBC is already arguing the Biden Admin can still censor content that "undermines" our "faith" in U.S. elections as that's a "national security issue"
MSNBCFBI's Reilly: The Biden Admin not telling social media companies what content to allow is "not a world we want to live in"
Reilly: "Not a lot of evidence" the @FBI was asking Twitter "to take down posts"
Except for the evidence, recounted in the judge's order, that the FBI was doing exactly that.
He does look wired here -- pale, sweaty, and grinding his teeth like he's trying to eat his own jaw.
But I don't know when this video is from. Is it from Friday? Are they viewing fireworks?