HAH. That’s funny. They should have moved to Portland.

It actually makes more sense than it might seem upon first glance, at least in the context of people moving from Texas.

Texas' minimum wage is the federal rate of $7.25/hr. Washington's is $17.30/hr, while Seattle specifically has it even higher at $21.30/hr

Cost of living in Seattle is around 55% higher than in, say, Houston Texas, but its minimum wage is about three times the amount.

Add on to that the fact that Seattle has an expansive public transit network that costs much less than owning a car (about $108/mo for unlimited public transit rides on all buses, sometimes paid for entirely or in part by your employer), and there are definitely ways people can drive their cost of living down more if they want to.

My property taxes went down considerably going from Texas to Washington (though I did not move to King County). I did buy a used EV up here though since gasoline is crazy expensive and the infrastructure is much better. Most other costs went down or stayed the same. Houston is expensive as hell.

Greater Sea-Tac Trans Polycule (/j?)

In my head I just read it as 'queer' nowadays, though I don't really care what others prefer to use.

GSRM or LGBT+ seem good enough. Guessing its a result of people trying to be exclusionary and people feeling the need to explicitly include those groups, but still think GSRM still would be clearly inclusive of most of those groups anyway?

Queer people are also unhappy about the acronym situation. Promise.

I don't know why people in & out of the community can't understand that the +, in LGBT+ means all the extra letters, Q, I, A, 2S, and any future ones that may arise, it's future proof. "+" is the most inclusive you can get. I literally refuse to refer to the community as anything other than LGBT+. Our history of names was terrible, this is the most simple.

I was just going to post this comment except my phrasing was gonna be

"2SLGBTQIA+" Jesus fucking Christ when will it end, what does this even mean

I somethings fantasize about moving back to the Puget Sound area. I wouldn't want to pay Seattle prices so would probably be looking at the South Sound. I lived in Tumwater for a year and it was bland but Olympia is liberal and a bit weird so that's probably where I'd be looking. Bonus for the still-employed: state jobs, bonus for me: already got a paid-up membership to the food co-op there.

We’re always around, and you’re seeing more of us than you think!

The cloud cover and rain are tactical advantages

Fuck Joe Rogan

In your opinion, is there an area in Seattle that is close to Austin in vibes? Like a combination of a tech scene, with music and art, and still a sprinkle of weirdness.

Houston? More like P'youston (as in pee-yoo)

Honestly Texas is probably effectively insolvent long term regardless, short of a massive shift in economic organization that entire state will start looking like an even shittier version of those random half abandoned towns in Idaho.

Most people find Houston, Texas to be hostile.

The Montrose area of Houston used to be one of the safest and liveliest Out LGBTQ communities in the country. It still has a large gay population, but the inflated real estate prices and over-development has driven lots of low income people elsewhere.

Just driving on Westheimer is enough to make rational people leave.

The traffic certainly sucks. But idk what you mean beyond that. Westheimer has a ton of cheap apartment housing and a huge multi-ethnic community of young professionals

It's a great place to live when you're straight out of college

I guess a single digit percentage of millions is technically legions, so the math checks out.

NYC and Boston on the east coast too