LGBTQ+ family raising £4,000 to flee as it's 'getting dangerous and scary here'
A LGBTQ+ family is desperately trying to flee their home state as they say it is becoming "dangerous" for them and "scary to live" there.
Avi, Ember, Emalee and Ray insist: "We can't stay here much longer." This comes as anti-LGBTQ+ policies are brought in across the state and the wider US. Earlier this year legislators in Montana brought in a bill that would stop LGBTQ+ people from bringing claims of sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination in areas like employment, housing, health care and education.
This prompted the Montana residents to rethink where they called home. Setting up a fundraiser to help pay for the move to Minnesota, a more LGBTQ+ friendly state.
The fundraiser reads: "Our little family is making a big change very soon! Sometime between October and February, the four of us (Avi, Ember, Emalee, Ray) and our three cats (Elliot, Dandi, Daisy) will be moving to Minnesota! This move isn't just for fun though. Montana is getting dangerous for LGBTQ+ people, and it's getting scary to live here. And with legislation pushing for anti-LGBTQ+ bills to be passed (and successfully passing some of them), we can't stay here much longer."
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LGBT rights in Montana are being stripped away (Ember Rose/Facebook)Sharing the fundraiser on Facebook, Ember wrote: "Montana is getting increasingly hard and scary to live in. We're at Risk in this state and unfortunately that means we have to leave."
It's not the only state where LGBT people have said they feel unsafe and feel the need to move. On Monday The Mirror.com reported how disabled trans non-binary person Jean Grey has raised $8,000 to escape Florida as anti-LGBT sentiment surges in the state. And yesterday disabled trans non-binary couple Claude and Jones were also raising $4,000 (£3,290) to escape Utah after it became "an extremely unsafe environment" for them.
Following the latest anti-LGBT law being passed, Human Rights State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel Cathryn Oakley said: “By adopting a legal definition of sex that is designed to exclude transgender people - a definition that is unscientific and imprecise as well as counter to the recent interpretation of the term by the United States Supreme Court - Montana would be inserting discrimination in dozens of places throughout state law.
Ember Rose is hoping to leave the state with her family (Ember Rose/Facebook)"Transgender people are already disproportionately marginalised, and this bill would attempt to legislate them out of existence. Extremist politicians who lack even the most basic medical training should stick to their day jobs and stop trying to legislate their personal beliefs.”
The bill, labelled S. 458, also reinforces Montana's ban on transgender students participating in sports consistent with their gender identity and the ban on marriage for same-sex couples. The Montana family are just one of the many moving or hoping to move from more conservative states to more LGBTQ+ friendly ones as Republican legislators ramp up enacting restrictive laws.
Research from the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) shows that Montana is among the most LGBTQ+ unfriendly states in the US. Assessing a state's laws and policies within each state that shape LGBTQ+ people's lives, experiences, and equality they found Montana to have a 'Negative Overall Policy Tally'. The state shared this dubious accolade with other conservative states such as Florida, Texas and Alabama.
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