I’m fortunate to live where I do. Seattle has a long history of support and acceptance of the LGBTQ community, and Washington state has some of the strongest anti-discrimination laws on the basis of gender identity and expression in the country. The city of Seattle has an ordinance that protects the right to use restrooms that conform to your gender identity, as well. I’ve never gotten a bad look, not so much as a giggle, whether I’m at the grocery store, a neighborhood boutique, or a major department store in the downtown retail core. The interactions I’ve had en femme in public have been uniformly positive so far.
That said, outside of Seattle, Washington gets very conservative very quickly. Just being a “goddamned Seattle liberal” (long hair, tattoos, non-Harley motorcycle) is enough to attract unwanted attention, especially east of the Cascades. There are some surprises, though. Port Angeles, on the very rural Olympic peninsula, plays host to Esprit every year, one of the oldest and largest cd/trans conferences in the US, with the full support of the local establishment. As a native northwesterner, though, I’m well aware that there are plenty of places that are dangerous to anyone LGBTQ. The good news is that they’re nowhere you want to be, anyway.
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