Chattanooga or Nashville for gay people?

[mad fiddler]

The anti-transgender bathroom bill is *not* common sense.

It would require transmen and transwomen to go into a restroom that is completely contrary to their outward physical appearance. There are transmen with full beards -- should they be required to go into the ladies room? How safe would transwomen be in a men's restroom?

Here's the Catch-22: Tennessee doesn't allow the birth certificate to be changed even in the case of gender reassignment surgery.

Here's an example of what the bill would require: http://cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/69/fb...3dfcc318f1.jpg
Here's another: http://cdn1.theweek.co.uk/sites/thew...?itok=b4Ki1hs6

Any transgender whose appearance didn't match the restroom they're in would be in danger of being harassed or beaten up.

There are *no* cases of any transgender people assaulting anyone in a restroom. The bill purports to solve a problem that in actuality doesn't exist.

As far as the diversity office, UTK didn't come up with those pronouns -- they've been around for years -- and UTK didn't require anyone to use them.

[jabogitlu]

If you are moving to Tennessee, then Nashville is going to be the most progressive city.

That's probably true, but only by a hair's breadth. Nashville's suburbs are seriously conservative. Nashville has a larger number of progressives in raw numbers, but the progressive folks in Knoxville and Memphis (and Chattanooga, and Johnson City) are pretty serious about their progressiveness.

In the end, any of the real cities in Tennessee would be just fine for gay people. However, when you leave the city and venture into the countryside, prepare for a time warp back to 1948.