Post #2694935

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• @CheetahFluff@nyan.network 2026-04-10 16:22

  @scarlet@plush.city Okay, so. I moved from the southeast US to the Netherlands in 2020 (right in the middle of covid, it was a nightmare, but just possible after some of the border restrictions opened, and everyone involved was being so responsible with masking and distancing that I felt safe). The reason I moved was that I met @len@nyan.network, who's so cool that we started dating. Long distance relationships are beautiful, but the goal was always being together, so we had to pick a location to live. Our two simplest options were the US, where I was, or the Netherlands, where they were. Len was pretty firm about not moving to the US because it has ridiculous immigration policies that would have tied us up for years. The Netherlands, as it turns out, is relatively easy to immigrate to. The paperwork is usually easy to follow, and once you turn things in to be processed, they'll be finished within a week, max. They had very clear instructions about how to immigrate on a marriage/family visa. So that was a pretty clear choice from the get go. I was kind of kidding myself for a while that maybe we could stay in the US where I was comfortable. Over the next few years I had to accept my future was elsewhere, and there were, I think, three main factors that helped me do that. I took trips to NL to visit Len and see what it like, I started accepting my gender queerness while my family stated getting even more hardline conservative, and I started paying attention to the world as a new working adult. First, I realized NL just... Makes sense. Like, everything about it is designed to benefit its people (Don't get me wrong it has problems, but the Dutch complain loudly and try to fix them at least). Cars are one option for travel, but not needed. I haven't owned a car since I moved. I don't need one. I can bike and take public transit safely and usually quickly. Cities are designed to be walkable, healthcare is provided through private companies but they're so regulated that it isn't a problem, the people are generally quite tolerant of others, workplaces can't fire you for no reason, etc. etc. I didn't even have to become fluent in Dutch because almost everyone here speaks English and is really proud of how well they can. It was easy to move to, adapt to, and live in. Seeing another country do things is a great way to kill an American's desire to stay home. We don't do much well, and other places make more sensible choices. But still, I knew the US systems and could manage. Second, I realized at some point that the culture I grew up in was hostile to everyone. Just absolutely everyone. Even the conservatives perpetrating the hostility. They hurt others and themselves (It's obvious but like, I was young and figuring things out for the first time, and it was hard to get out of such a repressive environment, lol; I wasn't allowed to think about it before). I'd spent my whole life trying to go unnoticed, even before I knew I was capital Q Queer, let alone before accepting it. But a person can carve out a niche for themselves wherever they go. I had online friends who weren't too far away and they accepted me. I could probably still manage. But those things coincided with me becoming politically active, learning some history, and learning about the state of the world as it was. The writing was kind of on the wall that conservatives in the US were only going to get worse, the wealth gap was going to increase, and there wasn't any kind of stable future there in the long term. At least not in the south. And especially not with an immigrant spouse. I wasn't going to put Len in actual danger, even if it was some years off. This was the thing that really pushed me out of the US. The blatant erosion of democracy and the institutions that were at least /supposed/ to protect people from oppression. The encouragement of racism and queerphobia. The political scandals and international embarrassments in service of a rich man getting richer. The open hostility toward immigrants, and the rhetoric of how badly some folks wanted to harm them. There just wasn't a future there with the person I loved. And by 2019 when we were planning our wedding, I couldn't even see myself staying there on my own. There was no future there for me at all. I still miss parts of it. I miss my family, and the south. I miss the nature. I don't like being in a country with so little diversity. But the culture at large, the work environments, and above all the stability... I can't go back to crazy land. x_x

  Open ##2694936