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Comment by thrwawy74 | Hacker News Reader

This is objectively useful: Now we can build an underground railroad for getting LGBT folks out of Florida and similar states.

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It diminishes the horror of slavery to assert that LGBT people experience anything remotely comparable. There are no restrictions on travel for LGBT people (much less restrictions that vary by county based on one election cycle). No one is out there capturing LGBT people to return them to captivity. The majority of residents of every state have come to accept L, G, and B people, and at least 25% of residents of every state accept T people. There's no need for an underground railroad; our many above-ground (ie, not secret) transportation networks are more than capable of safely moving people who can afford to move.

Sure, some states are targeting Trans people with the worst offending state being Texas, whose recently indicated-and-stripped-of-power AG ken Paxton criminalized provision of gender affirming care to children as child abuse. But this map goes across the full length of the worst state for trans people, so I don't really see how that map helps LGBT people.

So edgy that you’re only posting it using a throwaway account. Stop trolling.

Is this edgy? I work in the gov and last week drafted a policy to inform and quickly relocate staff in such states based on their public-facing potential for harm. Quite a lot of our staff is in Florida right now, and legislation continues to roll through.. It's quite real to me. Also I just cycle through throwaway accounts because when I attached my comments to a username I began to self-censor how I speak. The lack of a username helps me think.

For what it's worth, I didn't think that was edgy. Sometimes it's a good idea to think about worse case scenarios

It's legit the focus of where I work :c (gestures broadly to everything)

To build an interstate underground tunnel for evacuating lgbt?

This feels like 1998 on IRC. I'm shaking my head and laughing at the same time.

I think you're taking "underground railroad" a little bit literally. The commenter seems to be claiming they work in politics and that their job has recently involved putting together some materials to work around some newly introduced (or proposed) spiteful laws targeting a specific group of the population.

I mean on the internet anyone can anonymously claim they're anything, but what this person in particular is claiming doesn't sound out of the realm of possibilities at all.

Indeed, I think the poster was referring to a metaphorical railroad. The term comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad

So your job is to create an undercover network to allow them to escape the clutches of evil republicans. I can certainly imagine that you don’t want to take responsibility for this drivel at work.

Traveling to other states for work is done at the gov expense (for our line of work). If there are extenuating circumstances to remove someone and bring them home quickly, we still have to abide by federal travel regulation to get them home. Otherwise they're stranded in another state trying to arrange airfare or a car + hotel(s) which can be very expensive on short notice:

https://www.gsa.gov/policy-regulations/regulations/federal-t...

My understanding is in Florida you can be arrested for dressing in opposition to the gender you were assigned at birth. If witnessed by a child this can be considered a sex crime, for which sex crimes involving children in Florida are eligible for the death penalty. Do I think this is likely to happen? Yes. The past 4-6 years have demonstrated we keep /hoping/ for de-escalation, but then examples are made that get national attention and evil things become normalized. Can and 'will happen' are subjective, but they did recently make it legal to seize trans kids.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/desantis-signs-florida-ban-...

I'm part of an employee advocacy group. It is my role to be sensitive and address concerns some may consider isolated or minute. Things we never thought we'd have to discuss at work are now being discussed to keep (management), employees, and families aware of risks and safe.

What is your definition of evil?

If only the slaves that used the real Underground Railroad could have turned white as easily as crossdressing people can switch to clothing of the proscribed gender.

Try describing a concrete situation in which someone is accused under these laws you speak of, and then is able to escape by simply moving over the state border. Do you live in the world of the Dukes of Hazzard, where they can escape the Sheriff as long as they manage to cross the border? Do you think there are no extradition laws between the states?

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