Family Including Trans Man, Pansexual Woman Seeking Funds to Get Out of 'Hostile' Texas

A family that includes a transgender man and his girlfriend, who identifies as pansexual, have taken to GoFundMe with a desperate plea for money – to the tune of $15,000 – to get out of "hostile" Texas, fearing that otherwise "something will happen to our family," UK newspaper the Daily Mail reported.

The paper detailed that Kara Duncan, who is a mother with two children, took to the crowdfunding site with a plea for donations to help them relocate to a state that's safer for LGBTQ+ people.

On the GoFundMe page, titled "Lgbtqia Family Fleeing Texas," Duncan writes: "Texas has been our home our whole lives, but the past few years especially it has become more hostile to people in the LGBTQIA+ community. As a pan woman I am living with the fear everyday that by being out and being myself something will happen to our family if we don't leave the state for a more favorable one soon."

Duncan isn't only afraid for herself; she wrote about her concern for her transgender boyfriend, saying that Texas, which has "just recently passed a ban on gender affirming care for minors," might follow in Florida's footsteps and "ban it for adults as well."

Added Duncan: "While we hate to leave our family and friends behind we realize that for our safety and the safety of our family we have to act fast before it's too late." Saying that she and her boyfriend have been "living paycheck to paycheck," Duncan acknowledged that "everyone is struggling in these hard times, but sometimes you just need a miracle."

"Right now my family needs a miracle if we are going to make it to safety."

The Paris, Texas family is not alone. Other LGBTQ+ individuals and families are seeking to flee inhospitable states.

Even those not actively trying to escape states with oppressive laws that target LGBTQ+ people have such thoughts in mind, and it's not just sexual minorities who have those sentiments. As previously reported, a recent study by the Williams Institute at the University of Southern California and Clark University found that close to half of parents in Florida indicated on a survey that "they want to move out" of the state "because of its restrictions," which have rained down on LGBTQ+ people under the watch of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Like the Texas family, Floridians seeking safe harbor elsewhere have taken to GoFundMe in desperation for the means to get themselves out of hostile territory.

Families in Montana and Minnesota have also recently expressed a desire to flee; the Daily Mail recalled that the "Montana family was seeking to raise almost $5,000 to escape the 'dangerous' and 'scary' state," while a Minnesota family feared that cruelly homophobic laws in the state would mean they could not "stay much longer" there.

Friendlier states have taken note of the exodus from anti-LGBTQ+ areas of the country. Massachusetts recently reached out to potential refugees from homophobic states like Florida and Texas with a series of billboards touting the theme of "Massachusetts for Us All."

Massachusetts was the first state in the U.S. to grant marriage equality to same-sex couples, back in 2004 – 11 years before the U.S. Supreme Court found that gays and lesbians have the same rights to formalize their families as do heterosexuals, ushering equal marriage rights in to all 50 states.

Texas, by contrast, "is among the least friendly states for LGBTQ people, according to research by The Movement Advancement Project," the Daily Mail reported.

"The project analyzes the LGBTQ laws in every state and assigns a score out of a possible 43.5," the writeup explained. "Texas achieved a negative score of -1 according to its criteria."

Florida scored even more poorly, with a rating of -1.75. Noting that state lawmakers in the GOP-led Florida legislature have passed a half-dozen "blatantly anti-LGBT laws" this year alone, the Daily Mail detailed that the measures "include a gender affirming care ban and a bathroom bill designed to prevent transgender people using bathrooms of their choice."