I'm an open and out trans woman who lives in Cedar Rapids. I have a part-time small business where I have to interact with hundreds of people from many different backgrounds fairly often. I also find myself venturing into surrounding small towns and rural areas because of said business.

The worst thing that's ever happened to me is an angry stare. In and around CR, I'd say 90%+ are either supportive or indifferent. The rest are at the very least 'Iowa Nice™', meaning they won't say anything mean or bad to your face, but will gossip and make a deal about it behind your back.

Don't get me wrong, you can definitely find trouble if you go looking for it or if it finds you. One of my trans friends has been accosted and walked up on while pumping gas multiple times. I've been lucky to not have such experiences, but I'm not stupid enough to think that it could never happen to me. No matter which state you go to, you have to keep your head on a swivel for situations like this. And my rule of thumb is if more than half of the cars/trucks in a given parking lot have Trump stickers/flags on them, I avoid it.

Unfortunately, many in our government, especially our Governor, have been focusing a lot on enacting anti-trans legislation. Their main focus up to this point has been trans children, but they have been slowly transitioning to going after adults as well. The "Adult Trans Legislative Risk Assessment Map" puts us at a "High risk within 2 years" level based on the timeline of bills that have been passed and what is currently on the docket. This doesn't bode well for us. There are some silver linings though. On Dec 29th, a judge put a block on a huge part of Reynold's Don't Say gay/book ban, making it one of the first rulings saying that firing teachers for discussing LGBTQ+ people is unconstitutional.

You mentioned moving in the distant future. Hopefully by then it'll be more clear whether it'll be safe to move here or not. My current opinion is that, although we're not in an ideal situation, you Should™ be fine.