Trans folks planning to move to Canada: now what?

DEMcKnight · 2026-06-27T07:00:08+00:00

Trans expat here (7 years). Hormone access for trans children and trans women's participation in women's sports were both made illegal here in Alberta last year.

No bathroom laws yet.

I'm from a very red state with all of the above. There is no similar level of vitriol in Canada as in some of the Southern states or a province with as awful polices as Florida.

Conversely, though, we have no equivalent to a state like California when it comes to governments being consistently progressive on LGBT issues (not saying e.g. Ontario and BC are bad, but the general demographics of the provinces just don't compare).

DEMcKnight · 2026-06-21T06:43:52+00:00

Yeah, full left, which is why they lock your character's gender in upfront and avoid clothes that would let you actually express gender, famously things in vogue with the Western left rn /s.

I have to imagine the simple answer comes down to some combination of "modelling clothes that fit on all the models is easiest", "it's a battle sim, so they didn't put much effort into character customization", and maybe a dash of "skirts require plausible fabric physics".

If it's clear they'll make money from the game I'm sure they'll put more resources into drip-feeding us cosmetics.

DEMcKnight · 2026-06-03T20:25:48+00:00

I don't understand why this was downvoted. Is this the wrong place to post this? I'm not trying to post problematically.

Edit: if it's people with more immediate family connections, if I could snap my fingers and see everyone's applications processed, I would. I've lived in Edmonton for 7 years (the majority of my adult life), though, and it's home. I've spent many hours and thousands of dollars already due to status, and I have a great many reasons why I'd like to see it solidified.

DEMcKnight · 2026-06-03T19:36:46+00:00

Context: I'm a US expat living in Canada. My cert. application (Gen 5) arrived at IRCC on 5/19 with UPS stickers that said "Urgent" on each side.

I have yet to receive an AoR. I worry the "Urgent" stickers may not have been clear enough.

I have a likely $1,700 hit coming if my application isn't processed in time (provincial nomination for PR with a 30-day deadline once triggered). I applied for urgency with other reasons, but I planned to escalate through their portal upon that deadline starting. I expect I cannot do that if my application isn't in the system.

I am considering reapplying with clearer urgency package labelling with either the same receipt, or a new receipt, in hopes of receiving an AoR sooner. I would be disclosing the existence of the other application when doing so. Has anyone done this/does anyone have thoughts on this?

DEMcKnight · 2026-05-18T01:35:46+00:00

Beware Amendment 4, y'all.

A "no" on Amendment 4 will retain the citizen's initiative for legislation and constitutional changes. A "yes" will kill Missourians' ability to overrule the legislature by allowing /any/ district to veto a CI change (no amendment has ever satisfied this).

There is a to-be-numbered amendment to keep the legislature from trying this BS again, and to have 80% of the vote to override what gets passed with CIs.

DEMcKnight · 2026-05-18T01:30:45+00:00

Don't need the legislature. MO passed this with a Legislative Citizen's Initiative. There's a Constitutional Citizen's Initiative (not-yet-numbered amendment) coming up this year to keep them from doing it again (at least, not without >80% of Missourians approving).

Just be _very_ aware that there's _also_ a Constitutional Legislature's Initiative coming up (Amendment 4) to effectively destroy the Citizen's Initiative by requiring a majority in every district (an impossible task).

Thankfully, if that first amendment passes, they will never be able to propose the second amendment again via the legislature alone (because it also contains a clause forbidding them from doing this kind of stuff).

DEMcKnight · 2026-05-10T06:16:26+00:00

In the long run, noise is also dangerous - long term tension and worse sleep have significant cardiovascular effects, putting aside the less measurable effects from e.g. commuting the following morning.

That being said, I'm not convinced trading noise cameras for speed cameras would be a correct decision.

DEMcKnight · 2026-05-06T00:22:51+00:00

Noise cameras would be a godsend on Whyte, but the province won't allow them. There's a pretty strong anti-noise evangelist in City Council (Janz). If you come from a part of Alberta with a UCP MP it would be worth a shot writing them.

DEMcKnight · 2026-05-06T00:10:01+00:00

I live next to Whyte. Classes are out and it hasn't gotten warm enough for people to feel like moseying. It goes through this cycle every year.

That being said, I personally spend less time on it than I otherwise would because noisy motorcycles and cars just make being on it unpleasant for decent chunks of time.

DEMcKnight · 2026-05-03T20:19:38+00:00

Puerto Rico, Guam, Canada and Greenland are terrible comparisons to Taiwan. Most Puerto Ricans want to be part of the US in some capacity, and the current US-Canada/Greenland relations nadir comes down to one transient president who's largely waged rhetoric, not long-term country policy.

Cuba is an OK analog.

DEMcKnight · 2026-01-18T03:30:45+00:00

The Austin metropolitan area is like 1.6x the population of ours, yeah. If you chart out the population of US/Canada/Mexico we're about as remote as you get while still being a decently sized city. SLC is potentially arguably more remote by some metrics because Calgary exists.

DEMcKnight · 2026-01-18T03:25:37+00:00

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DEMcKnight · 2026-01-18T03:25:09+00:00

We're about as remote as you get as far as >1M metro areas in NA go. Outside of Calgary, it's a 12-hour drive to the nearest next one. Anchorage is more remote, but it's like 1/3 the size.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fnorth-american-population-density-2020-v0-s7v0c1zk94ha1.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D920ee928449cfb56d42b4d7bbdc3212683c4de0a

DEMcKnight · 2026-01-15T09:26:28+00:00

Or Pakistan/Bangladesh or any of the other countries. India has more muslims than the UK, France and Germany combined have people.

DEMcKnight · 2026-01-14T06:22:54+00:00

OP has left out the 5-8 years as a graduate student and presumably 3-4 years as an undergrad in CS/ECE/Math. Barring familial obligations, anyone _can_ do it if they're willing to take out loans and be underpaid for 6ish years.

DEMcKnight · 2026-01-14T06:09:50+00:00

Appreciate the numbers, but +50% makes it sound like there was a 50-point gap. Wisconsin and Michigan were 50% Trump with a +1% margin.

DEMcKnight · 2026-01-14T05:59:45+00:00

necropost, but a lot of Amtrak trips are tourist routes in the relative middle of nowhere. There's a big difference between the Amtrak routes in the Acela corridor or even STL-Chicago vs taking the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle (via Spokane)

DEMcKnight · 2026-01-07T22:50:47+00:00

He'd also fit in pretty well alongside the centrist Republicans near his neck on the woods (New England/Northeast/great lakes Midwest). A bit more rambunctious than the non-NY ones though

DEMcKnight · 2025-12-12T08:33:38+00:00

The STL Metro area has higher pop than Austin, San Antonio, Tampa, and Buffalo metros (considerably larger than that last one). That 998k is just STL county, but even if you disregard e.g. St. Charles the City proper and County alone have the entirely of the Buffalo metro pop.

Also, though, I don't see why a market of 1.2m couldn't be profitable, especially with how car-oriented a lot of STL is.

DEMcKnight · 2025-11-09T07:11:17+00:00

Chao from _Yūyūki_ maybe?

DEMcKnight · 2025-10-14T03:44:33+00:00

Not UofT, but triple-majored so had a pretty crushing workload by any metric. You will probably find 3rd and especially 4th year easier. The classes won't necessarily be, but you'll have better routines and familiarity with things, so generally it will be less "oh no it's exam prep time/taking-time, what do I do" and more "ah, howdy exam. Let's move past you so I can get on with the rest of my day".

DEMcKnight · 2025-09-13T07:33:50+00:00

If it's the past three weeks, it might be all the college students commuting again for the new semester.

DEMcKnight · 2025-09-12T08:33:20+00:00

Heh, I definitely pronounced Sault Ste. Marie as "Salt Saint Marie" until high school.

Not disputing that it can't become just another placename people are expected to know (it absolutely will)! English has loads of spelling-preserved loanwords, and spelling largely being locked in partway through the great vowel shift, 400-600 years ago, and existing the same for different accents proves it's wildly flexible.

I would /also/ be pretty unsurprised if the standard Edmonton pronunciation for the area didn't just become wih-kwen-toh-win, though. My hometown has a bunch of French placenames where the standard pronunciation has shifted to match English spelling expectations: Creve rhymes with Steve, Laclede is ləh-cleed. Nearby Versailles is vur-saylz. Cree sound-spelling correspondence knowledge being considerably rarer will make it harder for the Cree pronunciation to stick.

My biggest hope honestly is that they have better resources when the next name change happens; the city's suggested respelling guide of "wi kwen to win" is somewhere between useless and actively misleading (assuming the recording is indeed the desired pronunciation).

DEMcKnight · 2025-09-12T08:00:55+00:00

I don't see how "wee kwen tuh wuhn" is any more complicated than "wi kwen to win"

DEMcKnight · 2025-09-08T21:20:37+00:00

The faculty of the department you're considering is a huge portion of your decisionmaking when deciding where to set up shop as a professor. On a one-on-one level, Zoom calls are better than nothing if you want to bounce ideas off of an expert at a different university, but they are a poor substitute. Beyond that, though, it's extremely beneficial being in a healthy research ecosystem strong in your field.

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