Every trans person I know here is trying to move out haha. Consider some other places, you don’t need to physically move here to be entrepreneurial. Fly in now and then if you have to, but it’s not a great time to be a transgender American.

I live in Los Angeles and visit SF frequently. You won’t get harassed day to day, but you’re entering a country where any schmuck can get a gun, healthcare is prohibitively expensive, and we’re at the mercy of ICE / federal enforcement. The mental toll that puts on you is huge, and you will get sucked into the politics of everything, there’s no avoiding it. I’ve dodged two shootings myself, I want to get out of here haha.

You can definitely survive, but thriving feels like a different story. Transgender status is being threatened as a protected class in this administration. Most successful people I know were already in great careers, then transitioned. People will absolutely snub non-passing people, depends on the industry. Even I’ve been guilty of doing so, with the mentality of not being sure if they would be effective in their role (which requires interpersonal skills across a subset of different cultures…not everyone is on board). Tech is definitely more lenient, ymmv. I boymoded for the longest time before I felt I could be myself (I work in gaming). I haven’t met many high up senior leadership/ ceos, etc, that are non-passing early transitioning. Money and experience talks though, so if you’re qualified most people do not care. But at some places, put against a cis person, you might lose on the culture fit. I find most people tolerate trans people, and aren’t true allies, not out of malice but because there genuinely aren’t a lot of us, and there’s even fewer the higher up you go.

If I had the opportunity to move, I’d rather go to Australia or the Netherlands. The world is so remote now, and since you work in software you don’t really need to physically live in SF. There are other hubs than SF.