Renee Good was part of a wider pink migration
Renee Good and her wife Becca were part of this Pink Migration. They sought a better life in a more accepting place, just like millions of other queer people.
The lesbian woman who was murdered by ICE last week was part of a broader trend of LGBT+ and queer people internally fleeing more hostile parts of the US to less hostile parts.
Renee Good, the woman murdered by ICE in Minneapolis last Wednesday, was part of a wider ‘Pink Migration’ of queer people moving from less tolerant regions of the United States to the few tolerant regions.
She had only moved to Minneapolis a few months ago, having previously lived in Kansas City, Missouri. Minneapolis is known as a fairly left-wing and tolerant city, whereas Kansas City has a reputation for being comparatively right-wing and intolerant.
According to those that knew her, she chose to settle in Minneapolis after a long road trip where she said that the people of the Twin Cities (where Minneapolis is located) “were looking out for each other”.
This framing of a new home as a more tolerant place to live is consistent with many of the queer people who have been migrating away from the South, Midwest, and other rural areas of the United States, and towards the Northeast, West Coast, and left-leaning cities.
This regional migration of queer people is currently at the highest level ever recorded, as the rise of fascism has raised hostility against queer (and especially trans) people to the highest level in decades. The result is that they are willing to leave their homes for places for somewhere that is more tolerant.
In a survey of adult queer people in the United States, 5% of those surveyed had moved from a less tolerant state to a more tolerant one within the previous 7 months. If this is a representative sample of the wider population (and there is little reason to believe it is not), that is approximately 1.2 million people who left their old homes for new ones in a 7 month period.
Renee Good and her wife Becca were part of this Pink Migration. They sought a better life in a more accepting place, just like millions of other queer people.
Sadly, the fascist politics they were fleeing caught up to their new home, and its political agents were directly responsible for Renee’s murder.
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