As a counter anecdote, I'm from the Midwest and one of the biggest boons about moving from Metro Detroit to the Bay Area is that I don't get harassed in the str

As a counter anecdote, I'm from the Midwest and one of the biggest boons about moving from Metro Detroit to the Bay Area is that I don't get harassed in the street for being visibly gender non-conforming anymore. I very much agree with GP, being able to live in a liberal city is one of the biggest bonuses of tech being huge in the Bay Area. There's socially liberal islands in my home state, like Ann Arbor, Ferndale, and to a lesser extent Grand Rapids, but get too far outside of those towns and you'll have people asking you to leave their store because you're holding hands with your same-sex significant other, yelling slurs at you out of their car windows, telling you unprompted that they're going to pray for your soul, etc. I have a friend that was exorcised and then disowned when he came out, my high school principle gave me a talk about how me being out was reflecting negatively on the school and I needed to change my wicked ways, etc. It's a huge load off my mind to be somewhere where it's a non-issue.