Excluding some areas/situations, I'd just say grow thicker skin. There isn't anything particularly special about California with respect to LGBTQ and it certain

Excluding some areas/situations, I'd just say grow thicker skin. There isn't anything particularly special about California with respect to LGBTQ and it certainly isn't a good justification for living there. You can be gay in Pittsburgh or Chicago or D.C. just as well as you can in Portland or L.A.. There are definitely family and emotional considerations and that's fair, obviously there are reasons other than the weather to live in California - that wasn't my point, rather, my point was that a lot of people want to live there and you can't expect to just get this somehow incredibly affordable cost of living you'd get in Kansas or something in California. If you could, we would ALL be living there. People need to realize that location and where you live can be a luxury, and you have to pay proportionally for that luxury. I can't go move to Boulder or something on a $30,000/year salary and expect to ski year round then complain that I can't afford housing. The world simply does not, and should not work that way.