Oh, the West Coast is liberal. And conservative. And a lot of other things. A few hours drive from San Francisco, which has things like the Folsom Street Fair (where your outfit and Morgan's would be downright *tame*) you have the area around Sacremento where Russian &^ Ukrainian immigrants and their churches made it virtually impossible to convict someone who beat a T-girl to death for being a T-girl.

Here in Oregon, we've recovered fairly well from the ravages of the OCA (Oregon Citizens Alliance) back in the 80s and 90s. Heck a small town near the state capitol has a TG mayor. I've known her for years as her female self. But she ran under her male name and wore dresses and things. (Stu Rassmussen in Silverton, Oregon)

She's had implants for something like two decades, but no hormones. She wrote up the story of how she decided on that years back. Rather interesting. But that's under her femme name, which is still kept out of the public eye.

Your outfit (and Morgan's) wouldn't do more than raise eyebrows in a lot of places in town. But wouldn't be appropriate in school. Though both you and Morgan would risk a gay bashing if you got spotted by the wrong folks. Yes, we had three of them last year. At least 3 that made the news. And at least one of those was in an area known for gay clubs. :-(

Alas, one legacy of the OCA is an amendment to the state constitution the forbids gay marriage. We do have civil unions (and there was a fight about whether that was contrary to the amendment).

But Portland (and Multnomah county) has had anti-discrimination laws protecting gay & TG folks for almost as long, and we've had a state level version for a while. Though many folks seem unaware of it.

Oh yeah, something that will be referenced at some point, possibly the next installment, are the two local nude beaches (Oregon *state* law about "public indecency" is rather liberal. Portland is rather more straight-laced in that it doesn't allow exposure of the male genitals, even in a non-sex related way, while state law does allow it).

Then there's the Portland "branch" of the World Naked Bike Ride, which, since it's considered a protest, means that it supercedes the normal Portland restrictions. Two daytime rides and a nightime one.

So we're liberal and conservative. What works depends a lot on circumstances.

Not gonna bother trying to figure out how to link pics into this reply. You can can find them on my website (at least the ones that aren't R or X rated. :-)

http://www.shadowgard.com/~brooke/