What would you do if you lived in a state that outlawed abortion? What if that state made no exceptions for rape or incest? What if the state topped it all off with a $10,000 bounty for informants? What if something went wrong during your pregnancy? What if your teenage daughter couldn’t access reproductive health care? What if the state threatened to investigate you for child abuse for providing gender-affirming care to your trans kids? Would you stay? Would you even have a choice?
These are just a few of the questions residents of Austin are grappling with in my latest story for New York Magazine, for which I spent two weeks reporting in the capital of Texas in August. Austin was once considered a liberal oasis, the hippie-cowboy capital where you could forget that you lived in Texas. Now, as the state government lurches to the far-right, that is no longer possible. As rights are continuously stripped away by the Lone Star State, those in a stratum of liberal Austin—namely women, parents, LGBT folks, and people of color—with the means to escape are leaving.
“Austin has always felt like a liberal haven, but it’s becoming more and more like a mirage,” said Nico Serna-Hincapie, 31, a Houston-born project manager who will move once his lease is up in February for fear of the fate of LGBT rights. “It has always been a mirage.”
Not everyone shares this sentiment. Austin is a booming tech hub and the fastest growing city in the country (however, the bougification of Austin is certainly contributing to departures as well). Even under the suffocating weight of hyper-capitalism and rightwing extremism, there remains two other distinct camps. One is a that of uncertain residents who just haven’t reached their tipping point yet. The other is an ardent camp of academics, lawyers, politicians, and activists committed to resisting a highly gerrymandered state, knowing full well Beto will never have a chance if everyone leaves. It’s a fraught decision no matter the choice.
“I understand deeply the intuition and the personal belief that we have to stay and fight,” said Steve Vladeck, a leading legal scholar at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Law. “The flip side is twofold. A lot of us are parents of young children where we have to think about what is best for kids and not what's best for us. And there's growing concern that we could wake up one day and realize it's too late. It's hard to get the ‘first-they-came-for-the-communists’ line out of your head.”
We’ve entered a pivotal new era of Two Americas: one where you are protected, and one where you are not. Do you live in the latter? How is this affecting your life? Reply to this email and tell me. I would love to hear from you.
