I would love to live in Japan. My husband would love to live in Japan. Unfortunately it is a bureaucratic hellscape where you can't even start a company without the permission of a specific high-ranking government official and changing your visa.

Maybe I am just a dumb American, but you'd think Japan would love to see foreign entrepreneurs starting companies just like basically every other country does.

1. Husband speaks Japanese and likes Japanese culture (he does genuinely speak Japanese, not just like kawaii desu anime Japanese).

2. I want to live in that area of the world (south-east-ish Asia).

3. Japan seems cool and it's a compromise.

4. US is backsliding into authoritarianism

5. Have a higher-ed degree that a competent authoritarian gov't would target

6. Both of us are transgender & bi

I don't really have much family since my family, besides my siblings, have basically disowned me and I haven't seen them in ~a decade. My husband has a bigger family that are super welcoming and we'd miss.

It isn't so much a dream as it is survival. I am sure they'll be people saying we are being overly dramatic with making plans to flee the country, but I'd much rather be overly cautious than end up dead, in a camp or having to file for emergency refugee status. Trump losing bought us at least 2 - 4 years. It isn't that I hate America, it's that America seems to hate everyone like me.