Hey all, I hope I’m posting to the right place. My gf and I are both trans women considering immigrating to New Zealand from the US. We both have green list careers so we’re not too worried about eligibility but we are wondering if we would be welcome/fit in in NZ.
Everything I’ve seen or heard in media makes NZ look about 1000 times better than the US. Every country has their problems but from my limited viewpoint NZ looks pretty great. We’d appreciate any advice or perspective you’d care to share. Thanks in advance.
There is lots of racism in NZ but it’s mostly targeted at Maori, Chinese, and Indians (both Fijian and from India). If you are not one of those groups you should be mostly OK. I haven’t seen too much hostility towards trans people so you should also be OK in that regard.
Be aware though, this is not an easy place to live. It’s expensive as hell here and you’ll be shocked at how much you are paying for food, utilities, rent and every day goods like clothes and electronics.
I have talked to countless expats and the number one thing they complain about is how impossible it is to make friends here. Kiwis are polite enough and nice enough for superficial interactions but they won’t let you in their inner circles and become friends. Most expats are friends with other expats although not necessarily from the same country. Since you are in a marginal community I think this will be less of a problem for you. I presume the LGBTQ community will be more willing to embrace expats.
Having said all that I still think this is a great place to live. Just go into it with open eyes. Prepare well, bring in a shit ton of money and all your goods. You will regret not bringing something when you try to replace it and it costs triple what you paid for it.
Comments like this are why the open internet rules.
How bad is the racism against Chinese people specifically? My GF is Chinese.
It’s no worse than anywhere else to be honest and mostly limited to older people.
My partner is kiwi Chinese, 3rd gen NZ, but full blood.
She experiences a fair amount of casual racism. But it is pretty low key, very uncommon to have anything overt.
Individually, most people are nice.
I think we also have to have something to compare against. I know people talk a lot about NZ’s casual racism problem. It would be good to have input from someone who moved from the US to here to see some sort of comparison.
Perhaps the working holiday idea that someone else had would be a good plan. You could come for a year or two depending on what visa you can get, then you get a good chance to see what it is like to live here, and also the Trump presidency will be half over.