What would possibly be unclear here

This is always the Libertarian shitpost response: “you’re free to do what you want” because you don’t recognize economic coercion. It’s a perfectly OK form of limiting freedom. Fuck off.

Money.

Also, people tend to have things like friends and family.

If I could gather all my friends and family with me and move out of this backwards ass shithole, I would. It’s not that simple.

How am I stuck in the country?

My government won’t issue me a passport.

Aside from the extreme financial and planning difficulties involved with emigrating, It’s exceedingly difficult for trans individuals to get a passport right now. The department of state has been destroying identity documents of anyone who is currently or has previously requested an official gender change and they are not providing any recourse or remedy to the issue.

Just a “please leave or you will be arrested” when asked what can I do to get a passport…

I could tell you why I would choose to stay where I am even if I had the resources to leave. It is actually possible for some of us to put together a decent life for our families and try to brighten the lives of those around us.

…Even though our government is somewhere between evil and self-destruct, and our culture is somewhere between “fuck you got mine” and “die woman/jew/brown/LGBT+/other!”

And yeah I’m a straight white dude, how did you guess? :/

But anyway, I’ve lived in the same house for 17 years. It is a 10 minute walk to the elementary/middle school my son will attend for the next 5 years. It is a 6 minute drive to the office for the best job I’ve ever had. We are active in our community and school district, and have some wonderful friends. All my son’s grandparents are within a reasonable drive (but not too close). All my nieces and nephews are similarly close by.

It’s a small modest house that we’ve made our own. In the past 5 years we’ve done some major renovations, repairs, and remodeling. We fenced in the back yard which is great for our kid and our multiple dogs. And our tortoise. Oh yeah, we’re animal lovers. And that includes a koi pond that I built in the back yard that’s literally part of my mental health self-care.

Moving to some place that seems less insane right now would materially change my entire life, not just which government I have to live under.

I don’t have the financial wherewithal to pick up and move to another country. If I did I’d be out of here.

Have you ever considered how expensive it is to emigrate to another nation? And then there’s the acceptance part, which anyone who has gone through it can tell you, is VERY difficult.

The uncertainty surrounding it is just far too much for most people.

It’s kind of weird, but I’m not surprised. Mexico is exotic and just has a lot more historically going on IIRC.

Canada’s history goes something like: The French start trading furs with the natives, the colonial British show up, the British take New France from Napoleon the French, they decide to shotgun-marry the two into a new country after the US civil war, and then the country slowly transitions from being in a geopolitics-free bubble run by the British to one run by the Americans (with a period of worrying about the two fighting each other).

So, the big picture isn’t exactly action-packed - in a way, we’re having the most eventful period in the country’s history now. (Of course, there’s tons of other stuff if you want to look closer, including migrations, minor rebellions, the various schemes the British tried to thwart American expansion, constant flirtation with splitting apart again and Newfoundland joining)

Edit: Oh shit, I forgot the vikings. Yeah, they came and did viking stuff, and left some house foundations. Then all died out. And I should mention it had stuff happening the whole time before Europeans arrived, just no literate cultures to record it, so it’s prehistory.

The Commonwealth of Nations, often simply referred to as the Commonwealth is an international association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire from which it developed. They are connected through their use of the English language and historical-cultural ties. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Commonwealth Secretariat, which focuses on intergovernmental relations, and the Commonwealth Foundation, which focuses on non-governmental relations between member nations. Numerous organisations are associated with and operate within the Commonwealth. It is known colloquially as the British Commonwealth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations

I think it’s more like a sibling that you grew up with who was taught the same moral code as you. They were living a healthy, normal life for a while but got offered a very high paying job that is at odds with those childhood morals. They decided to take it, and at first, they did just a few unethical things. Then, they realized that they could make more money by being more unethical and the people who were supposed to be chastising them were not very good at punishing people with money and were really easy to manipulate, so they leaned in to the lack of ethics.

They know what their doing is hurting people, and they don’t care because they want to drive their Lamborghini to family Christmas and bring an ostentatiously expensive bottle of wine so that people can praise and fawn over them. But, if you call them on their bad behavior, they become enemies because how dare you?! Now we’re the sibling who is powerful but has completely gone awry due to that same power.

I’m hoping we gave a nice family reunion someday where my country has learned the error of its ways and can once again be accepted by its lovely Canadian relatives.

They are compromised.