Love Wasn’t Enough

On loving my family but still being hurt by their choices.

I have made the conscious decision to not discuss politics with my immediate family much anymore because I still want to like them and their political views make that difficult. However, if it is brought up to me, I do engage to a degree and there is no better time for that to occur than holiday family dinner. Today’s, obviously, was Easter.

“I just want someone who thinks I deserve the same rights as everyone else. That’s really all I want, and I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.” I say in response to Mom’s suggestion for who she thinks our next President should be.

A slight wince on Mom’s face. A brief silence settles on the table.

“Well, yes, there’s that.” She says a little awkwardly.

Because here’s the thing. The rest of you can overlook bigotry in favor of foreign policy positions or views on immigration or economic policies. Bigotry isn’t a regular part of your reality so you can choose not to see it.

I can’t.

You can be well-educated, you can be less alt-right than the others in your party. You can be more tolerable to the more moderate voters on both sides. But, at the end of the day, if you don’t view me or my friends as people, I can’t vote for you. I won’t.

And that’s the difference.

And I wish they understood. I wish there was something I could say that could make them feel the way I do every time we vote. I wish they realized the special kind of pain in your chest when you watch your family vote against you and tell you “it’s not a moral choice, but it’s an economic choice.” Like your rights have a price tag.

But they don’t. And there isn’t. And I have to carry that with me when I sit at dinner with them or come by the house to catch up.

There’s always a little part of my heart that aches and wonders why I wasn’t enough for them to vote differently. How they could just decide my consistent harassment and disenfranchisement wasn’t important enough to dissuade them. How they can tell me they love me and how people treat me is wrong but actively participated in its facilitation.

And sometimes, and I wince as I say this, when I see that this is awkward for them when I do bring it up, I hope it hurts a little. I hope it gives them pause. Because I live with the consequences of their choices every. fucking. day.

There are times I decide going out isn’t worth it because some guy in a MAGA hat might get in my face over my trans flag necklace or painted fingernails and I don’t have the emotional bandwidth for that today. Then, when I do go out, there’s always a part of me hyper aware of my surroundings in case someone does try to start something and I have to get out quickly if it escalates too far. I’m not a big guy, if someone wanted to hurt me, they 100% could and I’d be fucked. I carry that with me every day too.

The worst part is that I want to believe they just don’t understand and really didn’t think it would be this bad. Maybe they thought he was exaggerating his culture war language to appeal to his base but he didn’t really mean it. Maybe they were duped. But, there’s a part of me that thinks maybe they did know it’d be bad, and they voted for him anyway. It’s not in their world so they overlooked it. He said he’d bring down grocery and gas prices and they thought it was more practical to vote for that than “woke” social issues. I’ll never know really.

But carrying the weight of the knowledge they’d probably vote against me again sometimes hurts more than I can explain, so I don’t engage in the hopes I just press that down when I’m around them and focus on the good parts of my time with them. They didn’t do it out of malice for me, I know they do love me, but my heart hurts knowing that love wasn’t enough.