To My Conservative Family Members

As the votes are counted and everyone holds their breath, I find it of importance to get some things off of my chest. Any conversation I attempt to have regarding politics with some of my extended family members tends to end in the comment, “talk to me in ten years”. To avoid this dead end, I have decided to simply express my thoughts and feelings without directing my comments towards anyone in particular. I hope to comfort others who may be in the same position.

To my conservative family members, I ask how you can support a candidate who is so openly against multiple groups of people. As women, how can you stand by and support a candidate that talks of women so poorly and does not care about our fundamental rights. If not for yourself, think of your daughters future. Would you force her to have a baby if she was raped? Would you say that being raped was her fault? If not, then why support someone who would believe these things? I ask how you can look me in the eyes and say you support me, yet vote for someone whose mission is to suppress anyone that is not white. I find it interesting how you all found it perfectly okay of Trump to call the coronavirus the “China Virus” while being related to an Asian American. I would like you to know that the candidate you voted for created one hell of a quarantine for me. I was frequently avoided in the grocery store, I was given stares, I was looked up and down in disgust, to the point where I genuinely did not want to leave the house. I became afraid of what could happen. Do you think that this kind of treatment is okay? Or is it only not okay because I’m family? I wonder how you can be so supportive of adoption and grateful to have me as a part of your family, and still support someone who does not think gay couples are fit to be parents. Does that mean that I would have been better left in the foster care system if my parents weren’t straight? When it comes to decency and human rights there can be no exceptions. You cannot vote for a candidate like trump and expect someone like me to not feel the consequences. So I guess I sit here as a female, minority, adoptee and I wonder what you would think of me if I were not family.