Should I stay or should I go?

Early in the 20th Century, the families of my maternal and paternal grandparents were part of the tremendous wave of Jewish people to flee Russian poverty and pogroms. Most of my relatives made their way to the United States. My mother's father, however, decided to settle his family in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, where my mother was born. My grandfather ended up in a concentration camp in Drancy during the Nazi occupation, and my grandmother and her four children, my mother included, went into hiding. By some miracle, all survived and the family reunited and came to the United States after WWII.

Now, as a transgender woman and even more-so as the parent of a neuro-divergent, naturalized-citizen child, I ask myself whether it is time to flee America. I'm not the only one...

And...

These families say they’re leaving the U.S. because of its anti-transgender climate

One of the families said they decided to move from Colorado to New Zealand after their 9-year-old trans daughter’s health care was interrupted.

NBC NewsJo Yurcaba

It's not just marginalized people leaving. Timothy Snyder, who famously tells us not to obey tyrants in advance, is moving to Canada.

I don't blame Snyder or anyone who has the resources to emigrate to friendlier climes, especially in service of protecting their children. But too many of us do not have that option. Who will fight to protect them?

I'm fortunate enough to have options. We don't own property, so we could pick up and leave whenever we want. There are several LGBTQ-friendly countries to which I could retire. But would they also welcome my spouse and adult child? Would my family even want to disrupt their lives over a potentially worsening situation here? And, thinking about my grandfather's mistaken belief that post WWI Europe was a safe place to build a new life, for how long would we actually be safe?

I've spent most of my life hiding who I am. I'm not willing to do that anymore. And I'm not too keen on running away, even though my favorite movie is The Americanization of Emily with its message that cowardice is the better part of valor.

I want to stay, and I want to fight for my right to live in peace, to care for my family and community, and to speak out for those of us in the crosshairs of white nationalism. The problem, of course, is that I have no idea how to do that. I can picture my therapist getting a bit aggro with me at that statement. "You are doing it," they'd tell me. "Just existing is an act of resistance." But I have trouble internalizing that. As Dar Williams sang in The Pointless, Yet Poignant, Crisis of a Co-Ed, "I'm not a leader, I'm not a left-wing rhetoric mobilizing force of one." For now, though, I need to be satisfied to participate where I can - to attend rallies, write to my representatives in Congress and State government, speak on LGBTQ+ panel discussions for students and caregivers, and mostly, survive.