Six months ago, while sitting in an iHop on Valentine's Day, my wife and I came to the realization that we had no choice but to uproot our family and relocate to another country. This would mean abandoning the plans we had spent the previous ten years building towards and letting go of the home we'd planned to live out the rest of our lives in.
This was before the conception of the OBBBA, before Aligator Alcatraz, even before Trump v. JGG. Less than a month into Trump's second term it was already perfectly clear the trajectory our country was on. There were moments prior to the 2024 election when I allowed myself to believe that the US would course correct. Surely we would not allow our country to descend into authoritarianism. The electorate had to recognize what was happening and move to steer us away from that outcome.
But it didn't. And my son is trans. So we didn't have the luxury of waiting to see just how bad things would become. It was my believe, and still is, that our own government would become a clear and present danger to our family before 2026. Not one event in the last six months has caused me to waver in that belief.
So, a month ago we got on a plane departing American soil. The preceding months were a whirlwind of gathering documents, selling our belongings, and learning everything we could to prepare ourselves for life in a new country. None of us speak Spanish with any level of competency and everything about day-to-day life is orders of magnitude more difficult.
But my son is safe, and our family is together.