I am:

* female
* queer
* disabled
* neuroatypical
* an American citizen

...so why is my vote never the one being courted and counted? Why am I the one expected, again and again, to be insulted and assaulted, then be the better person by forgiving?

I grew up in the welfare system, abandoned by the same people who want to take away my ability to control my own body as an adult because "think of the children." Where were you when I was being left behind? I was a child. You never once thought of me then.

I am white*. My father is not. Those people looked at him and if they saw me at all, it was as a stolen child. The number of times the police got involved because he held my hand is in the double-digits. The number of times they stepped in when Mom's white...

(*conditionally)

...boyfriends hurt me, stole from me, slapped me? Zero. The got involved for the pedarast, but only after ignoring the signs for years because who wants to think that about a fine upstanding white man.

I am FUCKING TIRED of being told to understand, forgive, and make peace with people who only understand that who I am is a sin, will only forgive me for conforming, and want to make peace with my corpse. Sorry, no.

Hypocrisy is not the virtue we keep trying to turn it into, and it's never going to be. Stop trying to make fetch happen.