Steven LaChance Blog

I left the United States eight years ago. People ask me why, and the answer is simple. Until you are part of a minority that is under attack, it is hard to understand what it feels like to wake up every day in that kind of world. You learn to live with a weight in your chest. You search for peace because the fight never seems to end.

I have fought my whole life. In 2016 I told anyone who would listen that what we are seeing today would come. I said the same again in 2024. Every time I was told I was overreacting, that things were not as bad as I believed. But now the truth is plain. What is happening is exactly what I warned about.

Maybe it is what the country deserves because it voted for it twice. I do not say that with joy. I say it with exhaustion. I am sorry, but it is FAFO time.

I did my part. I fought for our rights to exist. I carried the weight of that fight for decades.

And yet, the deepest cuts came not from strangers but from family and friends. We told them plainly that their support of him would hurt us. We told them what their vote meant for our lives. They chose to look away. They chose loyalty to him over love for us. That is betrayal, no matter how softly you try to frame it. I say that without hatred, only with truth. You cannot claim to care for someone and then vote to put their safety in danger. Love cannot survive where harm is chosen.

My faith in people is gone. My focus now is on protecting myself and my own because there is little other choice. I will not live in a country where I have to wonder if today will be the day they decide to lock up people like me. That is not paranoia. That is not an outrageous thought. History proves it can happen and it has happened before at the hands of people like these.

So I keep my distance. I still vote. I still pay taxes. I still do my part. But I do it from a place of safety, far enough away to breathe, far enough away to live, far enough away to feel free.

Because at some point, survival is no longer about fighting every battle. It is about choosing peace when the world offers chaos. It is about making space to breathe, to live, and to love without fear. That is where I am now. That is why I left. And that is how I finally found freedom.