If you had told me 10 years ago, even five years ago, that I would now be estranged from my family, I would have told you you were lying. Leyendecker's middle child began a gender transition, and Leyendecker's brother, his wife and her sister cut off contact with her family. That all changed in February 2021 during the devastating freeze in the Dallas area where they all live, she with her husband and two of their three children.

Yet she hung in there to keep relationships intact. Then came the pandemic, the chaotic 2020 election and more conflict over masks and vaccinations. NEW YORK (AP) - Kristia Leyendecker has navigated a range of opposing views from her two siblings and other loved ones since 2016, when Donald Trump's election put a sharp, painful point on their political divisions as she drifted from the Republican Party of today and they didn't.