An Erin In The Morning Christmas Message

Lean on your found family, and allies, offer your home to the queer people that have brightened your life. There are people out there who love and care about you. Happy holidays and merry Christmas.

The holidays can be hard for many people, and this is especially true for transgender people. For some of trans people, holidays mean visiting together with family they have not seen for a long time. This is stressful because these are the people most likely to misgender them and call them by their old names. For others, the holidays represent a complete absence of family, and things can feel very lonely in those circumstances. Transgender people in their first year of coming out often feel this the hardest - the experience can be jarring. I wanted to talk about the role of allies and the queer community during the holidays how they can possibly make things better for you and those you love.

When I first transitioned, I experienced a lot of family rejection. My first Christmas away from family after coming out loomed near and I was afraid it would sting so bad. It did, but that was muted because I built so many queer friends and allies during my first year of transition. When Christmas finally did come, I spent the entire time going from house to house seeing the people who loved me and invited me over. I very quickly learned the meaning of found family.

Found family is something you’ll hear in queer circles a lot. Queer people often have a history of lost trust and damaged relationships. Coming out is an incredibly traumatic process. It’s also a healing process, though, and very quickly you learn who the people who love you unconditionally are. My found family was made up of people I had met in online spaces and in my local support group for newly out trans people. They invited me to lunch and dinner with them. I did not have the long history of family connections with them, and yet I felt so at home eating lunch and dinner with new friends and complete strangers who all respected who I was.

In a way my first Christmas was spent learning the power of the queer community and how much we stick up for one another. When I hear stats about suicide and depression rates of trans people facing lack of acceptance and misgendering, I now know that there is an antidote to this. It’s not just transitioning, though that certainly helps. It’s the family that comes along with the connections to other queer people. It’s the queer Friendsgivings and trans Christmas dinners. It’s a bunch of LGBTQ+ people taking their own family traditions from people who they no longer are close to and sharing them with one another, and making new memories that live on.

Since starting this newsletter a month ago, I have been blessed to be able to share my voice and experiences with many of you. I know from personal messages from each of you that many of you who follow and read this are trans yourselves. Many of you are not, many of you have trans family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Take note, allies, that you too are an important part of found family. Your role is huge for the holidays - you can offer queer people the kind of love that we so often lose in the process of becoming ourselves. You can invite us to Christmas dinners, Thanksgiving, and New Years parties. I promise when you do, you’ll be making a whole world of difference.

My Christmas message is simple: there is boundless love in our community, and during the holidays, it is so important to share that with one another. Trans people, find those friends and don’t let go of them. Don’t feel like a burden, because family is not supposed to feel that way, regardless of what your biological family has made you feel. Invite your queer friends together for the holidays. And allies… open your homes up to the queer people that have brightened it. Even the ones that have strong ties to their biological families will be happy you did and will remember that act. Sometimes, these actions save lives.

I hope all of you have the happiest of holidays. Next year will be hard, but the found families we grow close to will get us through the bad bills, the attacks on our community, and the negativity. If you can’t spend this time with found family in person, take breaks and be easy on yourself. Leave the dinner table if you have to and jump online to chat with your trans friends on discord or over the phone. Make space for yourself and don’t feel guilty for it. We will all be there together on the other side.

Happy holidays with so much love. You’ve got this.