Ever since we posted Kentucky Man Helps LGBTQ Students Have Thanksgiving Dinner Away From Home, it has been a thought rolling around in our minds that So many look forward to not going home for the holidays. When LGBT are letters that do not belong in your home, it's hard to feel welcome or wanted. The holiday time should be one of joy and merriment and not hiding right in front of your relatives.
theroot.com his thoughts on going home for the holidays.
Try as we might, the holiday season does not change the very real fact that a vast majority of LGBT people are mistreated inside the homes by the same people gathering around the dinner table during the holiday season who are expecting those acts to be forgotten. For many LGBT people, we are made to feel bad about intentionally distancing ourselves from hostile family members because we have been force-fed that “blood is thicker than water.”
…
Asserting that LGBT people must go home for the holidays could, in fact, push us into environments where many LGBT people feel unsafe, unwanted and unloved. It’s triggering to be forced into remembering a childhood where homophobia and transphobia, even unintentional antagonisms, were the standard just because another holiday has rolled around. It’s violent, even.
Rarely do these holiday well-wishers think about the fact that, for some families, it’s not “blood is thicker than water” but, rather, a violent environment where familiar strangers smell blood in the water. So many of us couldn’t wait until we got older because the levels of toxicity in that blood were so high that we could never just be ourselves. The blood meant to sustain us was the poison running through our veins.
When we are experiencing that from inside our own families, we have to make a tough decision: stay around for the sake of family or leave and put ourselves first.
…
So we’re forced to discover new ways of safety, usually in the form of like-minded people to whom we don’t have to explain our identities. This means that we build home—a safe, more secure, loving home—right where we are with the families we choose.
Family is not a performance that we pay for with our well-being. Being free from unhealthy relationships is critical, and LGBT people have to give ourselves permission—permission to create our normals and our traditions. We must surround ourselves with love and support, even if these individuals are not part of our blood lineage. – theroot.com
For theroot.com where he brings in his own personal experiences about should he or shouldn't he go home for the holidays.
Do you have the same battle?
Have you made a better home for yourself than what resides back with the family?
Do you need to decide to be happy with friends or face the anti-LGBT feeling of being around family?
If you choose to stay away, are there any regrets?
h/t: theroot.com