Highlanders speak out on the importance of chosen family around Christmas – 'I'm only still here because of my chosen families'
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Christmas is often described as a time to be with family, but some people do not have that option.
Although the situation has improved over recent decades, there are still LGBTQ+ people being ostracised by loved ones because of their identity.
That can make the festive season a tricky time of the year – if they cannot, or do not want, to go home, where is left for them? More often than not the answer comes in the form of chosen family.
Chosen family is the term given to the support system people have made up of non-blood relatives, a group of friends who care and celebrate you unconditionally.
Many of us have them, but for some they are a lifeboat.
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Take Highland Pride committee member Roz White for example. Both of her parents are dead, she has not spoken to her sister properly in decades, and her children are geographically scattered.
"There’s that well-known saying that friends are the family you choose," she mused.
"For me, 'chosen family' is exactly that – family I have chosen, and who have also chosen me. I think that part’s important too.
"I tend to work all but the statutory days off around the Christmas season, which makes chosen family get-togethers difficult. I feel as if I’ve actually had my Christmas already, when a disparate group of friends with common interests came over for a recent weekend of feasting, craft activity and general nattering.
"That felt much more festive than anything else this season is likely to. That lifted the mood hugely.
"Without chosen family I would be in a far darker place. Around this time last year, I was rushed into hospital and was in Raigmore for most of December.
"I managed to get a message out, and two separate strands of my chosen families responded almost immediately, driving round-trips of – in one case – over 100 miles to see me and generally fetch-and-carry for me as I recovered.
"My younger daughter later came down from Orkney and I spent a further two weeks or so up with her – but hers was but one of a number of offers I received of recovery-space, and I am still immensely grateful for them all.
"I’m not at all convinced that, had my parents either been still alive or in the area, they would have made such an offer. I’m as certain as I can be that my sister would not have!
"Overall, I think it’s not an exaggeration to say I’m only still here because of my chosen families, and for that reason among so many others I will forever be grateful to have them in my life."
Even those who do have family in close proximity to them can benefit from chosen families.
Teenagers Meadow and Hartlee each have at least somewhat strained relationships with parts of their blood families.
They intend on having a separate chosen family Christmas celebration this week, having – similarly to White – seen first-hand even at young ages the impact that such community can have.
"A lot of people are forced to go back home, and a lot of people don't get to go back home," Hartlee reasoned.
"Chosen family gives a sense of stability where there isn't always one, and it gives community and support where there wasn't necessarily that before.
"They have no obligation to stay. There are no blood ties keeping them there, they are helping you and existing with you because they want to.
"I know of someone within our chosen family who, without us, would not be alive – we were the only reason they kept themselves going. I've had people do that for me too, and that's important.
"None of us have a lot of money, and very few of us have good relationships with our blood families, so we will try and provide for each other when we can.
"It's a lot to put on teenagers, but where else are they going to get it? It doesn't matter if they're younger, they still want to help out the others."
Meadow continued: "I hate it when people say you can't choose your family. I feel so sad for them, because those people don't get to form connections with people that keep you tethered to the earth when you feel like you're going to fly off.
"Admittedly, very few people who aren't queer end up with them. People need a safe place to hang out and not get slurs thrown at them, and if that's all a chosen family can provide, that's good enough.
"Getting to choose who you spend time around in the festive season is so empowering. In our culture, so much of Christmas is about family and going home for the holidays. Getting to celebrate with people you choose to like instead of people you kind of have to like feels special."
For Adriana Klick, this time of the year has been difficult for as long as she can remember.
A bereaved child of suicide, various family birthdays and anniversaries fall in close proximity to Christmas meant that even from a young age Klick would lean on chosen family.
As such, being pansexual was not the sole reason for wanting an escape, but what she took from spending the holidays with chosen family rather than blood relatives was an example of how to thrive as herself – rather than merely survive.
"My family was a very practical unit – very functioning in terms of getting the physical caretaking done, but they were distracted by grief, the horror of war, bereavement from suicide and the societal stigma that comes with that," Klick explained.
"I grew up feeling a lot of tension in the house at this time of the year. Kids are so attuned to that emotional energy, so even though I knew it looked good and I liked the lights and the tinsel, something felt really off.
"Over the years, I shut it out for a long time, but I did feel very bitter about Christmas.
"That said, I've always had an incredible network of friends and their families who invited me in, and when I witnessed other family dynamics – especially my friends who get on with their parents really well – I started to think 'I'd like that, but I don't know how to put myself at ease in those situations'.
"I almost feel like a bit of an imposter at times. Do I deserve to have the home I have now? Do I deserve to set up a Christmas?
"I think about the struggles that other people have, and I empathise with what's going on in the world, but me being a victim or a martyr is not serving anybody. A sense of over-responsibility to worry about things isn't helping anyone else or myself.
"Things that have made the difference for me are people who open-heartedly and unconditionally welcome me in, don't pressure me to be anything other than myself but model me to see there is another way. They don't preach it to me, they just set the example and tell me I'm welcome as I am.
"It was through osmosis. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I'm a person people want to spend time with, and that's my own discomfort within myself. What I'm realising now, as I'm becoming a bit wiser, is that I'm not a burden to those people – they wouldn't have asked me unless they really meant it.
"When you're with your chosen family, you know they dig you. That's the stuff that helps feed the inner batteries and nourishes you to give back to the world. When all the tough stuff is going on, you can know you have nourished yourself with love from your chosen family."
For others, chosen family has been found through existing social groups.
A trans woman in Inverness, who wished to remain anonymous, has found attending the Kiki Family on a regular basis in the Highland capital has provided her with more support than she could ever have expected.
"I came to Kiki for the first time when my relationship had just ended and I was homeless," she explained.
"I completely burnt out. I had a lot of internalised transphobia and a lot of stigma – I wasn't sure of the kind of people I would meet if I reached out to an LGBTQ+ group, because my family made me feel that being trans was just an ideology that I had indoctrinated myself into.
"Because of that, I was in a place of doubt and I didn't want to join an LGBTQ+ group to be 'indoctrinated' further, but it was completely the opposite.
"What an amazing, diverse group of people I found who were just people. The first night I went there I met an actor, I've met a documentary maker, I've met someone who does outdoor activities in partnership with GPs, I've met a speech and language therapist. There are so many interesting people, and it's a completely non-pushy place.
"People have complete freedom to be who they are, and if the way that they express themselves as who they are stays the same, that's fine, and if it changes that's fine too. If it changes and then goes back, that's okay as well – you will be loved and accepted.
"If I was going to get over my internalised transphobia, my doubts, and accept myself for who I am, I thought this was the place to do it.
"It's more supportive than any therapist I've ever seen, and more transformational too. There's not a single space I can think of that has that kind of culture, and I think that's testament to how people feel about Kiki. It's just amazing."
