At this time last year, I was home from college for the holidays. This time of year is revered as a time of celebration and fellowship with friends and family. However, being someone that identifies within the LGBT+ community, I know the struggle that the holidays can bring. Living in the closet can be hard, especially when everyone around you is preaching love and acceptance, but not really practicing it. For many of us, we have to pretend to be someone that we are not while we are with our families, out of fear of their reaction to our true selves. Fortunately for me, I came out and only received love for it, but I understand this is not the case for everyone. So this is a message of support for those of you struggling with families who do not accept you for who you are.

A big part of what can be bothersome during holidays is the small things that your family members say that they might not recognize as hurtful. It’s these smaller comments like “Oh! So you need to tell us, are there any girls you are dating right now?” or even “I cannot believe they are allowing those gays to marry. It’s just crazy to me,” that someone outside of the LGBT+ community might say without understanding the true meaning or impact of their words. Now, it is important for those of us who are impacted by these words to see where our family members are coming from. Many of them have not really had experiences with LGBT+ individuals to their knowledge and they have also grown up in a hetero-normative world. Both of these things factor into their opinions, so try not to think of them as personal attacks. You’d be surprised of what their actual opinions could be if they actually were to learn that someone they care about is actually LGBT+. The best way I found to deal with these comments is just to ignore them and think about anyone who knows about your true self and their opinions of who you are because they are who truly matter.

The small, ignorant comments can be really hurtful, but what is worse are the family members and families that truly are bigoted and homophobic. It is truly awful that there are people who would rather live without the people in their lives who identify as LGBT+ just because of that one small personality trait. These people can be extremely hard to deal with at holiday times. Once again, the best thing to do in this case is just to think about those people in your life that do accept you and know that these other people’s opinions of you really are not important. This can be really hard when it is a family member that you care about, but just remember that their view is not your fault and is just a flaw within them.

Obviously, family is family and we cannot really decide who we are related to. Never blame yourself for the negative view of a family member. Their view of you is insignificant in respect to the amount of love that others have for you in this world. Living in the closet is hard, but unfortunately it is a reality to many people. Honestly, just try your best to ignore ignorant family members during the holidays and think about the future when you will be able to freely express yourself. There are so many support groups out there as well as counselors that you can reach out to in times of need. Use any resources you need to and just know that there are so many people, myself included, that are here for you and just want you to be happy.