Ask the Aunties: Should I spend Christmas with my homophobic family?
When you’re LGBT+, Christmas can often be a challenging time. If you have homophobic family, should you spend time with them or throw your own queer Christmas?
In a new episode of PinkNews series Ask the Aunties, our fabulous queer agony aunts answer your dilemmas.
Queer agony aunts Lee Gray and Karnage Kills respond to a dilemma sent in from a young bisexual person feeling pressured to spend time with family over Christmas–despite their parents being biphobic.
Should I spend Christmas with my homophobic family?
Their dilemma said: “Christmas is coming up and I’m feeling worried about spending so much intense time with my family.
“They know I’m bi but they’ve not exactly taken it well and are very religious. What should I do?”
Ask the Aunties: Their response
Karnage suggested that they still spend Christmas with their family.
He said: “I would use it as an opportunity to spend more time with your family and reconnect.”
But Lee completely disagreed. He said: “Absolutely not. Christmas is the one time of year where we all have to take holiday, we all have to take time to ourselves.
“You shouldn’t be forced to go and be around people who don’t care about you.”
Watch the video above to see the Aunties’ advice.
If you are struggling with loneliness or mental health over the Christmas period, contact LGBT Switchboard, Mind Out or LGBT Foundation in the UK. Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence also provide support for trans and non-binary people.
Ask the Aunties is an original PinkNews series. From dating to telling your pals your pronouns, no dilemma is left unanswered.
The previous episode answered a dilemma from a gay man called Rishi, who wrote in because “racism on Grindr is stressing me out.”
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