Jan. 04, 2012 - Issue #846: Year in review

Queermonton

Christmas closet

Difficult conversations over the holiday can provide strength later

For queers the holidays can be tricky, uncomfortable and, at times, cringe-worthy occasions filled with family dinners and catch-ups with old friends. Some queers in our communities choose to avoid these situations all together, opting instead to spend time with their chosen queer families or forgo the holidays all together. Some queers have no choice but to miss their family's gatherings. For those of us with non-queer but accepting families, the season can be filled with negotiating if we should come out to our families, dealing with homophobic comments from family members, and daring to discuss queer politics.
Every year I head south to Calgary to visit my four parents and five siblings. Eight years ago, I came home from the University of Ottawa and waited a couple of hours before sitting my parents down to have the talk.
For university students the winter break may seem like the only opportunity to come out as such news is too touchy for the phone and too raw to wait until the end of the winter semester. But the winter holidays are a pressure-cooker for family relationships, so coming out may overwhelm an already tense family situation. Coming out can open you up to an onslaught of personal questions from your family about your sexuality. Do your grandma and second-cousin really need to be kept abreast about your evolving sexuality? Is it worth your sense of vulnerability to discuss such intimate details of your life with people you see once a year? The experience of coming out can feel very liberating, but for the sake of self-preservation the best policy is to divulge only as much information as you want.

Whether or not we discuss our sexuality with all of our relatives, some family members are prone to making lazy homophobic jokes or comments. When surrounded by people who have known you since you were young, it is extremely difficult to deflect such comments and stop them from hurting you. I have yet to discover a foolproof way of dealing with these situations. Some people say that you should address and criticize the comment not the person—the comment was homophobic, but that does not mean the person is homophobic. This tactic allows the offender space to apologize and spares them the urge to be overly defensive.
If you are lucky and you do not have to deal with offensive remarks, you may have to deal with relatives and friends who actually want to talk about gender and sexuality. While their willingness to learn about "different" sexualities is commendable, dealing with a cousin that watched an episode of Oprah about Chaz Bono and now assumes themselves to be an authority on transgender theory and politics can be very frustrating. Still, North American society is due for some honest discussions about the complex politics that involve genders and sexualities, even though it is rather difficult to explain how a queer person can be against same-sex marriage but for far different reasons than Uncle Jim. Ultimately, I welcome these discussions over silence or, worse still, anger and resentment. If we cannot talk about such things around the holiday turkey, misinformation and prejudice will continue to engender society's understanding of sexualities.
The holiday season is over for another year but I think the occasion serves as an important, albeit intense, exercise in how to feel comfortable discussing your sexuality, dealing with homophobic comments and bringing up queer ideas. With the holiday training camp behind us, we can head back into our queer communities more self-assured and confident. V

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