The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com statement ‘A season of grief’: Profiles of the LGBTQ+ holiday experience BY GRACE TUCKER, STATEMENT COLUMNIST Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 11 H ey my girl. Is there anyone you would like to bring home for Thanksgiving? Someone who isn’t travelling home or needs allies to have Thanksgiving with?” In something like extending a hand or offering a warm hug, my mom sent me that text message on a frigid Ann Arbor after- noon. When I read it, a few people came to mind: The friend who routinely removes his pride flag from his living room every time his parents visit. The classmate who mentally prepares herself to talk about her girlfriend like she is just a girl (space) friend during her family’s Thanksgiving dinner. The coworker who enthusiastically works extra shifts to dodge time at home and avoid being invalidated by her father, who, for years now, has refused to correctly use her pronouns. My parents have been self-proclaimed “allies” for as long as I can remember. Even before I started talking to them about my queer identity, they had a big, bright pride flag hanging over our garage for years — a bold act in an Indiana suburb. Like two blue sheep among a swarm of red ones, my parents have long been the sole liberal parents in my social circles. It was my mother who gifted me my first “I’m with her” T-shirt during the 2016 election. And my father, who works as a middle school math teacher, who once sat me down to inquire how to ask for his stu- dents’ pronouns. As I’ve grown up, my parents have im- plemented this spirit of inclusion into ev- erything they teach us, in every corner of our household. But seeing that text from my mother reminded me that too many people in my life — and too many other stu- dents on campus — are not quite as lucky. After a handful of lovely and deeply compelling conversations with other stu- dents within the LGBTQ+ community, I found the diversity of their backgrounds and identities to be reflected in the range of sentiment they expressed in response to one simple idea: “home for the holidays.” For some, being home meant being grounded, a “breath of fresh air” from the otherwise chaotic semester we’ve all en- dured. And for others, being home meant something quite different: It meant stress, anxiety and having to act as a “representa- tive” on behalf of their entire community when relatives became overly inquisitive. It meant awkward conversations in response to the dreaded ‘So, are you seeing anyone?’ question grandparents seem to pose every year. It meant an “experience of grief.” T heodore Poling, LSA Junior “I do still use (she/her pro- nouns) but for (my Dad), I don’t want him to because it’s this ... lingering connection to the concept of a person who has never existed. Like, I was never his daughter.” When I realized that our interview had run over an hour long after talking all things coming out, the supposedly “con- tradictory” nature of androgynous gender presentation and their father’s traditional- ist interpretations of gender and family, I knew that LSA junior Theodore Poling was a special person with a lot to say regarding the intricacies of the LGBTQ+ experience. After transferring from the University of Southern California this semester, Poling has hit the ground running, grasping every opportunity they have to be involved on campus even while studying remotely from their parents’ home in Ann Arbor. Founder and president of the Trans and Gender- Non-Conforming Arts Review, and mem- ber of both BiLateral and the Ace Space within the Spectrum Center, they offered me a proud smile when they said, “I’m pretty well-connected in the whole queer world on campus.” Though, with the holiday season ap- proaching, Poling acknowledged that home is often where they encounter more points of conflict, one being the way their parents have approached their enduring health problems. Throughout this year, Poling has struggled with chronic pain in their lower abdominal and pelvic region, which has aggravated the already less-than-healthy relationship their dad has with their trans- gender identity. “My dad is so intentionally ignorant about gender stuff,” they said. “He can grasp … trans man and trans woman, but anything beyond that he thinks is kind of fake. And so, if I bring up anything that has to do with like, (the fact that) I have, you know, a uterus, then he kind of sees it as like, ‘haha, checkmate ... you are not trans.’ So having to deal with this medical issue that is ... very biological in nature has been stressful.” In the beginning stages of their journey toward embracing their nonbinary identi- ty, Poling wanted to avoid having to “come out” over and over again while seeing rela- tives over the holidays. So, they did what any Gen Z-er within the LGBTQ+ commu- nity would do: They turned to Facebook. In the weeks leading up to the holidays, they made a Facebook post stating their name ‘Theo’ and their pronouns. And with that, they had set the “framework” for coming out before grandma and grandpa came into town. In terms of coming into their gender identity, Poling said they have an “opposite story” in that, when they first came out, they thought, “This is going to be easier on people if I just say like, ‘I’m a guy now. I’m a trans man,’ (so as to) not have (my family) have to deal with ‘nonbinary’ and all that.” Poling remembered one holiday where they clung on to a particularly masculine gender presentation. “I let my facial hair grow out a little bit and I cut my hair shorter,” they said. “And I wore a sweater and slacks that I found in the men’s section of a store and (I) tried to like, I don’t know, downshift my voice a lit- tle bit. I just didn’t want (relatives) to, like my Dad, ask questions that have such big answers, you know?” Now, after having come into their non- binary identity, Poling has been able to re- flect on what’s at stake when a cisgender person fails to fully embrace a transgender person’s identity. “... If someone hasn’t come out as trans, and you say something transphobic, they’re gonna stay in the closet around you ... and (what if ) you found out 30 years later that you never got to meet that part of their life ... wouldn’t you feel some sort of grief?” N ikolas Zazula, LSA Senior “I feel like most queer peo- ple kind of experience the same thing, (where you’re) spending so much time overthinking the way you present mostly be- cause you’re ... worried about ... the way oth- er people are going to interpret that. That anxiety ... for queer people is always there.” Through our brief phone conversation, I quickly gathered that LSA senior Nikolas Zazula carries a cool and confident perso- na. In between spurts of Zazula’s laughter, we spent the interview talking about the “weirdness” of sexuality, the struggles of being a Gemini and the joys of having an open, supportive family. Zazula said he’s fortunate to never have had to come out to his family. “They all kind of just let me do my thing,” he told me. And because his family has always been very accepting of his identity, he knows how he chooses to present himself in front of them is “not a big deal.” He further elab- orated, explaining, “... It’s less that I’m un- comfortable and more that I don’t care too much, and I kind of just make them deal with it.” As a drag performer in the Ann Arbor and Metro Detroit areas, Zazula has had lots of practice “doing his thing,” and be- ing his true self regardless of other peo- ple’s perceptions of him. When asked how his presentation might shift while with extended family during the holidays, Za- zula breezily responded, “I wouldn’t really be too concerned about navigating other people’s conceptions of what I should look like.” P arker Kehrig, LSA Junior “I really wish that the culture of my family, my various families, wasn’t the way that it is because ... there’s so many of us ... there’s no way I’m the only (queer person). There’s absolutely no way ... just based on how statistics works.” Even while expressing the heavy and sometimes exhausting reality he’s lived be- ing the sole openly genderqueer and gay person in his entire extended family, LSA junior Parker Kehrig spent our interview flexing his warm conversation skills and flare for comedic timing. When asked if he could be quoted using his name, Kehrig burst with enthusiasm. “You can absolutely put me using my name. There’s already enough on the inter- net about what a raging queer I am.” When asked about his coming out ex- perience, Kehrig says he came out as a gay person when he was 16, then as gender- queer when he was 18. And, ever-playful in the ways he candidly talks about his queer experience, he considers his queer presen- tation now to be “kind of an open secret” to his family. Though, Kehrig remembers when he first presented as genderqueer in front of his family for the holidays and exclaimed to me, “It was terrifying. It was so scary.” He laughed again and continued, “I was really trying to dress in a way that made me feel more comfortable. And I started layering sweaters over button-downs, and (thought), ‘I’m just a little bit preppy,’ but it was never preppy — it was very queer- looking.” Kehrig comes from a large family; his parents are divorced, and his step-dad’s parents are divorced as well, so he can visit up to five houses on one holiday. And with seeing all of these family members, Keh- rig has had many conversations about is- sues surrounding the LGBTQ+ community. But, in his experience, they never resem- ble topics like one of his family members “not knowing how to explain lesbianism” to their kid. To that, Kehrig said he would love to engage in those sorts of community education-oriented conversations. Instead, he said conversations with rela- tives often run along the lines of being told, “‘Defend your own humanity — go!” or “Defend your existence — go!’” Kehrig reflects on the amount of “igno- rant shit” he’s had to hear during political conversations over the holidays. Specifi- cally, Kehrig offered the example of at- tempting to explain systemic racism to a group of particularly hard-headed fam- ily members. And with this, Kehrig said to have struggled most with teaching his rela- tives that “just because (something) is out of your realm of the way you perceive the world, doesn’t mean it is nonexistent.” “And a world outside of you exists. And it is beautiful. And if anyone is ever try- ing to take your hand and pull you into it and show you what it is, you better fuck- ing thank them. Because that is labor. Like, that is so much emotional labor.” A nna Pasek, Engineering Senior “... it’s just kind of a situation where I’m still dependent on my family, you know, like, financially and a lot of other forms of support. And so ... I have to, like, kind of think twice before I express my queerness in a certain way. Because, other- wise my livelihood could be compromised.” Careful in the ways she disclosed in- formation about the unsteady nature of her home, Engineering senior Anna Pasek showed a brave vulnerability when talking about her experiences as a queer woman. With her Zoom profile dimly lit by the win- dows of her partner’s home, she opened up about her coming out experience, present- ing queer in her childhood home, and navi- gating holidays with family versus with friends, among other things. Pasek started our conversation by say- ing that, pre-pandemic, she chose to spend breaks with people you could call her “cho- sen family.” During this time, she would run Thanks- giving 5K marathons and spend time with friends she has known for years — she even made a habit out of eating Thanksgiving breakfast at her friend’s house. But, she still feels unsure about making these kinds of traditions. “I just feel weird about (how) that’s oth- er people’s space to be with their families,” Pasek said. “And, like, I don’t want to di- minish that or take from that even though I know I’ve been offered a place at the table.” In regards to her coming out experience, Pasek said she “got kind of pushed out of the closet by (her) parents” her senior year of high school, after they stole her phone and found she had a partner at the time. Since then, she believes her parents are slowly “getting better” about accepting her queer identity; however, she knows main events during the holidays remain manda- tory for her family. “It’s just a case of bringing up livelihood and financial security. If I were to not show up at home for Thanksgiving (dinner), that would make really big problems for me.” Pasek said that if she had one word to describe the queer holiday experience, it would be grief. “(Queer people) don’t have uncondi- tional love to take for granted, really,” Pas- ek said. “And our families are often in love with an idea of who we could be and not who we are. And that is something that is painful, and (something) that you have to confront every time you go home.”