‘Family’ is defined in many different ways.*

For many people in the GLBTQI community, family has a different meaning. In the Private Lives Report (2006) it states, ‘GLBTI friends rated most highly for all groups; and higher in every case than their biological families (with the exception of intersex respondents where family and community friends were rated as equally or more important).’

Family is socially constructed and how it looks and functions  has changed over time, in particular the ‘closing off’ of families to outside influences through permanent housing structures and the deconstruction of village/community style living. This means that the family unit is now considered to be the heteronormative ‘mum, dad and kids’.

A lot of people fall outside of this, in particular in our community, and for many reasons such as phobias — families aren’t able to accept the sexuality of their relatives or may struggle with gender variations (such as transgender or genderqueer) which can make Christmas uncomfortable for everyone; distance is also a contributing factor in this age of the global village.

For me, family has two meanings; my beautiful mother, my daughter and my granddaughter, though they are often not within my reach at Christmas time; and my GLBTQI family where I often find myself at Xmas ­— and even if I do get time with my biological family I will usually spend time with my community as well.

Live it up this Christmas, have fun, be loving and accepting of difference and think about including those who may not have ‘family’ around.
Merry Queer Christmas :-)

*(For the multiple definitions of family, check this webpage out http://ardictionary.com/Family/562) Pitts, M., Smith, A., Mitchell, A., Patel, S. Private Lives, A report on the health and wellbeing of GLBTI Australians, 2006 Latrobe University.