Finding 'Home' this Thanksgiving
We see you, even if your family doesn't.
Thanksgiving is framed as a time for celebrating with family, full of joy and togetherness. The food has been roasting in the kitchen for hours, the turkey done to perfection while the television blares the football game.
And then everyone sits down and over the steaming dinner ask you how your job is going, if you’ve been up to much recently, if you’ve got a boyfriend – because you never seem to have one. And everything is perfect, right?
It’s not perfect because you don’t have a boyfriend, because you’ve never been interested in men. You’ve known you like girls for years but you’ve heard what your father thinks about “those types of people,” you know your mother would never be okay with your girlfriend sitting at this table enjoying turkey with everyone else. So you stay quiet, smile and shake your head when they ask you about boyfriends, and you let the conversation move over you.
For FLINTA* people who do not have supportive or accepting family members, Thanksgiving can be a particularly difficult holiday. There might be feelings of pressure to perform and act like someone you are not so your life doesn’t come under fire. A time that is thought of as full of family and love is upsetting and awful for us.
Tatiana Shpako highlights this pain in their work. Published in Vol.1, ‘In Van Gogh’s Dining Room’ shares these grey feelings of hurt before seeing the yellow that was always there, waiting to be found.
Perhaps you can find your own yellow this Thanksgiving by ditching the unwelcoming family to enjoy a Friendsgiving with your chosen family. Rather than the industrialized turkey around a dinner table, you might opt for a potluck with each friend bringing a different dish to make a more collaborative meal. We love this article by Rooted in Rights about celebrating a queer Friendsgiving as a source of empowerment.
If you do have to spend this holiday with unsupportive people, a review of Sassafras Lowrey’s article Queerly Surviving Thanksgiving may be in order. They highlight the importance of personal safety and self-care during holidays like Thanksgiving. Remember: your mental health and wellbeing comes first, especially during holidays that may trigger feeling of fear or anxiety. Our own Jade Eisner’s ‘A Fox’s Guide To Self-Care’ offers simple tasks to centre and calm yourself while involving a bit of whimsy.
However you gather, we hope you’ll bring a copy of Anodyne with you. This week, all our eBooks are 50% off with code eBookHolidays2025. Your purchase helps us continue supporting the FLINTA* community while profit sharing with our contributors.
Help us this holiday season by voting for us for the Chill Subs Best Lit Mag Award! We particularly like the tag option “actually inclusive.” It takes less than one minute and means the world to us. Voting closes Dec. 7, 2025.