Accepting the Holiday

By Riah Roe
Contributing Writer

I have worked in the restaurant business since I was fifteen years old. I often found myself working holidays: Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, to name a few. After a few years of this, I realized that there is one thing besides eating that almost all families like to do during the holidays: fight. I’m not sure if it is the lines at the grocery store or the security at the airport but something seems to put people in the mood to argue over just about anything. Granted, usually they are just small tiffs here and there that end with someone cracking a joke but sometimes these arguments become much more serious. During this holiday season, we should be mindful of the possible drama that may await us at the dinner table.

I like to say that I am very well plugged-into the queer community in Fargo-Moorhead. Many people tell me their life experiences and I have heard a fair share of both good and bad stories. Recently, a reader asked me to write about her experiences at her church and this made me think about how her experiences relate to a lot of queer people’s experiences with families and family-like institutions (e.g. churches). See in my mind, at one point or another all people clash with their families about something. During these clashes, families may need to negotiate in order to come to terms and move on with their lives.

There seem to be common trends in these negotiations; that is, patterns of ways that families deal with issues. I have found there are three main ways of negotiating familial or church concerns with queer identities: dismissal, tolerance, and acceptance. These three types of negotiation styles all have different consequences or outcomes when used in response to a person’s identity.

The first type is dismissal and is arguably the most common one I have seen in this part of the country. This type of mentality happens when someone completely dismisses anothers identity as though it were not important. An example phrase to illustrate this dismissal would be saying something like “Oh, Jodi has brought her friend with her”, when the statement is dismissing the fact that Jodi and her “friend” have been sharing the same bed for years. The consequence of this type of negotiation style is the lack of legitimacy it presents to a significant part of the affected person’s identity. This style will eventually drive a wedge between the dismiss-er and the dismissed.

The second type is tolerance, a word which I absolutely cannot stand when it is applied to dealing with people. The thing is, it doesn’t fit! You tolerate a dog barking, you tolerate a car cutting in front of you, you don’t just “tolerate” another person. Tolerance may often claimed to be acceptance but is really nothing of the sort. Tolerance implies that there is something wrong, something out of order, something that needs to be fixed in those being ‘tolerated’. An example phrase could be “Yes Jodi, your wife may come but please try not to be too affectionate in front of the children.” The consequences of this style are similar to those of dismissal, but possibly worse than those of dismissal because although there is still a wedge driven between the tolerator and the tolerated, it is done under the guise of acceptance. One cannot say “He/she does not accept me” because the lack of acceptance is hidden behind the word tolerance.

The final type is acceptance, which is ultimately what all identities within the queer community wish to have in their families and communities. Acceptance is different from dismissal or tolerance because it allows the queer person to know that not only are their relationships or gender acknowledged, but that they are acceptable and important. An example of this could be “Jodi, you and your wife are coming right?” The outcomes for acceptance are healthy relationships, understanding interactions, and the fostering of a nurturing environments for all
family/community members.

Where there are family holiday dinners, there will be arguments. Appropriate things to argue about are how the Packers are totally winning this season (13-0 but who is counting?) or if pizza should be considered a vegetable or not; a person’s identity, however, is not acceptable for holiday stuffing debate.

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