By Tristan Lane
Why the holidays can be hard for LGBTQ+ people and how showing up can heal us all
The holidays arrive wrapped in expectation. Full tables. Loud laughter. The easy shorthand of “going home.” For many LGBTQ+ people, those images don’t land as comfort they land as pressure. For some, the holidays mean navigating family spaces where pronouns are ignored, partners are tolerated but not welcomed, or silence does the work of rejection. For others, there is no family table at all because it was never offered, or because it was taken away the moment authenticity entered the room. Even among those who are “out” and professionally successful, the season can quietly amplify loneliness, grief, and the familiar feeling of being adjacent to belonging rather than inside it.
This isn’t often spoken about. Holiday hardship is usually framed as personal sadness, not structural reality. But within the LGBTQ+ community, it is deeply collective.
The Quiet Weight of the Season
Loneliness during the holidays doesn’t always look like isolation. Sometimes it looks like attending every invitation while feeling unseen. Sometimes it looks like staying busy to avoid stillness. Sometimes it looks like scrolling past curated joy and wondering what you did wrong.For LGBTQ+ youth, that weight is far heavier. Family rejection doesn’t take holidays off. Many young people experience housing instability, estrangement, or emotional neglect that becomes more pronounced when the rest of the world seems to be gathering inward. The gap between what the season promises and what it delivers can be devastating.
Organizations like Lost-n-Found Youth exist precisely because this reality persists. They provide housing, support, stability, and dignity to LGBTQ+ young people who have been pushed to the margins often by the very systems meant to protect them. But supporting organizations like this isn’t only about charity. It’s about connection. And, perhaps unexpectedly, it can be a form of care for the giver as much as the receiver.
The Healing Power of Showing Up
There’s a narrative that self-care is solitary quiet nights, candles, boundaries. And while those matter, they are not the whole picture. For many LGBTQ+ people, healing happens in proximity. In service. In choosing to be useful to something larger than our own interior monologue. Getting involved whether through volunteering, fundraising, mentoring, or simply showing up creates a counterweight to isolation. It replaces passive loneliness with active purpose. It reminds us that community isn’t just something we want to receive; it’s something we build. When you give time or energy to charitable organizations, you are participating in a form of chosen community that is grounded, real, and necessary. You are standing in the gap for someone else but also quietly closing one inside yourself.
Research consistently shows that community engagement improves mental health, reduces feelings of isolation, and fosters a sense of belonging. But beyond studies and statistics, there is something more immediate: the grounding effect of being needed. Of being in rooms where care is the currency, not performance.
Redefining the Holidays
The holidays don’t have to be reclaimed all at once. They can be redefined in pieces. Maybe that looks like redirecting money you would have spent on performative gifts toward a cause that changes lives. Maybe it’s attending a fundraiser instead of another obligatory dinner. Maybe it’s spending one evening wrapping gifts for youth who have never been on the receiving end of holiday generosity. These acts don’t erase loss or family complexity. But they do offer something steadier than nostalgia: meaning.
For LGBTQ+ people who have spent years learning how to survive systems that weren’t built for them, involvement in community organizations is not just benevolence it’s continuity. It’s a way of saying: I made it through, and I’m reaching back.
This Season, Choose Connection Over Convention
If the holidays feel heavy this year, you’re not broken. You’re responding to a season that doesn’t always make room for the fullness of our lives. And if you’re looking for something that feels real something that cuts through the noise and the loneliness consider stepping into community rather than retreating from it. Sometimes the most radical form of self-care isn’t rest. It’s relevance. It’s showing up. It’s choosing connection on your own terms.
And in doing so, you may find that the season gives something back.