Blogging for LGBT Family Day

My Family

I committed to blog about LGBT families on LGBT Families Day but realized that I needed to look a bit deeper into myself to be able to.

What is it that makes someone ‘family’? Does it have to be a biological connection or there is something more to that?

I sat down and made a list of every single person that I cared about including friends, biological family and neat people I had met throughout my life (physically and virtually).

The realization that I came to was: Families may be based on different kinds of relationships but they have one thing in common – they provide a sense of belonging. Your family is made up of the people you care about and the people who care about you. Family might be biologically related to you or not related to you at all. Sometimes family members will not know each other and they might be scattered all across the world, and sometimes some of them don’t actually know that you consider them to be your family.

Family can consist of people that you know and it can be a community that you feel related to. Family gives identity and provides support and security.

For some time I identified myself as a part of LGBT community and felt like it was something like a club that you belong to but now I see LGBT community as my family. I might not know all of them and might not agree with their choices, their lifestyle, and their behaviour but around them I feel like I am home, I feel like I belong and it is a feeling that I had been seeking for years.

I would like to repeat those words –

Family gives identity and provides support and security

Family and it’s values shapes your life and shapes the way you view the world and that means that you have to carefully choose your family members –those people whom you want to have close relationships with. People who will inspire you to do great things with your life, who will stand by you and watch you make your own mistakes, and will be there to catch you if you fall.

For more than 20 years of my life I had a family but I did not have a family if you know what I mean. Biologically I was related to a few people but I never felt like I belonged and never felt safe around them to be able to be vulnerable or be myself.

Not that I left my family behind, I left my country and never looked back. Somewhere deep inside I felt that I would find deeper connections and would be able to build a new life. And guess what, I did meet people who changed my life and I did find my family. I have wonderful LGBT and straight friends and I finally feel like I belong.

 Thanks to everyone I know for being my family….