Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Donate to our newsroom

Menu

Topics

  • Abortion
  • Politics
  • Education
  • LGBTQ+
  • Caregiving
  • Environment & Climate
  • Business & Economy
View all topics

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email [email protected] to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].

  • Latest Stories
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Ways to Give
  • Search
  • Contact
Donate
Home

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

Topics

  • Abortion
  • Politics
  • Education
  • LGBTQ+
  • Caregiving
  • Environment & Climate
  • Business & Economy
View all topics

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email [email protected] to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].

  • Latest Stories
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Ways to Give
  • Search
  • Contact

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email [email protected] to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

LGBTQ+

LGBTQ+ people know the secret to celebrating the holidays away from family

Queer people, often rejected by their families, are adept at making new holiday traditions as the pandemic forces us apart.

A photo composite of a group playing football.
(Photo collage by Clarice Bajkowski/The 19th/Photos courtesy of Kellie Nemke)

Kate Sosin

LGBTQ+ reporter

Published

2020-12-21 08:00
8:00
December 21, 2020
am

Republish this story

Share

  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Email

Republish this story

Kellie Nemke knows too well what it’s like to not be able to go home for the holidays. 

Twenty years ago, she came out to her family, which she recalled “didn’t go exceptionally well, initially.” She had just moved to Eugene, Oregon, and didn’t want to trek back to the Midwest to spend Thanksgiving with people who weren’t necessarily thrilled to see her. 

Eugene had a vibrant queer scene, and many in her community weren’t welcome at their family dinner tables or would have to hide who they were if they went home. So Nemke did what a lot of LGBTQ+ people have done for generations: She organized a holiday gathering with chosen family. 

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

“In good lesbian fashion, we decided to play a sport,” she said. Touch football, with the “touch” in quotation marks. 

“Being that especially women who have trauma histories and things where touch can be a real issue, we would check in ahead of time about if anybody didn’t want to be touched or tackled or whatever,” she said. “And then it was just kind of a free-for-all from there.”

Over two decades, the “Turkey Baster Bowl” grew from six people to about 100 at its peak. In time, Nemke started advertising it to queer people on social media. Transgender people, also barred from their family gatherings, started showing up. Long-time attendees came back with their children in tow. Nemke met her partner, Marnee Madsen Nemke, at the game that first year. 

Even as some people’s families started opening their doors again, they found themselves going to play football before returning home. Many of the guests didn’t even want to play football. In some years, the fans outnumbered the players. 

“There were well-established cheers,” said Nemke. “There were costumes. There were dance moves that would happen on the sidelines. … And I think that was what felt the most important was that we all had a place. Even if it was for two hours.”

A group posing in a pyramid on a football field.
At the Turkey Baster Bowl, the fans often outnumbered the players. (Photo courtesy of Kellie Nemke)

As the pandemic keeps many families apart during the holidays, LGBTQ+ people are also adapting their traditions. But queer people, in particular, are adept at finding joy during the season with those immediately around them. Generations of LGBTQ+ people have been forced to. 

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that half of trans people faced rejection from the families they grew up with, spouses or children after coming out. One in 10 said that an immediate family member had acted violently toward them. LGBTQ+ youth are particularly vulnerable; they are 120 percent more likely to face homelessness, according to a study from the University of Chicago. 

Even for adults who can’t go home, the days leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas can be tough. They are for 35-year-old Brit Hanson, who is estranged from her family, not exclusively just because she is gay, though that is part of it. Hanson preps for the season by making sure she gets extra exercise and sleep.

“The thing that has really been a game changer for me is before the week of Christmas comes, or even at the beginning of the month, I just start thinking through what would be a really nice way for me to spend a day or that long weekend.” Hanson said.  

It differs from year-to-year. Hanson, the associate producer on NPR’s “Short Wave” podcast who lives in Washington, D.C., used to work at the North Country Public Radio station in upstate New York. 

“I loved working on Christmas, because people would call in with funny things, and I was like, ‘You know what, nothing makes me feel more meaningful than like being the person who answers the phone at the public radio station on Christmas morning,’” she recalled.

Dee Loeffler, a 39-year-old who also lives in D.C., historically chose a different Christmas adventure every year, often something they could do alone. 

“In 2016, I spent Thanksgiving with friends and found it to be kind of an annoying experience, partly because I’m vegan,” they said. “A lot of non-vegans have a hard time feeding vegans.”

Loeffler didn’t have any Thanksgiving traditions tying them down — if anything, to them the holiday felt like a nod to colonialism — and they are estranged from their mom, which their dad struggles with. And so, the following year, they went to Ireland for the week. 

“I started this kind of fun tradition for myself of picking a place to be for the week and then doing something especially fun on Thanksgiving Day,” Loeffler said. Thanksgiving became a treat for Loeffler, especially since for the rest of the world, it’s just another Thursday. 

Matthew Carlton also found a way to treat himself over the holidays when he was 20 years old. It was 1997, and his family had been scattered abroad for work, love and military service. 

“I went and bought a Stouffer’s dinner,” he recalled. Bored, he took himself to happy hour, where he found a different kind of holiday intimacy.

“There’s always a couple where one person doesn’t want to be in town, visiting the other one’s family, and the other person only came out of guilt,” he said. “You just wind up striking up a conversation.”

After all, “If you don’t want to be with the ones you love, love the ones who don’t want to either!” he joked.

Carlton’s family actually didn’t care that he was queer. His mom was an HIV/AIDS researcher. But he still found time with them “headache-inducing.” By the next year, Carlton, 43, had made his happy hour chats a tradition for most major holidays. 

“There’s something about a sense of intimacy between a couple that’s been together a long time, that’s very secure in their relationship,” Carlton said. “That’s very comforting, and if you’re by yourself on a holiday,  you kind of want something like that, or at least I did.” 

The Nemkes have also revised plans for this reason. Their football cohort has reached their 50s and 60s, and many aren’t up to running the field anymore. The pandemic has also shrunk their world. Six years ago, Marnee suffered a traumatic brain injury that has left her in debilitating pain. But a saving grace has been the friends they made at the Turkey Baster Bowl. 

“We’ve been able to really continue to draw on that community that we created to support us when we needed it after a lot of years of kind of being the ones who held the framework for other people to get support,” Kellie Nemke reflected. 

Republish this story

Share

  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Email

Recommended for you

In a pandemic holiday, women still do it all
In this illustration, two silhouettes speak over a darker silhouette.
For some trans people, how family handle names and pronouns can make or break the holiday
With an American flag draped over their shoulders and a rainbow flag in hand, Jim Gatteau and Mike Holland take part in a rally for gay marriage rights in front of the California state capitol.
20 years ago, San Francisco’s ‘Winter of Love’ set off an unintended campaign for same-sex marriage
It’s OK to cut back on the holiday gifts this year. Here’s why.

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email [email protected] to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].

Become a member

Explore more coverage from The 19th
Abortion Politics Education LGBTQ+ Caregiving
View all topics

Our newsroom's Spring Member Drive is here!

Learn more about membership.

  • Transparency
    • About
    • Team
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Community Guidelines
  • Newsroom
    • Latest Stories
    • 19th News Network
    • Podcast
    • Events
    • Careers
    • Fellowships
  • Newsletters
    • Daily
    • Weekly
    • The Amendment
    • Event Invites
  • Support
    • Ways to Give
    • Sponsorship
    • Republishing
    • Volunteer

The 19th is a reader-supported nonprofit news organization. Our stories are free to republish with these guidelines.