“See you at the next protest!” Making LGBTQ+ friends away from events

Making friends is hard for anyone, especially for trans people. Why is this so, and what can we do?

I made a lot of friends at Pride last year. It’s one of the reasons I’m so jazzed about going back - a chance to catch up with awesome people and have a good time, somewhere I know I’ll be free and safe. When you have to put up with knowing that your ridiculous government is either ignoring you or campaigning outright against you, and when you read news stories every day that tell you trans rights are under threat, it’s such a relief to get amongst people who all want to celebrate being who they are - and to push for others to have the right to do that. 

All this is great, though we shouldn’t forget that as of now, Hungary is bringing in surveillance which could make Pride a thing of the past in Budapest, something other undemocratic countries will no doubt try to follow. We need to fight, but we also need to stay together outside of Pride if we want our community to thrive. What’s holding us back?

We’re all so tired all the time

It’s a fact of being in the LGBTQ+ community that many people who are out and proud are also campaigners or activists. Whether it is for a queer not-for-profit or another social cause, so many of us put our hearts on our sleeves. That’s something we should be proud of, but it also leads to burnout.

Governments love to make funding for charities hard to get - it means activists waste so much of their energy either filling out forms for new funding or to stand a chance of keeping their existing funding, or just completing tax forms for their donations… The result is tired people who don’t have the energy to go out for a coffee, let alone keep up long-distance friendships. 

Activist burnout is a real problem, leading to several people in the past year tell me they didn’t have time to do anything socially because they were “in survival mode”. It’s really hard being the only person who you feel cares about something, or being the only person with the experience to run a not-for-profit for trans people. But if we don’t cultivate healthy relationships, we won’t have any roots, and we’ll just wither.

How to solve it? There are some compelling ideas here - I’d love to know what you think!

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There aren’t that many of us

In some countries, it can feel like you’re the only trans person. As J. Mase III says,

“It’s hard for us to know who and where other trans or queer folks are, or people who can identify with or empathize with us in general, so when we do find someone decent who is attracted to us, we latch on to them so quick.” 

That’s certainly how I felt at a western-European Pride last summer. It was a great week, filled with events where I met sweet, kind people - and some hot people - but I didn’t meet any more than two or three trans people the whole week. It got me thinking that if I want to date people, it might be possible to date another trans person - I’ve done it before and I would love to try again - but maybe I need to be open to dating cis queer people, or even cis straight people. 

There aren’t many trans people anywhere, and that feeling is exacerbated in small towns and in provincial cities. I started to think of dating as a marketing pitch, I started obsessing too much over my online profile and which was the leading photo, and I forgot simply to get out more and meet more people.

It might not be safe in every city and every country to go to clubs or bars, but you can still find trans support groups in person, or trans communities online. They’re not as good as being there in person, but they’re still ways to meet people and build healthy human friendships. Who knows - maybe something will develop from there? I’ll publish a list of trans-friendly Discord servers soon.

Your sign to think smaller

I’m not saying any of us should give up on the activism. We’re representing people, even if we sometimes don’t know it - and there are so many people who need us to push for their rights. But Tuck Woodstock of the Gender Reveal podcast has run for the past two years a worldwide event called Trans Day of Snack, to coincide with Trans Day of Visibility. While TDoV has come and gone for another year, Trans Day of Snack reminds us all that trans visibility doesn’t have to mean going out and painting the town pink and blue. It can also mean staying in and having a nice snack, maybe with friends. 

When friendships are made in adversity, it sometimes feels like they need that flame of worry and jeopardy to continue - like without a driving purpose, everything would fall apart. The truth is that sometimes - pun intended - we need to transition our friendships into those that exist because, very simply, we appreciate each other. Once we realise that, and we can enjoy a coffee and a snack in each other’s homes, or a nice walk in the park, the hard times may not seem so hard. 

I hope you spent Trans Day of Visibility (or Trans Day of Snack) doing something that filled your soul with joy. If you did, tell me more, on email or Bluesky.