Holiday card campaign for LGBTQ folks shunned by families

It grew out of something repellent and blossomed into something beautiful, like the flowers that burst through cracked pavement, so determined to grow and survive.

A gunman had just opened fire inside Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing five people and injuring 19. The club was a safe haven for LGBTQ folks, and the murders sent all-too familiar waves of horror and grief through the community and through the whole nation, really, fed up with gun violence.

That was one year ago, Nov. 19, 2022.

Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual event commemorating transgender people lost to violence, is Nov. 20. Carolyn Pinta had already planned to gather friends to honor the day. They would spend the afternoon writing holiday cards for people whose families have shunned them, often because of their sexuality or gender identity.

The Club Q shooting lent a sense of urgency to their gathering.

“We’re a let’s-take-action-in-a-loving-way kind of group,” Pinta said last year. “More than ever, those of us who feel safe to do so have got to open our mouths. Because people are hurting.”

A card is a small thing, perhaps, stacked against rejection by one’s family. An avalanche of cards wouldn’t fill the hole.

But a card is something. It says: I see you. I support you. You deserve love and joy and a whole, full heart.

3,500 cards

What started as a one-day event grew into a full-blown campaign. Pinta and her friends and neighbors, along with supporters who learned about and joined the campaign around the country, wrote and mailed more than 3,500 holiday cards. They kept up a rapport with some of the card recipients and sent them birthday cards as well.

They’re doing it again this year.

The card-writing campaign was first inspired by Home for the Holidays, a Facebook group with close to 12,000 members that serves as a safe space for LGBTQ people who can’t go home for the holidays. Members share stories, sorrows, photos, memories, pleas for connection. Some members started sharing their addresses — usually through Facebook’s direct message function — to ask for holiday cards.

This year, Home for the Holidays posted a spreadsheet where members can post their addresses and a little blurb about themselves and why they would love to receive a card or two.

Pinta Pride Project

And the Pinta Pride Project — the organization that Pinta and her family launched in 2019 to raise awareness and support in suburban communities for LGBTQ people — is coordinating plans to ensure as many of those folks as possible get some holiday love and affirmation this year too.

On the group’s Facebook page (BG Pride, named for the annual Pride Parade in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, launched by Carolyn’s daughter, Molly Pinta) and website (BuffaloGrovePride.com), you can find sign-up sheets to receive a card or to help send cards.

Pinta offers some guidelines to card-writers:

“Choose cards from anywhere that you like, or make your own on paper. Please try for cards that are not religious in nature; they do not even have to be holiday-themed. Love, cheerful greetings, etc.

“Write your card with a greeting of your choice. Some ideas are: ‘Dear lovely human,’ ‘Dear human deserving of love,’ ‘Dear LGBTQ friend.’

“Make your cards as simple or as elaborate as you like. You can simply wish a happy holiday season, or share details of why the LGBTQ community holds a space in your heart. (Bonus points if you have a little person in your life who can draw you some rainbows).”

Gift of affirmation and love

Pinta, a middle school teacher, said her organization has reached out to gay-straight alliances at middle schools and high schools around the country that work to protect LGBTQ rights to enlist their help in this year’s campaign.

“It’s the greatest gift, knowing you made someone feel affirmed, loved, thought of,” Pinta said.

Now more than ever.

“This work is for love,” Pinta told me. “People are suffering for more than one reason right now. This is a way for people who may be hurting to come together, to do something good, to put good into the world.”