Holidays are hard for some LGBTQ people as politics stoke division

Just a few days before the 2024 presidential election, Carolyn Fisher and her husband listened as their 16-year-old nonbinary child announced, “I want to die, mama.”

Their child, cellphone in hand, was on a call with an LGBTQ crisis hotline counselor. With tears in his eyes, Fisher’s child explained, as his parents listened, that he had joined an online group of LGBTQ kids that planned to die by suicide if former President Donald Trump won the election.

The Trump campaign — which has said it will “end left-wing gender insanity” in schools, medical care, sports, and restrict anti-discrimination policies — has been criticized for its rhetoric against gender non-conforming people.

“I feel like I was a bad mother because I was one of those people,” said Fisher, a conservative Trump supporter, recalling that she had laughed at a pro-Trump ad on television that claimed “Kamala is for They/Them. Trump is for you.” Looking back, she recalls her child walking out of the room.

Fisher says she has long been supportive of her child wearing the clothes and hairstyle he prefers – even if members of their extended family openly disapproved or ridiculed her child’s choices at holiday gatherings.

Last year during the holidays, her child chose to stay home by himself: “He said he didn’t feel well, but that was a lie. He has since told us he just didn’t want to put us through that,” said Fisher.

But after her child opened up about wanting to take his own life, Fisher said it’s been a wakeup call for their family. They have since dedicated hours to discussing gender, politics and their child’s experiences in order to build a stronger family support system and protect their child from hate.

This year, the Fishers are keeping a strict guest list for the holidays: only those who are supportive of their child’s identity are welcome into their home, Fisher says.

“It’s not because he was suicidal. It’s because he deserves that. He does not deserve to be ostracized by our family,” she said.

Fisher said she’s been criticized by family members who have said she is letting her child “dictate” not inviting or not visiting some family members.

“And I’m not ashamed to sit here and tell you my exact words – ‘You’re damn right, my child means that much to me. I love my child that much,'” said Fisher.

The holidays can be a difficult time for those in the LGBTQ community without an accepting family to go home to or those who can expect to face criticism head-on at the dinner table. As anti-LGBTQ rhetoric grows nationwide, it has added painful pressure to what can be an already stressful season.

The Rainbow Youth Project, the LGBTQ hotline Fisher credits with saving her child’s life, told ABC News that calls to the crisis center increase during the holiday season – and each year has seen more calls than the last.

“It’s just really important that [callers] know that there is help,” said Teegan Mauter, a member of the Rainbow Youth Project’s Transgender Action Committee, in an interview. “There are people out here that see them, that want to help them, that don’t want anything from them, but for them to exist and for them to be happy.”

The Fisher family is one of many families reckoning with unaccepting relatives and community members this season.

Kenny Dunn, an Ohio father, told ABC News he has cut people out of his life because of the misinformation, falsehoods and offensive things they’ve said about his 17-year-old daughter Melissa who came out as lesbian in February.

Her extended family has since made it clear that her parents are “not to bring the lesbian” to family events – claiming they were concerned “that Melissa being a lesbian is going to rub off on one of the other kids,” Dunn said. Another family member falsely claimed that Melissa would want to eventually become transgender, that it was a slippery slope.

Sexual orientation and gender identity is not a choice, according to the CDC.

This holiday season, the Dunn family is leaving their hometown and going on a vacation.

“Last Christmas was the last Christmas that we will spend with extended family,” Dunn said.

“If their ignorance and their lack of education on how this actually works is so severe that they can’t accept my child, or they want to talk bad about my child, I don’t need them in my life,” said Dunn. “And it took me a while to get there.”

Melissa told ABC News that it’s been difficult for her to feel like she’s the cause of the interfamily arguments, saying she fell into a “really dark place” amid the arguing and fighting.

But her father interjected: “It’s not your fault. It’s their fault. It’s their ignorance. And that’s just something we’re not going to tolerate.”

As these two families deal with the fallout, they all acknowledge how lucky they are to be a source of support for their child.

Fisher said her child has online friends across the country who will be alone for the holidays, some who no longer are allowed to live at home with their families because they are part of the LGBTQ community.

For the Dunns, their home had become a place where those who didn’t “fit in” would find support. The recent death by suicide of Melissa’s close friend – who they say was gay and not accepted by his own family – has exacerbated the pain they feel this season.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be a gay man, but I know what it’s like to be sitting in your truck in your driveway, replaying in your mind all the memories of this kid that was coming to your house for refuge and as a sanctuary,” said Dunn. “And I just vowed that, even if I don’t understand it, I was going to be that sanctuary to my own child, my own children, and any other kid in this neighborhood that’s going through that.”

Still, this has been a learning process for both families. Both Dunn and Fisher said they had many questions for their child at the start.

Dunn said he’s had to let go of the idea that he needs to be “authoritarian” over his children’s lives.

“Sometimes we just need to sit back and let them drive the car for a minute,” Dunn said. “And of course, we need to be the guardrails, but we need to just let them drive the car for a minute and try to explore and figure out who they are.”

He said that Melissa knew who she was from a young age: “We’re really doing ourselves an injustice by not honoring the beauty in the fact that they are brave, bold and have courage to be different and not let anybody tell them that they can’t be.”

For Fisher, she said that to be an ally to her child, she needs to trust him in who he says he is: “I would much rather go through this and make sure that I’m loving my child for who they feel they really are, than trying to love them for something that I want them to be that they don’t feel like they are.”

Hotlines like the Rainbow Youth Project — a source used by both the Fishers and Dunns — hope to be a tool for LGBTQ residents, their families and community members grappling with similar questions.

During this stressful season, Melissa asks people to be kind.

“It doesn’t take anything extra to just leave me alone and let me live my life,” she said. “I don’t need another parent or a stranger telling me that I’m wrong. It doesn’t take anything to be nice and be kind, and we are already going through a lot of pain.”

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.