The staff of Transcending Boundaries wants to wish you a Happy New Year! We hope your holidays were wonderful, wherever and however you celebrated them. Over the holiday season, we received the following story from one of our attendees, who graciously gave us permission to share it on our blog. If everyone's coming out story were this positive, the world would be a much happier place. 

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Meeting the "Out-Laws"

We all know that the holidays can be perilous for those who identify as "other than normal."  I went into this season with quite a bit of trepidation. We (my family of choice, which consists of three adults) took an enormous leap of faith. We invited my mother, my husband's parents, and my partner's parents all to the same dinner table for the first time.

Choosing to live as a family, the three of us, has had mixed reactions from those who don't know us as well, and that includes all of our biological family members.  This year, we made the choice to finally come out to my in-laws.  They really didn't know what to make of the information, and though they want to be clear that they love us, it wasn't certain how much of our news they were actually processing and accepting.

So imagine our surprise when, after some very awkward introductions, my in-laws and my partner's parents (the "out-laws", as we call them) discovered that not only should political conversations NOT be avoided at our dinner table, they actively had huge swaths of political common ground.  This may have been the first family dinner at which we
actively ENCOURAGED politics and religion to be the topics.  By the end of the meal, the mother-in-law and "mother-out-law" were trading email addresses and cheerfully hugging each other farewell.

I just want to encourage everyone with this story.  I never would've expected to have such a positive experience, but apparently, it can happen.

I wish happy holidays to everyone.  This has certainly made mine fabulous.  :)