I assumed, like many, that Queersgiving would be lighthearted and easygoing.
That it would come with food, friendship, or a few take-home goodies, and that I would walk away from it the same as I had arrived. These were the first thoughts that crossed my mind when I saw the flier for Queersgiving, an event located in the Multipurpose Room of John R. Lewis College this past Nov. 16.
I was grateful to discover how wrong I was.
Queersgiving, for me — an openly gay person of color — became a reminder of the resilience of the queer community and an inspiration to push forward even when it feels impossible to do so.
Arriving at the event, I stepped through a flurry of sparkling pink streamers. Not a second later, I was met by a smiling Dean Brown, the co-coordinator of Queersgiving and a third-year student at UCSC.
A wide array of queer-themed goodies lay in wait for the event.
“Queersgiving was born out of creating an event for people, who are queer identifying, to have a space to celebrate a family meal together,” Brown said. “We understand that that’s something not a lot of students may be able to experience at home.”
Just as Brown intended, the Queersgiving event felt and looked like a beautiful (queer-ified) home-away-from-home. Students gathered around tables blanketed with flamboyant tablecloths of various colors. On the tables sat miniature rainbow flags, queer stickers, and rainbow fidget items that attendees were free to take home.
The stage was decked out in a purple, gold, and white balloon wreath symbolic of the non-binary flag. The walls were covered with lesbian, gay, asexual, trans, bi, and queer flags. Chappell Roan, Charlie XCX, Hayley Kiyoko, and Lady Gaga blared from the speakers. Warm spam musubi, tamales, conchas, muffins, cookies, and more were being served at the edge of the room.
All of the hard work that Brown and her co-coordinator, Emory Harrison, put into the celebration shined through. Not only did Brown and Harrison invest time in decorating and catering, they additionally reached out to several resource centers. As a result, Queersgiving was a welcoming space and, more importantly, a culturally informed space for all intersecting identities.
Lined across the far left wall of the event center were various resource booths and organizations for students to interact with and learn from. A few of the organizations included the Cantú Queer Center, the Mauna Kea Protectors, The Women’s Center, and Friends of Juristac. In the far right corner of the room were queer, independent, UCSC affiliated artists of multiple mediums selling various pieces of their work. 
Representatives from the Cantú Queer Center run a table ready to provide resources to help queer people be their authentic selves. 
Friends of Juristac supplying flyers and artwork to support the protection of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band’s ancestral lands near Gilroy, California.
“We’ve always loved partnering with organizations and artists,” Brown said. “It adds a lot of authenticity to our space and also with the resource centers here, it helps bring [them] out to students who might not know about them.”
A group of friends enjoying the event with good food and company.
Students participating in some of the many activities including bracelet making and Bingo.
The space became a melting pot of cultures and backgrounds, all there for one reason: To uplift young queer people.
With the most recent election and a president-elect that has made openly homophobic and transphobic comments, the stakes of being out and queer are even more dire. It is integral, now, more than ever to come together in community and in support of our most vulnerable individuals. Some attendees felt more comfortable at Queersgiving than they would celebrating Thanksgiving at their own home.
An ofrenda honoring the lives of those who have faced discrimination, violence, or persecution due to their queer and/or trans identity.
“I guess being able to actually be queer and not just be put down for being queer, cause my parents are — to put it bluntly — stupid as hell. [They’re] active Trump supporters, so not great for queer people” said Rubí Arand, an attendee of the event. “But definitely, the space encourages people to be the way they are … and that’s mostly what I think it is. Just respect, man.”
Arand, a fourth-year student at UCSC, is one of many who have faced significant adversity in their home lives for their LGBTQIA+ identity. When asked about their plans for Thanksgiving day, she responded bluntly and candidly.
“Fucking off to my partner’s family because my parents suck,” Arand said. “I’m gonna go hang out with them instead because they’re not homophobic.”
Various cultures share sentiments similar to Arand’s. For said cultures and communities, the strain of this holiday dates long before Trump’s recent succession of presidency. This is the case for Aamir, a second-year UCSC student and queer artist vending at Queersgiving. He is a descendant of the Gullah Geechee people, a community of enslaved Africans who were taken to the coast of the Carolinas during the height of the Transatlantic slave trade.
“For my ancestors, Thanksgiving was either the one day that my ancestors weren’t slaving away on the fields or it was a painful reminder of genocide,” Aamir said. 
Artists table at the event selling their handmade pieces. You can find Aamir (left) on Instagram @fifartss.
Reimagined events, like Queersgiving, are integral to disrupting this cycle of misinformation around Indigenous history, colonization, and queer history alike. America’s conceptualization of Thanksgiving does not adequately relay the reality of the torture and violence experienced by the Wampanoag tribe on the “first Thanksgiving.” The heinous crimes endured by the Wampanoag tribe, and other indigenous peoples for over 400 years, should not be overshadowed by a dinner centered on false-generosity and gratitude.
Through events such as Queersgiving, marginalized communities can come together as a collective “fuck you” to America’s history of colonization and white supremacy.
“I think having the ability to just take back what’s been weaponized against us for so long and just say, hey, like I know you have Thanksgiving but we have Queersgiving.” said Isha Kamboh, a fourth-year interning with the Cantú Queer Center. “We have alternate Thanksgiving … a space for us to still enjoy the holiday and not have to feel all of those negative feelings.”
Looking back on all of the conversations I had at Queersgiving, I believe there was a collective feeling shared by each individual.
Amy Chattaway, a UCSC alumni and the faculty supervisor of Queersgiving, sums it up beautifully:
“With everything that’s happened recently in America with the elections and all the people who are going home to different places, whatever home means for them, whatever family means for them, I’m just so glad that everybody’s here, in the big sense and in the smaller sense tonight.”