This December, Party For Good With Autostraddle HoliGAY Meet-Ups

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The holidays can be a tough time for many queers, but what if it didn’t have to be?

holigay-post

This year, we’re approaching the holidays with a plan. You deserve a happy holiday – we all do. So consider this a formal invitation. Plan to celebrate the holidays this December at a HoliGAY Party with Autostraddle and your chosen family! I like to talk about what an incredible community we are, and now it’s time to prove it. We started to exist for you, and honestly the only reason we continue to exist is because of you. That’s why we want to celebrate together. It’s going to be the greatest holigay we’ve ever had!

I know how busy this time of year is, so I’m not gonna waste your time talking your ear off about how excited I am. (I AM SO EXCITED.) No but seriously, let’s just dive right in and talk about how the heck we’re gonna get these parties started.

WHAT: HoliGAY Parties! These are just like regular meet-ups, but HoliGAY themed! We think it would be really nice to give back to our local communities while celebrating our Auto-communities, so we strongly encourage each host to pick a local charity to support at your meet-up party and decide together if you’d like to bring canned goods, gently used clothes, etc. You could also plan to make a craft at your party that can be donated to a local charity – the possibilities are limitless! Your hosts will be accepting donations for Autostraddle at the parties! Yay! As an independent queer-owned business, we do rely on your financial gifts to keep on truckin’, but it’s also important to us that connections in real life don’t come with a price tag, so don’t worry, everybody is welcome to attend or host whether you’re able to donate or not!

WHERE: Wherever you want them to happen! If you don’t see a party near you, volunteer to host one! If you’re uncomfortable opening up your home feel free to host at a local venue.

WHO: All of you! Our incredible community!

WHEN: All through the month of December!

WHY: Duh.

We’re premiering a brand new Autostraddle Events Website that will hopefully streamline the process and make everyone’s life much easier for this meet-up season and for every meet-up that ever occurs from now until forever, and we are ready to go.

It really is the most magical time of year, queers!

So what are you doing this holigay season? Celebrating with us, I hope. Go to Autostraddle Events to find parties in your area, volunteer to host a party, find crafts and activities to do at your party, find suggestions for local charities you can collect donations for so you can give back to your local communities as well as the Autostraddle community, and find a space where you can check out photos from previous meet-ups and upload photos from all the meet-ups to come in the future! The holigays just got a whole lot happier, and we’re excited to share the joy with you.

*We would like to formally thank loyal Straddlers Monique Danser and Erin Wildman for the work and initiative they have put into this project. The whole idea came from Monique’s smart brain, and Erin conceived, designed, and created the events website all by herself. We love you so much!

Autostraddle cannot exist without the generous support of our readers. We're running the fundraiser through March 29th! We're out of immediate danger...but we had to ask...what if we could survive for longer? Will you help?

Go to our Fundraiser!
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Vanessa

Vanessa is a writer, a teacher, and the community editor at Autostraddle. Very hot, very fun, very weird. Find her on twitter and instagram.

Vanessa has written 398 articles for us.

34 Comments

    • as someone who has hosted autostraddle events at my apartment and attended a couple at other people’s homes, i think i feel okay about it because this does feel like a community to me. we are all adults so i assume everyone knows the basic rules to be safe — i’ve always gone with a friend or hosted with a few roommates, i’ve always kept my address off public spaces (either emailed people who RSVPed or put it in a private fb event, not a public one), and if i ever felt uncomfortable i would make sure i could leave (i guess there is no way to leave my own home but i like to think if someone was being destructive or rude i would make them leave.) i guess because i’ve always lived with a lot of people i frequently have humans i do not know in my home, and while they are often my roommates’ pals, they are sometimes just friends of friends. i once had a semi-stranger crash at my place because her parents’ had kicked her out and the only person who vouched for her was another autostraddlers. maybe i’m naive, but i really do feel like we’ve built a community here and i don’t feel weird about the idea of visiting anyone in this community’s home and vice versa. i honestly feel like at this point if you are an internet predator and your route to get into someone’s home is to creep on an autostraddle holigay event, you are one weird internet predator ya know? this is not to negate anyone’s real fears and i feel like if anyone is concerned they should just host an event at a local venue! it’s just sometimes hard to host formal events (like with 10+ humans) at venues for free, and we don’t want people worrying about shelling out a ton of cash for these.

      …anyway, as one of the brains behind this idea, i just wanted to share my input. i would never tell someone to go somewhere they don’t feel comfy or to host an event in a space that makes them uncomfy, so as always, please everyone do you <3

      Reply to This Comment

      • Thanks for addressing this Vanessa! I too felt some of these fears before deciding to host something at my house. But as you said, I really do feel like this is a special community, and last time I hosted, everyone who showed up to a random coffee shop for international meet-up week was awesome!

        So yeah, I made my event RSVP-for-address as an extra precaution. I guess we’ll see how that goes. :)

        Reply to This Comment

        • ah, i don’t think so! honestly i am not in the business of judging who is queer or female “enough” to identify as queer and female, and i would like to think no one else in this awesome accepting community feels that is their job, either. seriously if someone showed up to an autostraddle meetup (at my home or otherwise) and said “hi i am here for the autostraddle meetup” i would be like, “HI WELCOME I LOVE YOU ARE YOU INTO HUGS OR NOT REALLY JUST WANNA MAKE SURE YOU ARE COMFY!”

          also it’s worth mentioning that though autostraddle is obviously a space for all queer women, we also have a fairly large trans* dude demographic who both read the site and participate in community events, and i think that’s cool and i’m into it, too.

          basically if you identify as part of the autostraddle community, i want you here. i hope you get to go to a holigay party if you want to <3

          Reply to This Comment

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