Why Give When You Can Give Back?

At this point, it’s cliché to even discuss how the holiday season can be a strain on our emotional energy. Everyone is already living hand-to-mouth, and now we’re expected to go out and buy gifts with our limited incomes. Plus, for some queer folks, affording gifts is the least of their troubles. This time of year often brings up painful memories, and some people don’t have an accepting home to go back to and visit.

But what if it didn’t have to be this way? Let us indulge, if only for a moment, in a utopian thought experiment. What if every gift you gave was also a way to give back to a charity of your choice? What if every business supported queer folks, disabled people, and people of color, with any surplus income? What if every gift was purposely chosen to cultivate love, health, and togetherness?

Of course, we know this isn’t the way the world really works. That’s why we’ve created this gift guide for the holiday season. Every business featured within these pages does their best to give back to our community and other organizations. They aren’t just gay in May, and they chase positivity and change rather than the bottom line.

So, whether you’re spending the holidays with your chosen family or with folks back home, here’s a little something for everyone, with charity and the true spirit of the holiday season in mind.

-Addison Herron-Wheeler