North County LGBT Resource Center Offers Safe Place To Celebrate Thanksgiving

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published November 26, 2014 at 3:00 AM PST

This story was published more than 10 years ago.

Staff at the North County LGBTQ Resource Center pose at their Oceanside facility.

A Thanksgiving lunch at North County’s LGBT Resource Center will offer a safe place for those who don’t feel comfortable taking their same-sex partners to meet the family.

Executive Director Max Disposti said the holidays can be particularly difficult for the LBGT community, especially young people who are freshly “out.”

“Their partners are not yet welcome in the family,“ he said. “Every time you come together with family is the time they start questioning you about your relationship, the way you look. The holidays are a very difficult time for a lot of people - it’s a challenge.“

Become a KPBS sponsor

Thanksgiving can be awkward for some families, Disposti said, even if a young person’s parents start to accept their sexual orientation.

“Now your parents are starting to support you,” he explained. “They understand a little bit, but now even your own parents need to come out with family and friends: the grandma, the uncle, or the aunt that you see once a year, and it becomes a very stressful time."

Disposti said national studies show up to 40 percent of homeless youth identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. He said people in the older generation, aged 60 to 70, can also find they feel isolated at Thanksgiving.

Disposti said the Resource Center in Oceanside has hosted a Thanksgiving lunch every year since it opened three years ago, and the number of people who come increases every year.

The Salvation Army has donated some of the food the center will serve and volunteers are bringing pie.

Tags

North County

Alison St John

twitter

Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.