Happy Thanksgiving from the Queer Forty team!

Your favorite queer media clan shares their plans — and their thanks — this holiday.

We asked the team at Queer Forty to answer a few questions about their turkey holiday plans for 2020, and here are their responses:

Robin Gray

As the resident Brit, we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving ourselves here in England. However, it’s always great to see my American friends, colleagues and readers celebrate. It’s my aim one day to visit the US for Thanksgiving to experience it for myself. 

This year’s holiday is going to feel very different, for obvious reasons. Everyone has to be careful who they spend Thanksgiving with. It’s worth holding off for a year to be able to celebrate more Thanksgivings in the future, rather than risk your health this year. On a positive note, we’ve seen a year of digital creativity and people reinventing things in a virtual way, so I’m interested to see what people put together for Thanksgiving. 

I’m thankful for the good health of my friends and family. It’s been a rough year, but I’m fortunate that COVID hasn’t got too close to the ones I love. I’m also thankful for all our readers across all our outlets for sticking by us and enjoying our content throughout this year. We’ve had some amazing growth and results as a company. Finally, I’m thankful for my fiancé Chris as always for putting a smile on my face, especially this year as we’ve been working at home together and spending a lot more time together! 

Kyle Jackson

I originally planned to spend Thanksgiving alone in New York City. However, my roommate asked me last week if I wanted to have dinner this year since we won’t be traveling to see our families. I said yes, so I guess that means I’ll be the one cooking!

My husband lives in London, and my family is scattered across the U.S., primarily in New Orleans where I’m from originally. My mother lives two hours away in Philadelphia, and I planned to see her this Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, this cannot happen this year. I’m very sad, but it’s for the best. 

I’m thankful to still be alive and healthy after what we all witnessed this year. I’m also thankful that, despite all other obstacles this year, I was still able to get married and formally begin a new chapter in my life. Will 2021 finally see me moving to London to be with my love full time? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Richard Jones

We live in the same apartment building as my husband’s parents, so for Thanksgiving we typically share the cooking and we go back and forth to their apartment all day — it’s very relaxed and we are very happy we can do the same this year. 

We are fortunate our plans are able to be just the same as previous years — we have to go down one flight of stairs, and we love it that way.

I’m very thankful that our families have been mostly unaffected by all the issues of Covid. We typically donate to the Ali Forney Center just after Thanksgiving and will do the same this year and we encourage everyone else to donate to their local LGBTQ+ homeless shelter, too. 

Merryn Johns

I’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving at home by myself! Because, after nine months observing strict quarantine, I’d really enjoy more alone time. Not. But as a hard news journalist, I’ve spent lockdown mostly covering the pandemic and it is no joke. If I have to hunker down to save someone else’s life, then so be it.

While I do have an invitation to spend the turkey holiday with dear friends (who are foodies like me!) I am still too cautious about seeing folks in the pandemic and I shall preserve my Covid bubble for little bit longer. I am lucky that I am not obliged to travel to see family at this time, as I am from Australia. I feel for those who are separated from loved ones — I know the feeling only too well.

In a truly nightmarish and dystopian year, I am nevertheless thankful for the wisdom afforded to me through the pressure of circumstances to step up, be present, be kind, be loving, and to keep going — hopefully with a pinch of grace, humor, and optimism.

Dudgrick Bevins

Thanksgiving 2020 is a doozy! I’ll be basking in the glow of finishing another draft of my Master’s thesis — we are up to 62 pages! Simultaneously, I’ll be catching up on my MFA program, making elderberry syrup, and fussing over my plants while my partner, Mikey, makes us mashed potatoes, Caesar salad, cheddar biscuits, and chicken. I anticipate lots of binge watching as well! We just rewatched One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest so we can start Ratchet. 

Our Thanksgiving is usually spent with friends in NYC or New Jersey. Christmas is when we normally fly south to visit our Georgia people (or my parents come here). So that won’t be happening this year. I’m 34 and this will be the second or third Christmas spent without seeing my parents and listening to John Lennon’s greatest hits. Curse you, 2020!

This year I’m thankful for all the wonderful projects I’m part of: wrapping up one degree and continuing another, my work here at Queer Forty, and a few upcoming books. I’m so lucky to have these outlets and the opportunity to contribute to the queer community.