So many people around the world are not accepted by their parents or their family for who they are.

Source: Rina Sawayama: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert – YouTube

Here’s a heart-strumming rendition of “Chosen Family” from Rina Sawayama (starting at 8:29).

Tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine

I’m all ears, take your time, we’ve got all night

Show me the rivers crossed, the mountains scaled

Show me who made you walk all the way here

Our unchosen family are the rivers crossed and the mountains scaled. They are who made us not just walk, but trudge, all the way here. They chose bigotry and rejected moral autonomy, and us.

We collected chosen family along the way, better family by far.

We don’t need to be related to relate

We don’t need to share genes or a surname

You are, you are

My chosen, chosen family

So what if we don’t look the same?

We been going through the same pain, yeah

You are, you are

My chosen, chosen family

Source: Rina Sawayama – Chosen Family Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

To all those stuck with or cast out by unchosen family, wondering where they belong.

Previously,

• Gender Copia and Bricolage
• Autigender and Neuroqueer: Two Words on the Relationship Between Autism and Gender That Fit Me
• There’s No Glory in Dysphoria, Victoria
• “While you sit on the fence I will burn in hell”
• Type Integrity: Falsification of Type, Prolonged Adaptation Stress Syndrome, Minority Stress, Masking, and Burnout
• Neurodiversity and Gender Non-conformity, Dysphoria and Fluidity
• Purity Culture, the False Gender Binary, and Abuse at Heritage Christian School
• Chronic Neurodivergent Depressed Queer Punk: Punk Rock, the Social Model of Disability, and the Dream of the Accepting Community