The Truth About Networking and Chosen Family
It was a sickening sight. Water gushed from a broken pipe in the wall, flooding the bedroom of my childhood home. Boxes of my old concert programs, official documents like birth and death certificates, and memorabilia my father had painstakingly preserved over the years were soaked. I didn't grow up with money, but my father had hung onto this property for decades with the intention of passing it on to me someday. The cabin would now need to be stripped of drywall and completely reconstructed. But the memories, priceless possessions, and mental peace I'd always felt at the cabin were simply gone. What I didn't expect in the coming weeks was the silver lining: the outpouring of support and empathy from the friends and colleagues that over the years have become my chosen family.
In the LGBTQ+ community, the topic of chosen family comes up a lot. It's a sad truth that many non-heteronormative people are rejected by the families we’re born into. I'm lucky this wasn’t the case for me. With our country more ideologically divided than ever, legislation targeting trans and gender non-comforming individuals has increased, leading the Human Rights Campaign to issue a state of emergency for members of the LGBTQ+ community. This uptick in restrictions on how those in the queer community live their lives isn’t new by any means. As long as LGBTQ+ individuals have existed, we have had to learn to build our own networks of people we feel safe around.
Because music is a profession that is centered around interacting with others, many musicians have also created networks of people they trust and can rely on. Networking often has a negative connotation, bringing to mind insincere business men with cheesy jargon and too-firm handshakes. But seen through a different lens, networking is inviting the people we enjoy working with to be part of our life. It’s building our own chosen families of people not just to perform with or produce music with, but to spend time with, to have deep conversations with, and to reach out to for support when life gets tough. It’s understanding that our work isn’t just done in the practice room or on the stage, and that making genuine connections outside of the concert hall or recording studio makes us happier and healthier as both musicians and people. Networking can take the form of:
taking a lesson with someone you respect in your field
asking someone you’ve just gigged with to grab dinner
exchanging contact info with someone you’ve met at a festival
grabbing coffee with old friends
reaching out to an old teacher or mentor to ask their advice
Networking simply means creating the community we want to live in.
This Pride month, Aspire celebrates the resilience of LGBTQ+ folks both inside and outside of the music industry as well as their chosen families. While often simplified to just “Pride,” this word symbolizes so much more. You should feel pride in finding your people in a world that tries to tear down anyone who is different. You should feel proud of choosing to be your authentic self in the face of rejection and in seeking out people who accept you for who you are. You have every right to feel pride in bravely carving out a place in the world where you belong.
In dark times, remember your chosen family, and let your authentic self be a lighthouse that draws them closer to you..