You're listening to life kit from NPR.
Hey, everybody, it's Marielle.
I feel fortunate to have a lot of loving people in my life, people who've brought over soup when I was sick or gone with me to important doctor's appointments, people who I've traveled with, who I've had sleepovers with, people whose kids I adore.
Many of these people are related to me, but also many are not.
They're what you might call chosen family.
This is something Daniel Blevins thinks about a lot, especially during family centric times, holidays, birthdays, weddings.
Daniel is the founder of a group called Stand in Pride.
It started as a group that connects members of the LGBTQ community with other members and allies for emotional support or to stand in at life events such as weddings or graduations.
This all started with a TikTok video he posted in 2021.
I made a video for TikTok offering to stand in as a dad for couples whose parents wouldn't attend or couldn't because sometimes they haven't passed away.
After the video, a lot of people told him how badly they needed this kind of chosen family, especially queer and trans folks who were cut off from their parents or grandparents or siblings.
So Daniel started this group.
We had 1000 members in our first Facebook group within the first 24 hours.
And just seeing people connect in the group, people, you know, getting to know each other and asking questions, it was almost immediate that I knew that this was something that our community really needed.
And he says that happens a lot in the group.
People start connecting just like that.
They're hanging out for the holidays, and they're getting together, you know, for coffee.
And a lot of people that are joining, looking for support, you know, they're not getting married, they're not graduating.
They're just looking for connection.
They're just looking for, you know, people to fill in where they're lacking family.