The day after a gunman opened fire inside Club Q in Colorado Springs, killing five people and physically injuring at least 18 (to say nothing of the countless moral injuries incurred), Carolyn Pinta gathered with friends to write cards to strangers.
Pinta had already planned the card-writing event before the shooting. It was a way of marking Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual event that began in 1999 to commemorate transgender people lost to violence and to raise awareness about threats against people who are gender-variant.
Pinta is one of the forces behind the Pinta Pride Project, an organization that raises awareness and support in suburban communities for LGBTQ+ people. Pinta Pride Project was born in 2019 when Molly Pinta, Carolyn’s daughter, launched a Pride Parade in Buffalo Grove, Illinois — a first (and now annual event) for the Chicago suburb.
“People often are afraid of what they don’t understand,” Molly Pinta told me in 2019. She was in seventh grade back then, already so wise and determined to help heal the world.
Molly went on to become a youth ambassador for the Human Rights Campaign and the winner of the 2020 Illinois NOW Young Feminist Award. Pinta Pride Project went on to become a full-on family affair, run with the help of Carolyn and her husband, Bob, Molly’s dad. They host events year-round.
On Transgender Remembrance Day, they planned to write holiday cards for people whose families have shunned them. Carolyn Pinta said they were inspired by Home for the Holidays, a Facebook group with close to 12,000 members that serves as a safe space for LGBTQ+ people who can’t go home for the holidays. Members share stories, sorrows, photos, memories, pleas for connection.
Some members share their addresses — usually through Facebook’s direct message function — and ask for holiday cards. Carolyn Pinta collects the addresses in a spreadsheet, from Texas to Germany to Georgia to the Netherlands. She and her friends knocked out 200 cards on Sunday, which, she said, felt particularly essential in light of the Club Q shooting.
“We’re a let’s-take-action-in-a-loving-way kind of group,” she told me. “More than ever, those of us who feel safe to do so have got to open our mouths. Because people are hurting.”
She’ll host another card-writing gathering at a local Dunkin' in a few days. She collects all the cards and takes care of the postage and mailing. For people who don’t live nearby, there’s a spot on the Pinta Pride Project website (BuffaloGrovePride.com) to sign up to help write cards, to come hang out with people writing cards or to donate to help cover postage costs.
Pinta offers some simple guidelines to card-writers:
“Choose cards from anywhere that you like, or make your own on paper. Please try for cards that are not religious in nature; they do not even have to be holiday-themed. Love, cheerful greetings, etc.
“Write your card with a greeting of your choice. Some ideas are: ‘Dear lovely human,’ ‘Dear human deserving of love,’ ‘Dear LGBTQ friend.’
“Make your cards as simple or as elaborate as you like. You can simply wish a happy holiday season, or share details of why the LGBTQ community holds a space in your heart. (Bonus points if you have a little person in your life who can draw you some rainbows).”
Carolyn Pinta is a middle school teacher. Rainbows dot her clothes, her phone case, her classroom. She wears her allyship loudly, because she knows how life-changing it can be for a kid to find belonging and acceptance.
She watched her own daughter flourish with the support of family and friends — and go on to create more inclusive spaces for other kids. She sees and knows and listens to kids who don’t know that level of support.
“We’re all so excited to be off for the holidays and home all week,” she said. “Some kids are not so excited to be home all week.”
The cards, she hopes, can help people for whom home wasn’t or isn’t a sanctuary.
A card is a small thing, stacked against a lifetime of rejection or shame or disappointment from the people whose eyes should light up at the sight of you, at the thought of you. An avalanche of cards wouldn't fill a hole where a loving family member should be.
But it’s something. And it’s something that says: I see you. I support you. You deserve love and joy and a whole, full heart. At the holidays, and always.
And that’s a thing of tremendous, powerful beauty.
