As LGBTQ+ people, many of us grow up alienated from our biological families. In the bad old days before PFLAG, most of us hid our sexual orientation and/or gender identity from our parents or grandparents, siblings, uncles, aunts, or cousins. Often, when our family members did find out, they rejected us for being who we are. Since marriage equality is a recent phenomenon, most of us lived our lives without the benefits that legally-sanctioned, opposite-gender spouses take for granted. Instead, we in the LGBTQ+ communities created new forms of relationships that were for us what biological families, heterosexual marriages, or parenting were for others. We call those relationships families of choice, as opposed to biological families we were born into and grew up with. Queer authors and activists have written extensively about this topic, most notably Kath Weston in her dated but still-relevant book Families We Choose (1991). In it she writes, “Gay (or chosen) families dispute the old saying, ‘You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your relatives.’ Not only can these families embrace friends; they may also encompass lovers, coparents, adopted children, children from previous heterosexual relationships, and offspring conceived through alternative insemination.”
Today, marriage between two women or two men is legal in these United States and in many other countries. Other LGBTQ families of choice are not so fortunate. Even so, they serve many of the same functions that biological families or legally-sanctioned marriages do. Relationships formed by two or more roommates, friends with benefits or platonic friends are in their own ways as valuable and as durable as any marriage. Levi/leather clubs, bear clubs, nudist gatherings, athletic teams, community centers, business networks, spiritual organizations, bands, choruses, recovery groups or groups revolving around HIV status, cancer or other physical conditions often serve as families of choice for those of us who share the same interests or experiences.
This does not mean that our biological families are not important; or that we should break our ties with our biological families when we connect with the LGBT community. Nor should we ignore families of choice created by people who share common racial, ethnic, religious, political, economic, or other interests that are not connected to our sexual orientation or our gender identity. Any self-supportive group is worth keeping. However, it is good that those of us who feel alienated or alone because of our sexual orientation or our gender identity have alternatives to our often-hostile biological families or to legal marriages that still do not apply to many of us. In an increasingly confused world, LGBTQ families of choice are our contribution to the Great American Family, and an inspiration to others.
