The Phenomenon of Chosen Family in the LGBT Community

Defining Family in LGBT Community

With the stigma of the LGBT community, chosen families are a common choice for members of the community. Chosen families are individuals who love, take care of, and support each other, often more than given families do, but aren't always biologically relatedChosen families exist because of the discrimination that can occur within the LGBT individuals family after the act of coming out to them.

Coming Out

Members of the LGBT community have the disadvantage in life of having to come out to loved ones and the world, if they want to live and be their authentic selves. Coming out is the process and act of disclosing ones' gender identity or sexual orientation to loved ones and society altogetherComing out is a different experience for each individual, but the two reactions are positive or negative reactions to the news. On the positive side, there could be unconditional love and acceptance, but for the negative side, coming out can be a test of familial unconditional love The test of unconditional love can negatively affect the relationship between members of the biological family and the LGBT individual, leading to the necessity of the Chosen Family. Homelessness is a common experience in the LGBT community, which is when given families are unsupportive, abusive, or leave their lives because they reject their sexual orientation or gender identity

History of Chosen Families

Chosen Families aren't always formed through choice, but through necessity. After coming out, many face rejection from their families and are in need of support. This necessity comes from homophobia and transphobia that was and is still prominent in society today.

Types of Chosen Families

Chosen Families are alternative families, and can either be an alternative version of the Traditional family or it can consist of friends that are considered familyIt can also be a mixture of both.

Alternative Traditional Family

This is an example of a television show that features a Chosen Family that consists of two mothers, biological, adopted, and foster children.

This type of Chosen Family is created through marriage, biology, and adoptionThese families weren't common pre-Canadian Stonewall, but with the presence of marriage equality, increasing acceptance, and access to reproductive technology and adoption, LGBT individuals can now have their own families. LGBT families used to lack the legality, but with marriage equality, reproductive technologies, and adoption being available to the LGBT community, it is slowly being more legal over time.

Close Friends Considered Family

A majority of non-queer people experience close friends being considered family, but studies tell us that LGBT people rely on their close friends much more for emotional, financial, and physical supportThis family is mostly non-biological, and can be people of the same generation and age range or different. This type of family isn't legal for the most part, but made and labeled by the individuals in the chosen family. These families often resemble "traditional" family structures, with a mom, dad, siblings, cousins, but the ages of the family members don't have to be like the "traditional family"

Importance of Chosen Families

After the process of coming to ones' family, LGBT individuals can experience multiple forms of isolation from biological family; therefore, friendships can become more important than biological familyChosen Families are used to counteract against negative effects of the stigma of the LGBT community and homophobia and transphobia.

Chosen Families are found to be more important to queer males compared to females, according to research. Masculinity that discourages men from expressing their feelings mixed with internalized homophobia, makes it harder to deal with the stigma of the LGBT community, which can further isolate queer men from their biological families and society altogether. Chosen families are often the only support these men have, which is why they are so important. Lesbians, bisexual women, and transgender women are encouraged to express their emotions and often lean on other women without thinking otherwise. That isn't to say that queer women don't rely on Chosen family, but the gender roles prescribed often don't help.

LGBT Seniors, with an additional minority status attached, often face discrimination from their given families because they get rejected or got rejected when they were younger and have not have any or much support overall LGBT Seniors have a long history of depending on chosen families and there is a deep importance of chosen families to them.Society often ignores the needs of seniors, therefore leaving queer seniors with a lack of support. An example of discrimination of LGBT seniors by society is how a married older lesbian couple got denied a chance to live at Sunset Hills senior living community because of an cohabitation policy that claims that marriage is only between one man and one woman

This is a case study of a young agender boy explaining why his chosen family is important to him:

"They’ve been there for me since I first came out as a baby queer 4 years ago and have been even more supporting of me the past year, I honestly would’ve given up and killed myself if it wasn’t for them, they've helped me grow into such a great community leader and radical queer youth."