Families We Keep : : LGBTQ People and Their Enduring Bonds with Parents / / Rin Reczek, Emma Bosley-Smith.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English
• VerfasserIn: Reczek, Rin,; Bosley-Smith, Emma,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource :; 2 b/w illustrations

Why LGBTQ adults don’t end troubled ties with parents and why (perhaps) they shouldFamilies We Keep is a surprising look at the life-long bonds between LGBTQ adults and their parents. Alongside the importance of “chosen families” in the queer community, Rin Reczek and Emma Bosley-Smith found that very few LGBTQ people choose to become estranged from their parents, even if those parent refuse to support their gender identity, sexuality, or both. Drawing on interviews with over seventy-five LGBTQ people and their parents, Reczek and Bosley-Smith explore the powerful ties that bind families together, for better or worse. They show us why many feel obliged to maintain even troubled—and sometimes outright toxic—relationships with their parents. They argue that this relationship persists because what we think of as the “natural” and inevitable connection between parents and adult children is actually created and sustained by the sociocultural power of compulsory kinship. After revealing what holds even the most troubled intergenerational ties together, Families We Keep gives us permission to break free of those family bonds that are not in our best interests.Reczek and Bosley-Smith challenge our deep-rooted conviction that family—and specifically, our relationships with our parents—should be maintained at any cost. Families We Keep shines a light on the shifting importance of family in America, and how LGBTQ people navigate its complexities as adults.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Glossary -- Introduction: The Parent Trap -- Part I Why LGBTQ Adults Stay in the Family: The Power of Compulsory Kinship -- 1 Compulsory Kinship -- 2 The Rationale of Love and Closeness -- 3 The Rationale of Growth -- Part II How LGBTQ Adults Adhere to Compulsory Kinship -- Introduction -- 5 The Kin Closet -- 6 Gender and Sexuality School -- 7 Out of the Closet, Under the Rug -- 8 Becoming Normal -- 9 Out of the Family -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Methodological Appendix -- Notes -- References -- Index -- About the Authors