Queer Families

What makes a family Queer? Choice. Queer families choose each other. They blow up Norman Rockwell’s tacit agreement with Archie Bunker that blood is thicker than water. They prove Tolstoy dead wrong by demonstrating that happy families are as individual as snowflakes. They are united in one simple principle: they all choose love. Some queer families are born of shared struggle. Some start with blood ties and consciously build a new construct. They redefine motherhood, brotherhood, sisterhood, childhood. Mothers are fathers and fathers are mothers. Brothers are sisters. Sisters are shelter in a storm, fellow warriors in the endless battle, joyful celebrants of daily triumph. More often than not, queer families are engaged in healing the wounds of origin family trauma, replacing it with a message of unconditional support: We got you. No matter what. You are ours; we are yours.  We choose you.