Blogging for Queer Families: Rethinking Family

Queer families challenge us all to rethink the term family.

Most queers grow up in straight families, in a culture dominated by the image of mom, dad and 2.5 kids. It takes our own rethinking of family to decided to create our own. Then we take our families out into the world and cause the rest of the world to rethink what family is as well.

The first set-in-stone idea about family to fall is biology: the concept that it is simply our genetics, our blood connections, that bond people into groups termed family. This started with the queer community's insistance on family of choice, our determination to belong to some type of unit despite the rejection of our families of origin. This family of choice is now being fueled by the Other Mother and the Other Father. It is easy to face the world as the biological connection to a child. It is more difficult to face that same world and all her judgements without that blood bond and still tell everyone that you are THE MOTHER.

So family starts to move beyond genetics.

In WA State our supreme court has made ruling that pushes the boundary of parenting. This ruling is a direct result of same-sex parenting and the subsequent same-sex breakup. The term our court uses is defacto parenting: the connection that is formed through caretaking and nurturing, through financial commitment and taking responsibility for the well-being of a new life. Our court has said that biology does not make a parent and biology does not take being a parent away.

This is the beginning of rethinking family.

We will continue to challenge a society that has become complacent and accepting of only one version of family as the norm. We will do this by being out and proud, by being mom and mom, by being on boards and going to PTA meetings. This is quiet activism, and quiet activism works.

This post has been in honor of Blogging for LGBT Family Day!