Multi-Generation Queer Families: Foregrounding the LGBTQIA+ Children of LGBTQIA+ People

In the last several years, state legislatures have passed a disturbing array of anti-queer laws that target queer (especially trans) children. The basic fear animating these laws is that exposure to LGBTQ people or LGBTQ supportive ideas will somehow turn straight children queer. LGBTQ activists have responded to the concern that exposure to queer people or ideas will make children queer by arguing that sexual orientations are innate or immutable. This immutability argument is problematic, first, because it avoids confronting the normative judgment at the heart of the fear of a queer child by failing to say that there is nothing wrong with a child being queer, no matter how the child's sexuality developed. Second, this argument is bad for queer parents, who may be more likely to have queer children. This Essay argues that advocates of LGBTQ rights should center multi-generational queer families. Multi-generational queer families challenge the idea, internalized by the LGBTQ rights movement, that parents should strive for normalcy in the form of straight children; the acceptance of this idea caused many queer parents to lose custody of their children. Multigenerational queer families are in a unique position to create a new paradigm for how to view queerness. Foregrounding multi-generational queer families will help the LGBTQ rights movement move beyond tolerance for queerness as an immutable trait, and towards the idea that queerness is a way of life that should be celebrated.