Persistent Issues for LGBTQ+ Families

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to summarize some issues that we consider persistent for families composed of LGBTQ+ people. These issues have not only been tackled by ongoing research but should also be observed in future studies. Despite the differences observed between contexts of greater acceptance and greater exposure to vulnerabilities, some issues seem to permanently permeate these families. Conjugality seems to be, in several countries, a more accepted family dimension, while parenthood still emerges in the midst of significant suppression. The family is discussed in this chapter as not only an instance that should be conceptually expanded to include the diversity with which we can, in fact, be a family but also as an important element in the sense of combating prejudice, intolerance, and violence, which is directly associated with issues that involve the promotion of health and access to social rights. This reflection needs to be made from an intersectional perspective that calls for a debate on the social markers of difference: racism, gender, education, and the labor market, for example. Finally, it is discussed to what extent the current global context, still undergoing the COVID-19 pandemic, can reinforce the importance of these issues and invite us to take a critical posture and be in constant vigilance in relation to the rights of these families, the rights that occur through the possibility of actually existing.