No abstract

When social scientists argue that “families” reproduce and sometimes challenge gender and sexual norms, they tend to refer to biological, cisgender, and heterosexual families. We consider how one alternative family form—stepfamilies—might, like gay and lesbian families, challenge these norms. Interviews with 20 biological and stepparents reveal that whereas biological parents held relatively intense feelings about their children’s gender and sexual conformity, stepparents were indifferent and far less inclined to police their children’s behavior. We conclude that stepfamilies, similar to gay and lesbian families, might be a source of less rigid expectations and greater liberty than biological families, and we consider the implications for the future of traditional gender and sexual norms in the face of the proliferation of alternative family forms.

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations experience disadvantages in physical health, mental health, and socioeconomic status relative to cisgender heterosexual populations. However, extant population research has tended to use objective measures and ignore subjective measures, examined well-being outcomes in isolation, and lacked information on less well studied but possibly more disadvantaged SGM subgroups. In this study, we use Gallup's National Health and Well-Being Index, which permits identification of gay/lesbian, bisexual, queer, same-gender-loving, those who identify as more than one sexual identity, transgender men, transgender women, and nonbinary/genderqueer populations. We estimate bivariate associations and ordinary least-squares regression models to examine differences along five dimensions of well-being: life purpose, residential community belonging, physical and mental health, financial well-being, and social connectedness. The results reveal that most SGM groups experience stark disadvantages relative to heterosexuals and cisgender men, which are most pronounced among bisexual, queer, and nonbinary/genderqueer populations. Intergroup and intragroup variations illuminate even greater disparities in well-being than prior research has uncovered, bringing us closer to a holistic profile of SGM well-being at the population level.

Early theorists understood the family as a key institution in the production of gender and sexuality. In this paper, I trace the development of this line of thought and review parents' role in shaping children's gender and sexuality over the life course. I first describe the three most prominent theoretical frameworks used to locate parents in these studies: psychoanalysis, socialization, and interactional approaches. In doing so, I illuminate the contributions of each theory to sociological thought on children's gender and sexuality while pointing to weaknesses with psychoanalysis and socialization. I then discuss how parents influence children's development and performance of gender and heterosexuality, paying attention to variations based on race, class, gender, and sexuality. Based on the current state of the literature, I suggest that we sociologists should diversify our methodological approaches in this area, attend to how changes in families correspond to changes in parents' role in shaping children's gender and sexuality, and grapple with how children's performances of gender and sexuality influence parents' performances of gender and sexuality.

Objective The present study aims to understand how LGBTQ adults characterize the quality of their adult sibling ties, and how the type of sibling relationship (e.g., full, step, half, chosen) informs this characterization. Background An intragenerational conflict‐solidarity‐ambivalence frame is developed to theorize and empirically examine sibling relationships. Methods Drawing on an intragenerational conflict‐solidarity‐ambivalence frame, we analyze qualitative in‐depth interview data from 67 LGBTQ adults who identify as having a sibling. Results The quality of sibling ties was characterized in three primary ways: solidary, wherein an adult sibling perceived their sibling bond(s) as high quality due to exchanges of social/emotional/financial/instrumental support and connection, including LGBTQ support; conflictual, wherein the adult sibling tie is painful because a sibling is problematic, is unsupportive of an LGBTQ identity, or because a sibling creates conflict in a relationship with a parent; and tangential, wherein the sibling relationship was never bonded, is distanced, or siblings have their “own” families and are thus deemed inconsequential. Only full siblings were typified as conflictual, while all sibling types were solidary. Full, step, and half siblings only are characterized as tangential. Differences in sibling quality across gender and sexuality are discussed. Implications This study contributes to the growing body of research on the quality of family ties in adulthood, providing further insight into how a socially marginalized group is supported, harmed, or perhaps unfazed by their sibling relationships.