Family the Kids Choose? Negotiating Gratitude for LGBTQI+ Ancestors and the Struggle to Sustain a Gay Community

Sol Underwood, University of Toronto

Gay fathers comprise a new family unit in history. This research explores how belonging to a larger LGBTQI+ community matters to queer co-fathers. Based on analysis of 18 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with queer co-fathers, I show that these new family units express an ambivalence towards a ‘gay community’. On the one hand, they understand they are a ‘new social unit’ and pioneers in a gay community that owes great debts to their ‘gay ancestors’, while on the other, they are largely disconnected from and alienated from the contemporary gay community. Fatherhood transforms these men’s lives: their childfree LGBTQI+ friends no longer visit them, and they experience disconnects between gay culture, domestic, and family life: much of their social time is now spent with straight and cisgender parents, especially the parents of their children’s friends. Similarly, I explore fathers’ reflections on feeling abandoned by their gay community and how they do not necessarily need one. Finally, I explore the socioeconomic explanations for this disconnect. Fathers with greater economic resources can ‘opt out’ of community and compensate for necessary domestic labours by hiring domestic caregivers.

This paper will be presented at the following session:

• (CSF1a) Families I
  Thursday Jun 20 11:00 am to 12:30 pm (Eastern Daylight Time)
  Trottier Building - ENGTR 2100