Northville, MI
Chosen Family: People who you care about and consider family.
This term has emerged within the LGBTQ+ community to describe the support systems queer folks build themselves (often after being rejected by their natural families).
It is a term I want everyone to know. There is power in this term.
As a culture, Americans often put a lot of stock in the “nuclear family.” One mom, one dad, and their biological children. This cultural value has crept its way into every american’s brain through politicized homophobia in our government.
When we move away from thinking about the “nuclear” family and towards the “chosen” family, we empower ourselves to find love and support within a wider, more complex and interesting community.
These are pictures of my sister, my nieces, and me. A different kind of chosen family than you were probably thinking after reading about the term’s connection with the LGBTQ+ community. I am not attempting to co-opt the term from the LGBTQ+ community. Nor would I like to detract from the conversation about family and acceptance for LGBTQ+ folks. And, for all intents and purposes, assuming there has to be romantic love between parental figures is indicative of our cultural heteronormative indoctrination.
These are my nieces. But in a lot of ways I have been a parental figure to them since they were born. I have changed their diapers, helped sleep train them when my sister was at her wits end, comforted them through cutting their first teeth, taught them new words, done my best to instill values of open-mindedness, kindness, and inclusiveness within them, and sometimes I’m the only one that can get them to eat.
My sister and I also have had a yin and yang connection since I was born (her fiery aries personality clicks perfectly with my wishy-washy pisces). We have been each other’s unconditional support system for eternity.
These family portraits mean so much to me because they represent one of the most important familial connections in my life. This is why I survived and continue to survive 💕
An Experiment with Vulnerability 