Love makes a family, the saying goes—but for LGBTQ families, there’s a lot behind that simple statement.
For LGBTQ folks, making a family often requires hours—months—years—trying to bring children into our lives. Or it may mean an equal amount of time fighting for the right to keep those children. It often involves an excess of paperwork; assistance from medical, legal, and social service professionals; and logistics that would put a military division to shame. Yet love is the binding force that makes all these tasks worthwhile even as we work to eradicate inequities.
Love, for an LGBTQ family, means standing up for our families when others tell us we shouldn’t exist; writing ourselves onto forms that ignore or mislabel us; and even sometimes hiding who we are so we can retain the jobs that support our children and ourselves. Love is asserting at the supermarket, “Yes, I’m his mom, too,” or “Actually, she calls me Baba.” Love may require uprooting ourselves from all that we know in order to live where we can nurture our children in the fullness of their own identities.
Love means seeking out books, songs, and shows that reflect our families and writing them into existence when they do not. Love means supporting our children in telling their stories about our families in their own time and their own way. Love inspires us to speak out at our school board meetings despite our introvert instincts if our children’s well-being is at stake. Love inspires us to drive eight hours and stand in the cold for three more as we march for the civil rights of all families.
As in any family, too, love is the thousand little things we do to put dinner on the table, make sure the laundry is clean, and teeth get brushed. It’s soothing skinned knees and broken hearts, and watching with pride as our children learn and grow.
Love is teaching our children. Love is learning from them. Love is helping them to discover who they are, and in the process, discovering more about ourselves. Love moves us to show our children how to stand on their own, even as we assure them they will always be safe in our arms.
Love makes a family, but love also sustains it. Wishing you and your families much love on this and every day.