Reimagining family: A queer demand

As discussions on non-heterosexual relationships have become increasingly visible in India, and while the claim of LGBTQ+ marriage was thrust into the spotlight from some quarters in the last two years, another notion has also been raised as perhaps the most inclusive option available for LGBTQ+ people in their multiple lived realities – the “chosen family”.

Over time, the heterosexual family has been accepted as the primary site of social reproduction. Indeed, it is the structural template and norm for social organising, control and conduct. It is considered the legitimate, “typical” framework in the general imagination.

A typical family is considered to be an exclusive social unit within which members who are related to each other by blood or marriage co-reside. Broadly, they are either nuclear or extended/joint in composition, and for the most part, reinforce a patriarchal hierarchy.

Given its dominance in the imagining of social order, the family is the fulcrum around which individuals within it are supposed to receive protection by the law. And, in this imagination, the family is too frequently quick to demarcate who it is not for: members who are victims of abusive relatives or partners, persons with disabilities, the elderly, non-normative women, and the queer.

In this regard, the...

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