Not long ago, a friend in his late thirties confided that coming out as gay had been unexpectedly difficult for him. He is the son of one of the first lesbian couples to raise children in the Southern state where he grew up. I was initially surprised—having always known him as confidently and openly queer, and as someone who had even worked for a Jewish LGBTQ organization. In his words, he feared disappointing his parents and failing to live up to the expectations shaped by their long struggle for LGBTQ parental rights. His disclosure stayed with me. It prompted me to reflect more deeply on the dynamics and complexities of intergenerational queer families—an issue thoughtfully explored in an illuminating article by Bella Mancini Pori and Edward Stein, Foregrounding the LGBTQIA+ Children of LGBTQIA+ People.
Many anti-LGBTQ laws currently under consideration or already in force rest on the premise that simply encountering LGBTQ people, ideas, or representation can influence a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity. This faulty premise was described nearly 15 years ago by Cliford Rosky as the Fear of the Queer Child. It animates legislative efforts to restrict drag performances and drag story times attended by children, remove children’s and young adult books with LGBTQ content from libraries, and permit parents to opt their children out of classroom discussion of LGBTQ content in schools, a policy the Supreme Court endorsed in Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025). Indeed, in the words of Mancini Pori and Stein: “The myth of indoctrination––the idea that queer adults would turn straight children queer––looms large in the struggle for LGBTQIA+ rights.” (P. 66.)
Historical state antagonism toward queer families and queer children shaped the strategic decisions of LGBTQ advocates, often compelling them to minimize aspects of queer family life that might be perceived as distinctive. The presence of multigenerational queer families, for example, can be reframed by opponents as evidence that queer parents, whether through biological inheritance or social influence, “produce” queer children. In a recent piece, I’ve written about the possibility of disabled parents choosing to have a child with the same disability as them. Thus, similar to intergenerational queer families, these parents make difference a positive part of the family story. The infamous words by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the 1927 case Buck v. Bell, that “Three generations of imbeciles is enough,” seem to take on another meaning when discussing intergenerational queer families.
As Mancini Pori and Stein show, this way of thinking manifests in child custody and visitation cases involving queer parents. Nowadays, most courts apply a “nexus” test in custody disputes, treating a parent’s sexual orientation or gender identity as relevant only if it can be linked to concrete harm to the child. This approach rejects earlier presumptions that queerness itself is harmful. Still, unlike cisgender or heterosexual identity, LGBTQ status remains subject to scrutiny and debate in custody determinations. (P. 71.) Relatedly, in my own work, I showed how taking PrEP, an anti-HIV prophylactic popular among gay men, can affect decisions in custody cases, as it signals another homophobic trope, that of promiscuity.
In response to such narratives, impact litigation strategies around same-sex marriage, as described in Cynthia Godsoe’s work on Perfect Plaintiffs, frequently foregrounded families with straight children as plaintiffs and public representatives. This approach implicitly conveyed that queerness is not an identity to be deliberately cultivated or transmitted. Rather, it reinforced a framing of queerness as a status that warrants tolerance and protection, but not one that should be actively fostered or celebrated.
Such an approach misses the mark and actually harms queer children and intergenerational families. Andrew Solomon’s distinction between “vertical” and “horizontal” identities provides a useful lens for understanding difference within families. Vertical identities are passed from parents to children and typically shared across generations—race and ethnicity are clear examples, and religion often functions similarly. Because these identities are familial and expected, they tend to be socially recognized and affirmed.
Horizontal identities, by contrast, describe traits that children do not share with their parents. Sexual orientation, gender identity, and many disabilities often fall into this category. Intergenerational queer families are, of course, an exception to this rule. Solomon explains that while vertical identities are generally treated as natural, horizontal identities are more likely to be seen as disruptions—both by families and by society more broadly.
This framework helps explain the challenges faced by queer children raised by non-queer parents. When queerness operates as a horizontal identity, children may lack role models at home who share their experience and may struggle to find support, especially in less accepting environments. By contrast, queer children raised by queer parents encounter less difference within the family itself. Queer parents can provide affirmation, guidance, and a sense of belonging, even as their children navigate a predominantly straight and cisgender society. As Mancini Pori and Stein state: “These are real benefits that are specific to queer families, but these benefits went undiscussed in the fight for marriage equality.” (P. 78.) And while my friend’s story does not operate in this exact way, it does show how the early days of the LGBTQ movement’s messaging affected queer families.
The central move Mancini Pori and Stein make is to challenge the over-reliance of LGBTQ advocates on the “immutability” claim (that people are born queer), as both empirically uncertain and strategically limited, especially in the face of the fear of the queer child rhetoric. Instead, they argue that advocates should center multi-generation queer families to challenge the idea that becoming queer is a harm to be avoided.
Intergenerational queer families unsettle the societal and legal assumption that queerness is purely horizontal. These families also disrupt the idea that queerness is always a break from ongoing familial story, or that it is inherently tragic. Dare I say, it is something to celebrate. The Tony Award–winning musical Fun Home, based on Alison Bechdel’s memoir about growing up with a closeted father, is a pathbreaking cultural work that centers an intergenerational queer family and captures the phenomenon in all its complexity—its tensions as well as its generative possibilities.
Mancini Pori and Stein urge the LGBTQ rights movement to affirm and center intergenerational queer families in its advocacy. Even more striking is their yearning for judicial recognition, an outcome that may feel especially remote in the current political moment, yet remains normatively powerful and well worth repeating: “A court holding that it is in a child’s best interest to be raised by queer parents, even if that means a child has a more expansive view of their own sexuality and gender (and/or sexuality and gender more generally), would go a long way towards confronting and dismantling the fear of the queer child that is animating many anti-LGBTQIA+ laws around the country.” (P. 74.)
This piece lays the groundwork for future empirical inquiry. A mixed-methods approach—integrating quantitative data with qualitative analysis—would allow scholars to better assess the scope of the intergenerational queer families phenomenon and to examine more closely how these families interact with, and are shaped by, legal institutions.
