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Abstract ObjectiveThis article calls on family scholars to take seriously how families are invested and divested in maintaining and reproducing cisnormativity. BackgroundFamilies can be a prime institution for the reproduction of cisnormativity. For transgender and nonbinary family members, families' investment in cisnormativity can generate ambiguous and toxic familial relations. Yet, family studies have not developed an adequate framework to examine how and why cisnormativity operates within families. MethodThe authors engage with empirical and theoretical work on gender, intersectionality, and families to examine how cisnormativity operates within family dynamics and processes. This article also focuses on work about trans people and families to capture how cisnormative processes within families affect trans people's familial relations. ResultsThe authors advance a trans family systems framework to show how families' cisgender investments and divestments shape familial processes. The concept of cisnormative compliance is introduced to capture the beliefs and practices of obedience established by family members for the purpose of reproducing cisnormativity. Family studies can move forward in studying these cisnormative processes through documenting how gender accountability shapes family dynamics, implementing new methods, furthering an intersectional analysis, and exploring complexities of space and place. ConclusionTo reimagine gender and families, family scholars need to study and foreground how cisnormativity shapes family dynamics and processes.
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This content will become publicly available on October 1, 2026
Unionized Against Cisnormativity: How Siblings of Transgender Youth Divest from Family Gender Norms
Families are a key institution that reproduce and resist gender inequalities. For instance, families can maintain or challenge cisnormativity—a gender structure that erases, marginalizes, and harms trans people. However, beyond studying highly supportive parents of trans children, scholars lack a full understanding of how family members divest from cisnormativity. Furthermore, overfocusing on parents ignores how children and youth, including siblings, also challenge gender norms within families. Using interviews with 52 trans youth, who are mainly trans youth of color, this article examines how siblings of trans youth divest from cisnormativity and help trans youth achieve gender recognition when parents are unsupportive or ambivalent. We find that siblings recognize and support trans youth’s gender through both passive (such as nonchalantly accepting their trans sibling) and active (such as using correct names and pronouns) gender-supportive practices. We also introduce the concept of counterhegemonic accountability to describe how siblings hold accountable family members who misrecognize trans youth’s gender. Together, siblings and trans youth challenge cisnormativity at home and within the broader society. To understand the complex ways gender norms change in and through families and within society, gender scholars need to study sibling relationships.
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- PAR ID:
- 10658447
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Gender & Society
- Volume:
- 39
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 0891-2432
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 748 to 773
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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