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  1. Abstract Objective

    This study documents the importance of grandparents for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) Latinx youth and how cisnormativity shapes these relationship dynamics.

    Background

    Most research on LGBTQ+ youth's family relations centers on the parent–child relationship. Grandparents are important for racially marginalized families, particularly Latinx families. Additionally, Latinx LGBTQ+ youth are impacted by precarious familismo—the disparate experiences with family members in which their gender and sexuality are simultaneously accepted and rejected.

    Method

    The data for this project are from the Family Housing and Me (FHAM) project, a landmark longitudinal study on the impact of non‐parental relatives on the lives of LGBTQ+ youth. This paper analyzes a subsample of 35 qualitative interviews with Latinx LGBTQ+ youth (16–19 years old) who live in South Texas or the Inland Empire of California, the majority of whom are transgender or nonbinary.

    Results

    Grandparents played an important role in the lives of Latinx LGBTQ+ youth interviewees, including providing many of the positive benefits of familismo. The youth also described “disparate experiences” of precarious familismo in how their grandparents simultaneously attempted identity support of their gender identities and reinforced cisnormativity. Youth often navigated these experiences by expressing low expectations that their grandparents would fully understand their gender identities, which we refer to asgenerational gender expectations.

    Conclusion

    Research on LGBTQ+ youth should integrate the study of non‐parental relatives to fully understand support networks and family systems for LGBTQ+ youth. Additionally, cisnormativity plays an important role in family life and familismo.

     
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available June 1, 2025
  2. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth experience disproportionate mental health challenges due to minority stress. Little research, however, has considered how social support from intragenerational friends impacts the mental health of LGBTQ youth, particularly for LGBTQ youth of color. Based mainly on qualitative interviews from a longitudinal study with 83 LGBTQ youth from California and Texas, we develop the concept of intersectional social support—how multiply marginalized individuals subjectively interpret social support and how they view social support from similar multiply marginalized others. More specifically, the findings of this study capture how the intersecting identities of age, sexuality, gender, and race can shape the meanings and experiences of receiving familial support, emotional support, informational support, and instrumental support. This study is an important contribution to understanding how intersecting identities influence how people perceive social support practices and manage their mental health.

     
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  3. Research on youth can miss important aspects of their lives if this work focuses only on the parent-child relationship. This focus can also overlook Black feminist interventions to understanding the roles of othermothers and can miss how nonparental relatives such as aunts may provide support, housing stability, and safety for youth. On the basis of a mixed-methods longitudinal study with 83 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth in South Texas and the Inland Empire of California, the authors intervene through examining how aunts’ supportive practices shape LGBTQ youth’s experiences of housing stability and safety. The findings empirically demonstrate how LGBTQ-supportive aunting practices, such as educating other family members about LGBTQ people and housing an LGBTQ nibling, actively challenge cisheteronormativity. This study moves forward research on family processes by not focusing on parent-child relationships or LGBTQ “families of choice” to instead examining how aunts can support LGBTQ youth, disrupt cisheteronormativity, and prevent LGBTQ youth from becoming unhoused.

     
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