CREATIVE NON-FICTION
My Polyamorous, Queer, and Trans Experience of Family
When family becomes a revolving door of warmth and love
People in the highly stigmatized communities that I belong to often call me their brother, even when they barely know me.
They often offer this family status when I share some of the painful parts of my family story or if I’ve listened to part of theirs. I’ve gladly accepted this label from near strangers. I know from experience that the cost of being ourselves can be the loss of nearly everyone we’ve ever loved.
In fact, I’ve known several people who lost absolutely everyone and started over from scratch. Knowing this, I’m always happy to be someone’s chosen brother, even if only for a short time, until they find their real chosen family.
Besides, there’s a kind of intimacy in being hated together. It binds us, obligating us to listen, to commiserate, to amplify each others’ voices in the whisper network of our people, to help in any way that we can. We can’t be certain that someone else will pick up the ball that we drop in a world where we can’t necessarily count on the people who grew up with us nor the people institutionally chosen to protect us to see us as human.
There is no legal institution to support my concept of family.
I have a wife, but we are both polyamorous and relationship anarchists. We are both trans and queer. Though we lovingly honor our rather vague wedding vows for a lifelong bond, neither of us feels entitled to be the other’s most important relationship. I promised to be their accomplice; that is who I am to them, however our relationship may evolve over time.
If my wife wanted to have or raise a child with another person, I would happily support them and any metamour(s) this involved to whatever degree they wanted. If I wanted to have a spouse-like partnership with other people, my wife would support me in forming that bond, as long as they don’t wear shoes in any home my wife is living in. That’s non-negotiable.
Unfortunately, the legal ramifications of the sorts of families we could build would be riddled with institutional and social power dynamics. We’ve already seen this play out in our other relationships. It’s difficult to overlook that we’re socially seen as the “legitimate” couple, complicating public displays of affection, among many other things.
- I’ve seen people do doubletakes as I held hands with my wife and another romantic partner simultaneously on a walk through a park or on a beach.
- A server in a restaurant once treated me warmly and gave my wife the cold shoulder in retaliation for having seen them on a date with a different partner the previous evening. In a community that mostly flies under the radar, it’s understandable that the server would have assumed I was the unwitting victim of cheating, since we were wearing the rings that made us the “official” partners by societal standards.
- When a coworker spotted me holding hands with a partner who they knew wasn’t my wife, I had to worry about how that would impact me at work.
- When my biological family members learned that we were polyamorous, on the same day that they learned my wife is trans and we are queer, we received a mountain of judgment. I was called “disloyal”. My wife was accused of making plans to leave me. There were soon outside demands that we get divorced. Most family members could not fathom a relationship in which we had other partners and had every intention of honoring our commitments.
Family estrangement doesn’t always come with a dramatic argument or fight. Sometimes it does. I’ve experienced that. Sometimes, it comes with a choice every day to never send a text. That can be a slow burn of loss that never feels quite certain as time slips through your fingers. Sometimes blood just separates as people grow apart in the differences between us. If a blood bind cannot keep people together, even chosen family can become a revolving door of intense but often temporary love.
Family doesn’t have to be forever to be real. Love doesn’t have to be permanent to be true. Some loves can stay in our lives for longer than others, but every last one is special and irreplaceable.
I’ve learned something from both my biological and chosen family. Family doesn’t have to be forever to be real. Love doesn’t have to be permanent to be true. Some loves can stay in our lives for longer than others, but every last one is special and irreplaceable.
I remember a holiday shortly before the Pandemic began.
We weren’t welcomed to my biological family’s house for their traditional dinner. I forget the official reason that was given for the lack of invitation, if any story was offered that time. We didn’t argue or try to force our way into a situation where our presence was not wanted. Instead, I spent the evening with my wife, a metamour they loved, her partner, and a solid handful of friends who all felt very close at the time.
It was an incredible feast full of laughter and 16 absolutely delicious dishes. They ranged from a bourbon pecan pie that dissolved on your tongue to a kale salad containing 20 perfect mystery ingredients dipped in some delightful kitchen witchcraft to brown sugar mixed with black pepper coating meat that fell right off the bone. Everyone at that table, except my wife, has since scattered to the wind, but that night I felt like I had nothing less than a large, loving, hilarious family. In this moment, I choose to remember that warmth, rather than the many more individual losses that would follow that night.
Family loss is a part of life for most people.
Though any of us who live a long time are likely destined to lose more love and family connections than we ever imagined in this lifetime, we can always find more family and more warmth with the next turn of the revolving door for as long as we are here to receive it. We don’t stop caring about and loving the family that we’ve lost, but we can find new family to love in the wake of that loss.
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This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, May I Present My Queer Family.