Intentional Families: Fictive Kin Ties Between Cross‐Gender, Different Sexual Orientation Friends

This study explores the nature of intentional family relationships between friends of different genders and different sexual orientations. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 46 members of 23 friendship dyads, I first make the case that the friends considered one another family and I specify the criteria they use for making such designations. I then focus on the ways in which gender and sexual orientation influenced relationships between lesbians and straight men and between gay men and straight women. The data provided evidence that the dyad members identified one another as family and served the functions of family for each other. The findings also suggest that various gender issues affect cross-gender, different sexual orientation relationships. Exploring the meaning and functioning of these intentional family ties documents their existence and illuminates their meaning and maintenance. Key Words: family, fictive kin, friendship, gender, sexual orientation. There is a pervasive cultural belief that biolegal family connections are the most salient and durable bonds between individuals. They are reinforced through customs, rituals, and laws that privilege familial relationships over nonkin ties and determine who may be defined as family. As experienced, however, family life often diverges from normative definitions. This study explores one type of divergence: the mutual experience of friendship as family in close friendships between gay men and straight women and between lesbians and straight men. This work builds on prior research about experiences of family relationships with nonkin. Through discourse (Gubrium & Holstein, 1990) and practice (Stack, 1974), friends often are defined as family. For many gay men and lesbians, friendship and family are combined into chosen family networks (Weston, 1991) that typically comprise not only other gay men and lesbians but also some straight people (Oswald, 2002; Weston) who presumably deem the gay men and lesbians to be family members as well. Virtually, no previous research has examined the mutuality of gay men and lesbians serving as chosen family for their straight friends. This study explores close friendships between gay men and straight women and between lesbians and straight men to learn how each feels about and enacts these fictive family ties. EXISTING LITERATURE ABOUT FRIENDSHIP AND FAMILY There is a considerable overlap in the functions that friends and family serve (Fehr, 1996). Trust, respect, caring, and intimacy have been identified as attributes of friends, family, and romantic relationships (Wilmot & Shellen, 1990). Friendships are less regulated than romantic relationships by social norms, receive less time, are less exclusive, and are easier to dissolve (Wiseman, 1986; Wright, 1985); thus, friendship is, at once, the most flexible and most tenuous of social relationships. In contrast, family is a regulated social institution that is expected to provide material and social care and connection to its members (Cherlin, 2002). Although definitions of family are socially and legally contested, the functions that families serve are similar regardless of who performs the tasks. That is, various forms of work including emotional support, financial assistance, and care throughout the life course lie at the center of family life (Carrington, 1999; Hartmann, 1981; Hochschild & Machung, 1989). These functions are important to the extent that people who lack or are alienated from desired family support often build fictive kinship networks (Weston, 1991). The pervasive notion that there is only one definition of family has been challenged by contemporary kinship studies (Stacey, 1996; Weston, 1991). For instance, chosen family structures of gay men and lesbians typically comprise partners, former partners, and friends and may also include biolegal family members (Nardi, 1999; Weston). These structures provide social and instrumental support in a reciprocal and voluntary manner (Carrington, 1999; Nardi; Stacey, 1998). …