Aunts are a key source of support for LGBTQ+ youth, study says

Aunts, whether they’re blood relatives or people who have chosen this role, provide significant support to LGBTQ+ youth, says a new research paper.

That support is often both emotional and practical, including housing for young people, according to the paper, “Aunties, Aunts, and Tías: The Forgotten Othermother Supporting and Housing LGBTQ Youth,” published in Socius, an open-access journal of the American Sociological Association.

The paper looked at the role of these people and “othermothers” — a term common in the Black community for those who assist a birth or adoptive mother — in families in Southern California’s Inland Empire and in south Texas, which have not been the subject of extensive LGBTQ-related study. The authors interviewed 83 young people in the summer of 2022.

“Aunts and othermothers play a critical role in the lives of LGBTQ youth,” the authors wrote. “For the LGBTQ youth in this study, aunts provided gender-affirming and queer and trans support, along with anticipatory support for housing and actual housing support for their niblings [a gender-neutral term for the child of a sibling]. Like Black othermothers, aunts of all racial backgrounds brought an ethic of care and social responsibility toward the well-being of their LGBTQ niblings. Aunts acted as a buffer between the youth and other family members, especially parents, and provided consistent loving and affirming support.”

Aunts and othermothers are often less invested than parents in the idea that young people must conform to traditional heterosexual and cisgender roles, the authors noted. “Parents, especially fathers, are often consciously aware of trying to make their sons live up to hegemonic ideals of masculinity, and mothers often assume their children are heterosexual, discuss love and dating in terms of heterosexuality, and may erase LGBTQ people from their children’s lives,” they reported. Aunts and othermothers may therefore allow youth more freedom and acceptance, and that is one reason it’s important to study these relationships, they commented.

The authors are Brandon Robinson, an associate professor at the University of California, Riverside, and chair of its Gender and Sexuality Studies Department; Javania Michelle Webb, a postdoctoral student at UC Riverside; and Amy L. Stone, a sociology and anthropology professor at Trinity University in San Antonio.

“This study joins other scholars in not only decentering the nuclear family but also in interrogating what is missed in the lives of LGBTQ youth (and youth more generally) if scholars only focus on parent-child dynamics,” the authors explained. “One thing missed is potentially how adult nonparental relatives can be a main source of social support, including housing support, for youth.”

The paper is part of the research of the Family, Housing, and Me Project, a long-term study of LGBTQ+ youth, of which Robinson and Stone are leaders.