The Game of Queer Family Life: Exploring 2SLGBTQI+ Parents’ Experiences of Cisheteronormativity, Racism, and Colonialism Through Digital Storytelling in Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT

In this article we describe and analyze five videos created through an arts-informed research project, Precarious Inclusion: Studying Ontarian 2SLGBTQI+ parents’ experiences childrearing in a post-legal parity framework. Precarious Inclusion used interviews and digital storytelling to investigate Ontario 2SLGBTQI+ parents’ current experiences of inclusion and exclusion when navigating institutional and social interactions in everyday life in a post-legal parity context. The study centrally explored how intersecting identities with regards to sexuality, gender, geography, disability, class, race, Indigeneity, and ethnicity intersect with structural forces to influence 2SLGBTQI+ parents’ inclusion and exclusion experiences. We examine research creation activities that supported 2SLGBTQI+ parents in making short videos about their experiences of parenting. Our analysis of the five videos created by Indigenous, racialized, trans, nonbinary, Two-Spirit, and disabled parents show how consistent experiences of exclusion mark 2SLGBTQI+ parents’ everyday lives. We deepen theorizations of the material and psychological impacts of exclusion for 2SLGBTQI+ families through foregrounding three themes: 1) the operations of racism, white supremacy, and colonialism in makers’ lives; 2) misrecognition and its psychic effects of bifurcation and disjuncture; and 3) love, joy, and multi-species kinship as powerful sites of healing and belonging. We further demonstrate how parents used their videos as self-advocacy for resisting precarious inclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• 2SLGBTQI+ parenting
• digital storytelling
• exclusion
• intersectionality
• bifurcation
• multi-species kinship
• white supremacist colonialism

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge the Precarious Inclusion digital storymakers for generously sharing their time, creativity, and stories. Thank you also goes to all the study participants for Precarious Inclusion, the Re·Vision facilitation team, particularly Hannah Fowlie and Calla Evans, and Kat Singer for their creative making and consultation. Lastly, thank you to Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for generously funding Precarious Inclusion through an Insight Development Grant and Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that most data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials. Interview data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Julia Gruson-Wood, upon reasonable request https://revisioncentre.ca/game-of-queer-family-life.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Insight Development Grant [430602]; Leaders Opportunity Fund [(#217843]; Canadian Foundation for Innovation [CFI #35254]; Canada Research Chair Program [(# 460921].