Abstract
Purpose
Typically understood in the United States to be a “protective” institution, the family is often a site of isolation and rejection for many transgender (trans), gender nonconforming, and nonbinary (TGNCNB) people. This paper introduces the concept of the “bad parents narrative” to describe the connections between isolation and rejection of TGNCNB people as a form of gender-policing, particularly of TGNCNB young people of color, as a structural arrangement that goes beyond simple “bad parents”.
Method
Through a methodological framework coined Critical Ethnographic Criminology, which includes people-based methods of interviews, this article includes evidence from interviews with eight TGNCNB people living across the United States to express how their experiences with gender policing from family shows more of a nuanced understanding of policing from family than simply “bad parents”.
Results
Findings from Black TGNCNB peoples’ experiences with gender-policing from family showed a noticeable understanding of their potential vulnerability to law enforcement and societal violence.
Conclusions
This article encourages research in the areas of queer family policing to divert from the “bad parents narrative”, because of its racialized suggestions and Black families particular understandings of their proximities to the carceral state. This article encourages more focus on the family as an institutional regime of power, and how that institution is permeated with policing and surveillance logics that are influenced by policing and law enforcement institutions. Ultimately, this paper seeks to contribute to criminological definitions of policing and surveillance, not only related to the experiences of TGNCNB people, but also for gendered and racialized people more broadly.
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Notes
The wedding-industrial complex refers to the industry of businesses and costs that exist under capitalism and are fed in society through ideas that monogamous marriage is the ultimate goal. (Ferguson, 2017).
“Chosen families are nonbiological kinship bonds, whether legally recognized or not, deliberately chosen for the purpose of mutual support and love” (Gates, 2017).
4 Brandon is a pseudonym given by the researcher to keep Love’s full identity confidential.
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Stephens, A. The “Bad Parents”: Gender-Policing of Trans, Gender Nonconforming, and Nonbinary People in U.S. Families. J Fam Viol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-023-00623-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-023-00623-6