Queer Stepfamilies - The Path to Social and Legal Recognition Book

RELEASE DATE - 27 JULY 2021

A compelling examination of the social and legal experiences of lesbian, bisexual, and queer stepparent families.

Lesbian, bisexual, and queer families formed after the dissolution of a marriage face a range of obstacles. In Queer Stepfamilies, Katie L. Acosta offers a wealth of insight into their complex experiences as they negotiate parenting among multiple parents and family-building in a world not designed to meet their needs. Drawing on in-depth interviews, Acosta follows the journeys of more than forty families as they navigate a legal and social landscape that fails to recognise their existence.

Acosta contextualises the legal realities of LGBTQ stepparent families and considers the actions these parents take to protect their families in the absence of comprehensive policies or laws geared to meet their needs. Queer Stepfamilies reveals the obstacles these families face in family courts during divorce proceedings and custody cases, and highlights their distrust of courts when it comes to acting in their children’s best interests, especially in the event of an origin parent’s death.

As LGBTQ families continue to make social and legal strides in acceptance and recognition, this important book shows how queer stepparents find ways to make their unconventional families work, despite the many social and legal obstacles they encounter. Acosta provides a fresh perspective, broadening our understanding about families in the twenty-first century.

"This is a fantastic and important book. Putting forth profound and often heartbreaking narratives about the struggles and strengths of LBQ stepparent families, Katie L. Acosta advocates for family forms that resist the limited―and limiting―terms used to describe them today. Queer Stepfamilies offers the reader useful roadmaps and pathways for better understanding these complexities."
Carla A. Pfeffer, author of Queering Families: The Postmodern Partnerships of Cisgender Women and Transgender Men

"While grounded in academic research, the book generally avoids jargon, quotes extensively from the family interviews, and feels readable for anyone interested in the subject ... Those engaged in plural parenting will likely value this book for sharing the stories, solutions, and struggles of others in similar situations. Others involved with supporting, advocating for, or writing about LGBTQ families in general should read it, too, in order to better understand the full range of what being part of a queer family may encompass."
Mombian

"Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than forty US families, Acosta contextualises the legal realities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer stepparent families and considers the actions that these parents take to protect their families in the absence of comprehensive policies or laws geared to meet their needs."
Law and Social Inquiry