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Beyond the Heterosexual Family Myth, or How to Queer the Family

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Queer Families in Hungary

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life ((PSFL))

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Abstract

In the previous chapters, I have given an overview the relationship of same-sex couples with their families of origin in the 2010s Hungary. In this concluding chapter, I will examine the implications of my results in terms of theoretical issues (such as interpretations of intimate citizenship and agency or approaches to Central and Eastern Europe) and of further research on this topic. With this, I wish to question some still taken-for-granted binaries and facilitate studies that examine families in all their queerness.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In some groups, like Jehova’s Witnesses, the whole of the congregation breaks ties with dissenting (e.g., non-heterosexual) members and all ties to the religious community are severed (Levy and Reeves 2011), so the person who comes out in this context loses both her/his social network and the space to practice her/his faith.

  2. 2.

    Except for the coming out story cited in Chapter 3, which is too melodramatic and incongruent to be true. Also, the mother ultimately went to the son to ask for his forgiveness and reintegrate him into the family.

  3. 3.

    This might in fact be true for stories of family rejection elsewhere; in the documentary American Vagabond about a gay couple who became homeless, it transpires that though they did hear homophobic remarks at home, they left on their own accord and were not literally driven away by their parents (in a similar situation, Kornélia does not leave). Instead of uncritically accepting the trope of the family who disowns its child, it is worth examining the circumstances and the actual actions that took place.

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    Rita Béres-Deák

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Béres-Deák, R. (2020). Beyond the Heterosexual Family Myth, or How to Queer the Family. In: Queer Families in Hungary . Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16319-8_7

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