Queer and trans people of color (QTPOC) are subject to myriad social contexts that shape their identity, sense of community, and experiences of oppression (Ghabrial, 2019; Huynh, 2023; Ramirez & Galupo, 2019; Sadika et al., 2020). Within the United States, QTPOC college students navigate stressors that lend to systemic and institutional factors influencing their persistence, well-being, and outness on campus (Coleman et al., 2020; Duran, 2021; Garvey et al., 2019). For many QTPOC college students, these forces are wrapped up in racism, heterosexism, and genderism that require more intricate interventions to attend to multiple forms of marginalization (Hutchings, 2024). Although administrators, campus leaders, and offices have attempted to develop efforts to address marginalization, they tend to employ unilateral solutions that omit intersections of oppression and refer to QTPOC students in monolithic ways (Coleman et al., 2020). Often, initiatives that target marginalization focus on one set of social and cultural groups, such as men of color, for community and mentorship support rather than outlining efforts that reflect the intersections among identities (e.g., queer and trans men of color; Hutchings, 2024). Such efforts overlook and can even exacerbate a multitude of outcomes related to belonging, community, and personal identity while in college, including social isolation (Blockett, 2017), family rejection (Patrón, 2021a, 2021b), concealment of sexuality and gender (Blockett et al., 2024; Hutchings, 2024), discrimination (Duran & Pérez, 2019; Patrón, 2021c), and classism (Coleman et al., 2020).

Aside from the overlap between forces of oppression, QTPOC college student experiences are mediated by cultural and familial dynamics that influence their expression of sexual, affectional, and gender identities while navigating multiple salient identities (Munoz & D'Aniello, 2020; Patrón, 2021a). Some QTPOC college students reference chosen family at college as the catalyst for reinforcing their identities (Blockett, 2017; Duran & Pérez, 2019), while other QTPOC college students characterize families as reflective of larger systems of power and oppression that incite rejection (Patrón, 2021a). The confluence between forces of oppression in addition to racial, sexuality, class, and gender dynamics have grown in interest for family studies research (Few-Demo, 2014; Few-Demo & Allen, 2020; Gonzalez et al., 2023; Robinson, 2018). Notably, intersectionality and the needs of QTPOC have become an interest for the expansion of family studies, as more research is needed to uncover the impact of cultural dynamics and structural oppression for QTPOC (Abreu et al., 2020; Fish et al., 2024; Reczek, 2020).

Higher education represents a transitory period of QTPOC identity development, realization of social justice, and community sensemaking (Duran, 2021). For QTPOC college students, collegiate environments can bolster opportunities for discovering chosen family, connectedness, and identity expression (Blockett, 2017; Duran & Perez, 2019) yet reveal the complicated attachment to family-of-origin figures in light of cultural preservation and collectivism (Huynh, 2023; Patrón, 2021b). Families of origin and chosen families are not necessarily mutually exclusive (Abreu et al., 2020). Although recent studies highlight how systems of power connect with family relationships with queer Latinx (Duran & Pérez, 2019; Patrón, 2021a) and queer and trans Black college students (Blockett, 2017), higher education and family studies research can benefit from a closer examination through the broader spectrum of QTPOC college students (Duran, 2021) with the lens of intersectionality (Coleman et al., 2020). In the current study, we conducted a narrative inquiry centering the narratives of nine QTPOC college students through 18 interviews and nine journal entries to address the following research questions:

1. How do QTPOC college students describe the influence and navigation of their family relationships during their time in higher education?
2. How do structures of power inform how QTPOC college students navigate their family relationships during their time in higher education?

RESEARCH ON QTPOC AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

Research related to QTPOC has documented how intersecting forms of oppression produce adverse effects on QTPOC youth and emerging adults. Although research on the broader spectrum of QTPOC has emerged across the past decade, the area unifying family studies, collegiate contexts, and intersectionality is still nascent (Coleman et al., 2020). For instance, Toomey et al. (2017) found that the majority of research reports since 1990 concentrated on outcomes and disparities related to health yet neglected contextual factors, social and familial relationships, identity development, or cultural strengths of sexual minority youth of color. Indeed, systems of power laden with differing statuses of privilege and oppression overlap with family relationships (Few-Demo, 2014; Robinson & Stone, 2024). Schmitz et al. (2020) illustrated several intersectional stressors for LGBTQ+ Latino/a young adults, including daily anti-LGBTQ+ reactions, religious pressure from their families, and preservation of mental health through identity concealment, while acknowledging the importance of supportive family relationships. In a qualitative study conducted by Robinson (2018), the confluence of race and sexuality created possible tensions of family instability, which challenged their sense of belonging or increased the risk of being policed by family for their sexuality and gender. Notable to both studies, the confluence of race, sexuality, gender, and class often encouraged QTPOC youth to vacillate between identities simply to survive chronic environments of instability and discrimination within their own families.

Relevant to the current study, Sadika et al. (2020) highlighted that some LGBTQ persons of color may have found familial silence about sexual and gender identity to be protective and that coming out could be a fluid decision based on family politics, dynamics, and personal self-preservation. For some QTPOC in Black and Latinx families, family members may enact cisnormativity as a protection strategy to offset the effects of race, gender, and class violence, thereby reinforcing the mechanisms of gender policing (Robinson & Stone, 2024). In this case, adhering to binary gender norms and maintaining gender expressions of assigned birth gender become strategies to shield family members from racism and classism. Similar to studies by Acosta (2010, 2013), mothers of sexually nonconforming Latinas promoted femininity as a strategy for career access and economic success. Patrón (2021a) further discussed this strategy of self-preservation in a study of queer Latino men in college. In the study, participants indicated how adherence to Latino cultural values and familismo led to the downplaying of sexual identity and the desire to relocate from home, yet finding familial connections in college supported the ability to come out and defy traditional Latino norms. Based on these empirical trends, gender expression and sexual identity often function in tandem with race and class (Coleman et al., 2020) that lead to the suppression of gender and sexual identities to honor racial, cultural, and class implications of families (Acosta, 2013; Hutchings, 2024).

Indeed, family relationships reveal complicated layers that impact the coming out process and reflect structures of power reflected in response to identity. Abreu et al. (2020) focused on Latinx fathers' involvement and acceptance of sexual minority children, where participants discussed that cultural familial values both challenged and promoted their acceptance of their children. Similarly, a qualitative study from Munoz and D'Aniello (2020) illustrated how Latinx LGBQ young adults expressed how the conflicts between identities—namely, sexual identity and religion—could impact family closeness and manifest as a continuous process.

Institutional factors serve as a driving force that enacts systems of power that could replicate structural forms of oppression and inequity, which are often reflected in the context of family relationships. In an ethnography conducted by Huynh (2023), queer Asian participants named that their definition of family was shaped by the culture and politics of the institution, such as a community resource, center, or school. This finding hints at much of the recent empirical research in higher education that centers populations of QTPOC college students. For instance, Blockett (2017) found that Black queer men in college valued spaces and community that emulated kinship among other multiply marginalized groups, given that most LGBTQ-affirming spaces implicitly cater to White communities. In addition to crucial connections formed among student communities, participants in the Duran and Pérez (2019) study identified how positive connections with mentors, staff, and faculty encouraged them to explore the intersection of being queer and Latino, along with resistance strategies to advocate for underrepresented groups, Although mentorship programs mimic kinship and family relationships, Black queer male participants in the Hutchings (2024) study alluded to the lack of support for sexual and gender expression in men of color mentorship programs, while reinforcing harmful and monolithic masculine practices to maintain ties to the community. Some recent studies offered a compelling critique that focusing solely on chosen family or kinship in higher education institutions and research runs the risk of overlooking the significance of family of origin within intersectional analyses of QTPOC college students (Blockett, 2017; Coleman et al., 2020).

INTERSECTIONALITY AS PARADIGM

Intersectionality has grown exponentially across scholarly disciplines and has received substantial attention within the field of family studies (see Curtis et al., 2020; Few-Demo, 2014; Few-Demo & Allen, 2020). Invoked initially by women of color and queer women of color (e.g., Collins, 1986; Crenshaw, 1989), intersectionality provides a lens to examine structural forms of oppression that affect the livelihood, well-being, and rights of multiply marginalized communities (Bowleg, 2021; Curtis et al., 2020). Although intersectionality has grown vastly across numerous disciplines, Collins and Bilge (2020) postulated that intersectionality most commonly comprises six themes: power, social context, social inequality, complexity, relationality, and social justice. Power is defined by how systems devalue the access and influence of multiply marginalized communities in an effort to sanction marginalization (Crenshaw, 1989). As a result, applying intersectionality requires attention to power, especially how it is woven into the conditions of a system (e.g., school, family) and how it disadvantages historically marginalized communities (Bowleg, 2021; Grzanka, 2020). Social context refers to the background (e.g., institution, rural, Midwest) that orchestrates an organization of power relations, including how certain multiply marginalized groups experience privilege and oppression (Collins & Bilge, 2020; Grzanka, 2020). Social inequality indicates how multiply marginalized groups are habitually excluded from larger initiatives and protections or denigrated for their cultural experiences and assets (Bowleg, 2021; Collins, 1986). Complexity describes the intracategorical complications when accounting for intersections between social identities and their corresponding forms of oppression (Collins & Bilge, 2020). Relationality is defined by the interconnections of oppression signaling that racism does not exist without other forms of oppression (e.g., heterosexism, genderism, classism; Collins, 2019). Additionally, intersectional analyses incorporate a social justice ethos characterized by an actionable agenda with strategies to dismantle structural manifestations of power (Bowleg, 2021; Bowleg et al., 2023). To this end, family studies researchers have encouraged a priority on the cultural and political processes within families, such as racialized processes, rather than simply examining intersections among identities (Few-Demo, 2014). Because our research questions integrated complex forces of oppression and power within families and collegiate contexts, intersectionality underscores the lens for how QTPOC intricately navigate their family relationships while interpreting structures of power within families and collegiate contexts.

THE CURRENT STUDY

For multiple QTPOC communities, navigating family relationships are laden with complex cultural and political dynamics that substantiate their connection to a higher education institution (Coleman et al., 2020; Duran, 2021). Creating a sense of family, whether from members of family of origin or chosen family, is a complex process, as QTPOC sometimes physically relocate away from their families of origin and find other kinship networks (Huynh, 2023). However, QTPOC may still feel attached to certain family members to honor racial, ethnic, and cultural values (Sadika et al., 2020). Similarly, collegiate environments represent sociopolitical institutions that influence how QTPOC students define family (Duran & Pérez, 2019; Huynh, 2023). Contextual and environmental factors that exacerbate racism within mainstream LGBTQ+ communities and heterosexism within racial/ethnic communities can also heighten incidents of family rejection (Sadika et al., 2020). On the other hand, collegiate environments can serve as a site that promotes belonging, a sense of home, or a sanctuary (Blockett, 2017; Coleman et al., 2020). Using narrative inquiry and the framework of intersectionality, we used two research questions to guide the current study:

1. How do QTPOC college students describe the influence and navigation of their family relationships during their time in higher education?
2. How do structures of power inform how QTPOC college students navigate their family relationships during their time in higher education?

METHOD

In tandem with intersectionality, we used narrative inquiry as a methodology to frame the study. Narrative inquiry is interested in locating places, times, and memories of participants while allowing them to uncover insights about themselves (Polkinghorne, 1995). Narrative inquiry lends itself to stories that move beyond a siloed experience, where participants have opportunities to deepen stories about their daily lives. Lending to a three-dimensional space, Clandinin and Connelly (2000) outlined that stories chronicle the past, present, and future as participants engage profound moments of their experience. As a result, we were interested in the personal and social interactions; continuity of past, present, and future; and situation, location, and place (Ollerenshaw & Creswell, 2002). Given the premise of the critical paradigm of intersectionality, critical narrative inquiry elicits further insights to expand on social conditions and cultural nuances that shape the lives of participants and how they tell their stories (Pino Gavidia & Adu, 2022).

Participants

We sought participants who reflected the heterogeneity of QTPOC students. Participants who completed the study confirmed that they were (a) 18 years or older; (b) LGBTQ+; (c) Black, Indigenous, or a person of color; and (d) enrolled in college. Our study yielded nine participants who identified across a spectrum of races, genders, and sexualities. Relevant to social context, participants were located primarily in the Midwest and the South (Table 1).

Procedure

After receiving approval from our respective institutional review boards, we employed purposeful criterion sampling, snowball sampling, and maximum variation sampling (see Patton, 2015). Reflecting purposeful criterion sampling, we first sent calls for participants through flyers posted to social media to expand the broad range of diversity within the United States, while allowing eligible participants to self-select based on the inclusion criteria. Flyers included information about the study, an email to contact for their interest, and inclusion criteria. Later, we emailed advertisements and flyers to several professional listservs that catered to higher education and student affairs professionals. Lastly, we distributed flyers through multicultural student services centers to reach their network of students. As participants completed the study, we also shared the flyer with them to distribute to their networks as a type of snowball sampling.

Participants who were interested received instructions to contact the research team for follow-up, where we provided a copy of the informed consent and a questionnaire to complete. Participants identified pseudonyms and labeled their identities through the demographic questionnaire to give further confirmation of their eligibility for the study. As we verified eligibility, we narrowed down from a larger pool of 129 respondents and applied maximum variation sampling by examining responses to demographic questions of race, sexuality, gender identity, regional location, activities, spirituality, and year in program. Given the research questions, we aimed to diversify the range of racial, sexual, and gender identities featured in the study and invited the selected participants to complete interviews and journal entries. Participants who completed all procedures in the study received a $50 gift card.

Data collection

To expand the depth of the narrative for each participant, we elicited multiple rounds of data collection through semistructured interviews and one reflection journal. On the Zoom videoconferencing platform, two members of the research team conducted two semistructured interviews with each participant, where interviews consisted of 60 to 90 minutes. In both interview protocols, we highlighted the composition of the research team, including our connection to the study, the purpose of the study, and the protection of the participants, to facilitate a stronger relationship with participants. Eliciting the connections among identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexuality), the first interview predominantly concentrated on the stories, moments, and definitions shaping family relationships, including the influence of social identities and cultural nuances within family. As an example, the first interview featured this sample question: “Please tell us another story about your relationship with a family member that may not have been affirming of you and your identities.” To harness more elements of intersectionality, the second interview explored questions on social context and offered opportunities for participants to discuss stories about the structural forms of oppression within their institutions and contexts that affected their ability to create chosen family. For example, we asked the following sample question: “What are some ways that racism, heterosexism, or other forms of oppression have informed your family relationships?” Between the first and second interviews, we asked participants to complete a journal to deepen their meaning making of families by asking how family relationships influenced their identities within BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities and how interlocking systems of marginalization have shaped their familial networks. Participants wrote their journals as an open-ended response to the question and could write as little or as much as possible to deepen their connection to the topics of the study. Once they completed their journal entry, they submitted the responses to the research team via email.

Data analysis

To elicit a robust narrative, we applied a series of sequential procedures to best reflect the framework of narrative inquiry and the paradigm of intersectionality. Upon receiving interview transcriptions and the written journal entry, each research team member was assigned to three participants respectively to complete the first stage of restorying. Restorying retrieves key elements of a participant's story by combining excerpts from participant data and written insights from the researcher to collate the information (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) and provide insights using a given paradigm (Polkinghorne, 1995), which, in this case, was intersectionality. After the assigned research team member completed the restoried narratives for three participants respectively, the other two research team members who were primarily involved in data collection with the assigned participant then evaluated the restoried narrative for fidelity to the participant's story.

Upon the completion of the restorying process, we used three additional cycles to distill the information further and identify larger themes throughout the study by applying coding procedures in Dedoose qualitative software. In the first cycle of coding, we employed the use of in vivo coding, which pinpoints precise words, terms, or language used by the participants to determine a code and define a passage within their stories (Miles et al., 2019). For the second cycle, we applied concept coding by using constructs formed from intersectionality as codes to explain suggested meanings and macro level ideas (Saldaña, 2021). Two research team members were assigned to apply in vivo coding and concept coding to the transcripts for six of the nine participants in which they were not responsible for restorying. After collecting in vivo codes and concept codes, we conducted a third cycle of coding by generating pattern coding to exemplify patterns within and across narratives that further distilled information into meaningful points (Saldaña, 2021). The research team member who restoried a particular narrative examined the in vivo codes and concept codes for their three assigned participants to develop the pattern codes. All three members reserved the final three data analysis group meetings to compare pattern codes and discuss which themes could organize certain narratives to amplify key categories. Throughout data analysis, we met weekly as a group every 1 to 2 weeks for 6 months to discuss initial impressions, maintain consistency, and foster a consensus.

Trustworthiness

To increase the trustworthiness of the findings (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), we incorporated four strategies that revealed the relationship of the researchers to the data. As a type of data triangulation (see Flick, 2018), we collected three sources of data from each participant, including two semistructured interviews and a journal entry, at different time points to expand narratives as much as possible. Given our differing social identities and positionalities, we introduced investigator triangulation as a second strategy by employing two research team members in co-interviewing participants and assigning different data analysis steps to each research team member. For instance, one research team member was tasked with restorying the narrative of a participant, while the other two research team members were responsible for completing multiple cycles of coding on the participant's narrative. Related to the third strategy, we conducted a member-check procedure by sending the restoried narratives to participants with the intention to honor their stories. Two participants responded with edits to their restoried narratives. The final strategy involved meeting every 1 to 2 weeks over the course of 6 months to review initial impressions, coding procedures, analytic memos, and impact on the data.

Researcher reflexivity

The first author is a queer cisgender Asian American male with Filipino, Chinese, and Malaysian heritages with a spiritual background as a pluralistic Catholic centered in liberation theology. Drawing on personal experiences with family, he was invested in the study at hand due to his advocacy for QTPOC communities while recognizing that his experiences of family were mediated by privileges associated with being cisgender and growing up in a middle-class family with support and access to financial resources. He was also mindful about his emotional connection to the study, given his own complex relationships with family of origin around sexual identity and spirituality. As a counselor education faculty member, he is primarily invested in intersectionality scholarship that aims to dismantle overlapping forces of oppression for QTPOC communities and families.

The second author is a White, able-bodied, queer cisgender woman who comes from a lower middle-class background. Her investment in the study was both personal and professional. Her scholarship is centered on addressing systemic inequities that inhibit the mental health and well-being of LGBTQ+ communities, particularly in the face of significant loss and grief. Through memos and debriefing, it was important to name the ways her privilege shaped her understanding of the racism, heterosexism, ableism, and other oppressions that participants faced.

The third author identifies as a Mexican, queer and cisgender man who comes from a working-class background. As a higher education scholar, he is deeply passionate about reimagining colleges and universities to further center QTPOC. During the course of the study, he was cognizant of his privileges as a non-Black person of color who is also cisgender. Each author is steeped in theoretical and empirical research on intersectionality through their body of work that led to complementary attention to power and social context yet contrasted in professional backgrounds with a diverse range across counseling, family studies, and higher education. The contrast highlighted different areas of focus in higher education mechanisms and environments within the coding procedures but was reconciled through added discussions that centered intersectionality as an analysis of power related to collegiate contexts.

FINDINGS

Nine participant narratives displayed a rich tapestry of navigating complex relationships among families of origin, chosen families, and the community of the institution. The narratives illuminated how participants recognized that their definitions and interactions with family often surfaced as a developmental process. Interactions with family shaped the personal development of participants, particularly as they learned to navigate their identities. They also shared the salience of their race/ethnicity intersecting with their LGBTQ+ identities with a recognition that the two could not be separated. We expand on these themes with participant excerpts from the interviews. We highlight particular narratives within each theme while acknowledging that their narratives inevitably apply to all findings.

Defining and engaging family as a constantly evolving process

For a multitude of participants, engaging with family interactions alluded to an ever-evolving process that highlighted the complications of maintaining family relationships. Despite conflicts related to sexual and gender identity, some participants maintained relationships with their family of origin partially due to cultural nuances and preservation of harmony. Other participants valued the relationships with their family of origin and expected that the process of connecting with family would likely result in consternation. As participants clarified the ongoing developmental process of engaging with family, some identified that their relationships with family members promoted their own personal and identity development.

Samantha: Reconciling identity with family

As a fourth-year graduate student and a Black cisgender lesbian woman, Samantha discussed an instance that contributed to perplexing moments in her family. She emphasized experiences with her coming out, as a friend had pressured her to disclose her sexuality to her mother:

And I eventually did come out to my mom first. … She cried, and I was just sitting there confused because she was trying to make it about her, too, and I was so confused because I was like, really, are we really doing this right now?

In coming out to her mother, Samantha shared how her father seemed confused and questioned her about her sexual identity: “I mean, my dad. I eventually told him. I think when I was like 24, and he was kinda in shock, but kinda not, he was just like, are you sure kind of thing?”

Although Samantha reflected on how she eventually reconciled her identity with her parents, she highlighted that many conversations fell silent around her relationships, particularly in the context of race, gender, and the South: “My parents, they know, but they never asked about my dating life. My grandmother didn't even ask anymore.” The silence affected her desire to visit family at home from college. Samantha highlighted the following story: “I wasn't in a hurry to get home. So, it's an easy drive. But I just did not go home often because then I'm like, okay. Now, do I have to play down who I really am?’ Samantha contemplated how her relationships with her family changed over time during college by expressing:

We remain close, but the closeness evolved in different way. It's like even now I love my mom. She sometimes called me twice a day or so, and I always thought that was normal to talk to your parents every day, and like, say, good night. I don't talk to my family every day, and I don't talk to them every day. And then that's when the real world hit. And I thought, okay, everyone's not as close to their family.

Although Samantha still felt close to family, she noted that the contact changed and had to reckon with feelings of isolation when family at home should have been a refuge from navigating her identities as a Black lesbian woman in an institution in the South.

Nova: Family solidified vulnerability and identity

Nova is a Black non-binary pansexual woman who is also a first-year graduate student. Nova relayed insights related to the definition of family, particularly as family were the people who allowed her to feel vulnerable and loved her for who she is. Nova shared stories about chosen family and family of origin who affirmed her queer and Black identities. For instance, Nova shared a story that characterized how a chosen family member shaped her queer identity:

We were actually roommates throughout undergrad … this person has seen me at my worst, this person has seen me at my best. And I feel like we have helped each other grow in terms of academically, or in our personal lives. This person has seen me struggle with my identities, especially when it comes to my LGBTQ identity.

Chosen family ultimately served as a prominent catalyst for Nova coming into her identities. Similarly, Nova cited her mother as the driving force for her identity as a Black woman:

My mother kind of raised my younger sister and I throughout Black girlhood and to Black womanhood. So yeah, my mom had a huge impact on how I identify as a Black woman through … listening to her stories through her own Black girlhood experience to Black womanhood experiences, the challenges that she faced, the challenges that we may face, or the challenges that we have faced. … That's probably why my identity as a Black woman is so salient to my identity, because that's something that I was around.

Experiences with chosen family and Nova's mother were starkly different from family members who rejected Nova's queer identity. Nova found a way to develop a perspective on disaffirming family members who could not embrace her queer identity:

But I guess other family members told my father's side of the family, who's very Christian, conservative. And [when they found out], I mean, I didn't feel betrayed or anything. … I don't think I'm like it's that something that I think about daily and like man, I really wish I can create … a relationship with them. It's more like oh, that's fine. I have my chosen family, and I have … my origin like family … who I consider family.

The lack of collegiate communities related to Black and queer identities for Nova led to feelings of isolation and exclusion during her time in college. Exclusion precipitated a desire to find safety to buffer these instances of silence around her sexuality:

I remember the first couple of years I talked about how I couldn't really find a strong sense of community [in college] or build a chosen family up here, so I felt lonely. I had my one chosen family member, but I felt guilty of me just pouring everything into her. And I'm like dang, I got to find other people, because she don't deserve this. So, I just went back to my origin family, my mom and my younger sister.

Marquise: Holding boundaries and silence impacting intersections

Marquise is a biracial Black and West Indian cisgender woman who identifies as bisexual and a second-year graduate student. Marquise noted a multitude of family dynamics surrounding her intersecting identities, which made her more cognizant about her social identities, the forces of oppression within her family, and her own boundaries on defining family. In recognizing chosen family, Marquise expressed more nuances on family relationships:

When I think about the closest people in my life who I am not blood related to, some of those are family members, like my cousins and some of them are really close friends. … I don't like refer to them as like … I don't call my friends my sisters … but they are that important to me, and I think we have a similar level of need and dependence.

Shaping her relationships with her family of origin, Marquise described the typical response to her queerness by showing a comparison point between her mom and her aunt:

But still, and especially my mom, is Caribbean. She is from Trinidad. … She was probably one of the most progressive members of her own family. … And I have memories of my late aunt being like overtly homophobic. So, there's all that right, we did not really grow up in households where queerness was really talked about.

The silence about queerness and the mixed responses from family members forced Marquise to oscillate between relationships and interactions with some family members to the point that Marquise eventually developed an ongoing interaction of broaching identity as subversion:

And so, when I finally came out at 19, you know, it was just because I was tired of hiding it. But that having to hide it, the little everyday choices you make in hiding it. You know, I have only recently begun to navigate what it is like to be a woman of color and a queer person at the same time when I go home.

Marquise had to tiptoe around conversations with certain family members when discussing certain types of oppression (e.g., colorism), yet many conflicts emerged once queerness was brought to the fore. Witnessing daily instances of oppression with Marquise with certain identities, which led to a suppression of those identities. Meanwhile, Marquise developed a fundamental relationship with a chosen family member by referring to her cousin, where she highlighted how their bond grew in college:

I would consider her to be one of my allies in our family system and our relationship that isn't the type that has had ups and downs. … And we so rarely get to that place of negativity or hurt with each other. Our relationship very much is effortless.

College also facilitated a space of relationships that altered her sense of home and family:

I've always been a person who's been out to friends and community, but not out to grown-ups or family members. And so, when I got to college, that was like another step towards the problem exists far away over there and the problem is this case is like my family members and I get to exist more or less totally authentically over here.

By separating herself from family of origin at home, she was able to express herself more freely in a collegiate context that was not rife with convergent forces of oppression. In doing so, she was not forced to suppress her identities.

Familial impact on identity development

Several participants described how their sense of family impacted their identity development. Some participants illustrated how their interactions with family made them more comfortable with their identities. For others, interactions with family members meant they had to keep their worlds separate, particularly their romantic life and family life.

Toño: Family assures exploration of identities

Toño is a Latino gay cisgender male in his first year of graduate school in the Midwest. Toño referred to multiple instances in his stories about family members who strongly affirmed his sense of identity and provided the environment to feel safe to have discussions about his identities, particularly sexual and racial identities. He cited his grandmother as one influential family member who provided a safe environment to blossom even more personally:

I know that I can open up to her. … I know that she will be there to support me, and she has mentioned that to me many times in a way I had to come out to her. … Her response very much was not “I'm not gonna judge you. You know what you're doing.”

This safety promoted more conversations about race/colorism that persisted within his family:

You know you guys are picking on something that I may feel like I am, I'm happy with my skin color. But you guys are maybe using it in a derogative way. So, I had to explain to her how that make me feel for her to understand and to try to avoid using those terms, even to describe other people. Which again, it's—it's a lot of, you know, years at least on her, like a lot of years great being raised like that and being thought that that was okay. … Her being able to open up. Or to be willing to hear what I was trying to say.

Related to racism and colorism, Toño illustrated how the safety of a family member buffered oppressive experiences from other family members. Leveraging a safe relationship with a family member who was willing to discuss race and colorism and even be challenged allowed for Toño to explore his identities more safely. Conversely, Toño shared stories about family who did not provide a safe environment, which affected his process of coming out. Referring to an uncle who espoused masculinity, he highlighted that his uncle consistently introduced insults that made Toño fearful of coming out or even sharing his identity with other family members: “He was unfortunately another person that … he scared me to come out mostly.” Toño clarified by explaining that his experience with his uncle caused him to adopt values to fit heteronormativity: “It's scared me to socialize sometimes with other straight people.” When discussing chosen family, however, Toño emphasized his spouse as crucial for affirming his identity as a way to resist restrictive views of masculinity and heteronormativity: “He allowed me to express that side of me … because even then, when I was growing up like even, I had an idea of do not be too feminine, do not be like ‘too queer’.”

Daniel: Family protects identity amid conflict

Daniel is a Latino gay cisgender male and a second-year graduate student. Daniel described a complexity of family experiences, particularly with his coming out, and referred to the experience of “kind of disowned, and then like reowned and then disowned again.” Daniel nonetheless characterized his mother as a primary source of support that protected him, especially in relation to discrimination for being gay from other family members:

At 12 years old, [my biological family] thought I was gonna be gay and like, bring shame to the family, and it's actually one of the reasons that my family had to [move]. When my parents divorced, we lived with my grandparents and we had to leave my grandparents' home because my grandfather was making comments about me being gay. And so, like she chose to like struggle and pay a higher rent at a time that she couldn't to protect me.

The similar support from his sister facilitated identity through the lens of intersectionality:

And this shaped my own understanding of who I was. I didn't want to be gay at school and then Mexican at home. I was both at all times. … The acceptance of my mom and sister to embrace what it meant to be Mexican American and gay as a teenager was colossal in how I was able to learn about myself before college.

Daniel highlighted how this positive experience with family members led him to be cognizant of problematic systems of power in his institution and how convergent types of prejudice often played a role in his collegiate environment—namely, interactions with the school context. Daniel also referenced another family member who was unsupportive of his gay identity to the point where being gay diminished his racial and ethnic identities, which became an attempt by this family member to police Daniel's identities:

I thought [we are] at least both Mexican, that we're both the children of immigrants. But then it would become like … “being gay was a White thing, not a Mexican thing.” He wanted me to go to another high school because he's like “this is what happens [i.e., being queer] for going to that fucking high school, like I told you not to go there.”

This unsupportive family member stood in stark contrast by attempting to diminish his identities and separate them to sanction discrimination.

Yami: Separate worlds and identities

Yami is a Latine gay cisgender woman and a third-year undergraduate student who was living at home and commuting to her institution. Yami noted that she “loved the way I grew up” and formed a positive relationship with certain family members yet described the ongoing separation of romantic life and family life, especially as she lived at home. With the gender norms in her family, Yami became selective about coming out and discussed how her gay identity differed in salience over time. The expression of her gender identity and gay identity overlapped and shifted in response to gender norms within her household, especially since she was living at home during college. Heterosexism within her communities had a profound impact on her family and subsequently how she labeled her sexual identity:

When I was younger, I always thought if she would tell other people they would feel bad for her … like, “Oh, my gosh, no! Your daughter likes girls that's bad.” … But when I was younger I used to identify as bisexual and then I learned about pansexuality. But then … I got so much discourse in my mind where certain people they didn't know what to do.

Gender norms also became a force for hurtful interactions with her family and how she navigated her gay identity. She highlighted a story of her dad commenting on her appearance: “It'd be like, ‘Don't cut your hair because you're going to look like a boy.’ And one time I just cut it. Anyway, he was like, ‘You look like a boy.’ I was so hurt, and I was crying.” The norms and slights from her family encouraged Yami to keep her romantic life and family life separate, although she had disclosed her identity to her sister and mother. Yami became more selective about her coming out process and disclosure of her gay identity by discussing how she did not want to make her mother feel uncomfortable.

I mean, like I'll tell her about people that I like, but I only talk about boys like I'm not going to talk about girls again. I don't want to. I don't want to make her uncomfortable, … and I like I love her, but I don't admit a lot of things from her.

Offering this context, Yami was mindful about being a college student who was abiding by her family norms in her parents' household. Despite going to a minority-serving institution with supports for QTPOC, she suppressed her gender expression and gay identity to accommodate the norms within her family.

Salience of intersection between racial identity and LGBTQ+ identity

Stories from participants reflected the complexities of their race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender identity intersecting throughout their experiences with family. The salience of their racial and ethnic identities shaped their definitions of family members, especially if they sought chosen family members among White LGBTQ+ communities in college. The connection between racial and LGBTQ+ identities was crucial to defining who belonged in their family. They felt more affirmed when they were able to connect with other QTPOC college students.

Jessie: “An extension of myself”

Jessie is a second-year graduate student and a genderqueer multiracial person who is Indigenous and White at a religiously affiliated and predominantly White institution. Jessie highlighted a combination of experiences that augmented the differences that cut across race among LGBTQ+ communities in trying to find family at their institution. Jessie expressed, “I feel like most of my life I've had to check boxes, and that's been really hard when a lot of my experiences don't really fit into a box.” Jessie elaborated on this complexity in tandem with their family relationships and explained their ties with Brian, a chosen family member at their college:

[Brian] kind of came in as like an older sibling in a lot of ways in the sense that I was like really struggling with a lot of things, and you know, like, and obviously there's some things he didn't understand. But he knew other, you know, non-cis, people that I could talk to, and you know other people of color that I could. And, I think he was just open to having me being in his life, and I don't know the reasons why necessarily. I mean, I think choosing your family is really weird. … I've just been rejected by a lot of people for a multitude of reasons, you know, and I just really struggled, finding community.

Despite the strength of their relationship, their interactions relayed instances where race, ethnicity, and gender came to the fore, which showed that microaggressions could persist among family members across differing racial and gender lines:

He identifies as a gay man, and so, sometimes he can be transphobic. And … he says some very racist things at times … just because that's how he was socialized and raised. But being able to just share like painful things that you that hurt me.

Although Jessie tried to make sense of the differences with Brian, this dynamic especially heightened Jessie's experiences of trauma, disownment, and oppression from family of origin. To experience the intersection of transphobia and racism from a chosen family member at their college was hurtful and reinforced many prejudices associated with Whiteness and gender from childhood and the college environment. However, Jessie discussed that this family member recognizes and apologizes for the incidents, which has been paramount to Jessie's definitions of family: “But having come back and really validate my pain and recognize it and apologize, being able to be there with me. … And I think [Brian] does that pretty well.” Crucial to the salience of QTPOC communities, Jessie shared a story about another chosen family member at their college who shares Indigenous and queer heritages:

[Hannah's] had similar experiences also being Mormon and Indigenous, and she also was already educated on a lot of queer issues we could talk about like queer rom com books that we read together. I think just similar interests, similar values, similar perspectives on life, but also like different enough that, like I have fun and grow with her.

Grass: Curating family bolsters intersectionality

Grass is a fourth-year undergraduate student and a Black lesbian woman exploring her nonbinary identity. Grass contextualized many experiences through her family of origin's Congolese immigrant background. She identified instances in which interactions with family of origin reflected facets of intersectionality as a Black lesbian individual. Learning about homophobia and gender norms within her family, Grass illustrated how restrictive these forces were in embracing her identities to the point where she was afraid of coming out to her brother during college:

This is like just intersectionality, talking with like, no matter what space I'm in, I will never be exactly what they want me to be. Like, if I go into a space with women. They're like, “Oh, actually we're racist.” I go into the space of Black people to be like “Oh, sorry we're homophobic.” … I'm never gonna be in like a specifically super safe space unless I find other queer people of color. … And [my brother], who is a very proud African American young man, would think that that's the appropriate reaction to be homophobic.

Instead, the affirming response from her brother cultivated more opportunities for Grass and him to maintain a relationship with love and openness. The bond also highlighted conversations between Grass and her brother that helped her realize where she would be accepted or safe while she was navigating college:

Like when I'm at school, I live in this little queer bubble with only other queer people. … These arguments with [my brother] really pull me back into reality to understand, like I'm not accepted everywhere. And I need to be aware of that. … So, I have to take in mind that idea, and not like come out to every person I meet.

As Grass discussed the collegiate environment, she lamented that it was difficult to find chosen family at a predominantly White campus, even with White queer communities:

As I, like, come to a close on my undergraduate career, I've realized … these queer people I have friendships with on campus don't understand me. They don't know me. … There's only one other queer Black girl, and we're gonna be friends for life. … Other queer people I've met who aren't Black women just is not gonna last.

Shay: Finding family and community through Black queer communities

Shay is a third-year undergraduate student and a Black cisgender bisexual/queer woman. Shay relayed numerous experiences with family of origin that displayed how they used oppressive gender norms from the Black community to restrict her appearance. She offered a story about her mother:

Before [coming out], she would enforce all of these gender normalcies on me. She would say … I would be the first to get married to a man, have kids. And I'm like, “I don't really want that.” I don't really want the typical American straight heterosexual dream. … And just with stuff with clothing and hair … I had a problem.

Interactions with her mother showed that attempts to make Shay more feminine were inculcated through heteronormativity within the Black community. In contrast, Shay mentioned a best friend who has operated as family and allowed her to explore her identities:

She's definitely helped me try to figure out, are you a lesbian? Are you bi? It's okay if you don't know if you have everything figured out. Sexuality is a very weird thing to navigate. And she's put comfort in that for me as a queer person.

This best friend who is White also showed awareness on the differences between White and Black families in terms of queerness. Shay further elaborated with the following point:

I've definitely had to explain some of the stuff because there can be a difference between White families and Black families. And I've definitely had to explain to her, oh, we do this differently. I know you all don't do this, but this is how it happens.

Moving to campus further bolstered her ability to find community and develop more chosen family, particularly finding community members with her identities. She offered more context on her experience of college and developing family:

While in undergrad, my cultural relevance, I guess it's definitely changed since I've moved to [city]. I've been around a lot more accepting Black queer people or just Black people in general just because of the college environment … very different from back when I was at home. … It's definitely has been a lot more easier to be myself and to express myself in front of everybody … and to just feel comfortable in my identity without having any unnecessary judgment like I would back home.

DISCUSSION

The current study offers a multitude of insights to address how QTPOC college students navigate the influence of family relationships and how family relationships connect to structures of power while in college in the United States. As participants reflected on their stories, they highlighted how certain family dynamics required them to navigate complex systems of power between the family context and the collegiate context. Certain family dynamics became a replication of intersecting forces of racism, heterosexism, and genderism, which forced them to downplay certain identities while preserving other identities. For some participants, recognition of family dynamics played a role in accelerating their consciousness of systems of power within their collegiate institutions.

Related to the complexity of identity and family, participants in the current study discussed experiences where familial cultural values and gender norms impacted familial responses toward queer identities and the participants' pathways of negotiating their identities (Blockett, 2017). Drawing on several studies (e.g., Munoz & D'Aniello, 2020; Patrón, 2021a), the findings are similar in that participants could have been responding to norms of masculinity and femininity within their families. What is notable is that participants described the pressure of downplaying their sexual identity or gender expression to meet the racial and cultural scripts stemming from family of origin (Acosta, 2010, 2013). This notion was especially representative of several participants, such as Shay, who highlighted how her mother would pressure her to embrace femininity to downplay her sexuality, and Yami, who excluded her gay identity and gender expression from her parents. Conversely, Marquise recognized that collegiate environments allowed her to express her identities—namely, race and sexuality—more freely and endeavored to maintain boundaries between family of origin and the collegiate context. To this end, collegiate settings could operate as social contexts that renegotiate power relations, meaning that the absence of intersecting forms of oppression could assist with reworking identity and power relations from family of origin. What was more surprising in this study was the invisibility of social class in many of the narratives. Yami, however, discussed how she lived at home and commuted to college. While QTPOC college students sometimes seek their collegiate environment as a refuge from family of origin or consider colleges close to home (Coleman et al., 2020), Yami relied on family for the safety of housing, which can have implications for finances, class status, and expressions of sexuality and gender. Otherwise, she would have risked disrupting the stability of her home environment and family relationships (Robinson, 2018).

Often, the concepts of familismo, machismo, and marianismo surface specifically in Latinx family research (Abreu et al., 2020; Acosta, 2010, 2013; Patrón, 2021a, 2021b) and explains some of the complex deliberation between race, sexuality, and gender. The performance of gender is indeed a prominent phenomenon in the lives of QTPOC college students (Blockett et al., 2024), given that Black lesbian, bisexual, and nonbinary participants discussed how gender was explicitly present in their families. This aspect of the narratives in the current study seem to amplify how gender expression and sexuality are seen as binaries, where operating outside of these binaries could disrupt a sense of family (Hutchings, 2024). Social context, in this case, could play an implicit role in shaping identities in relation to families. Attending an institution and interacting with family at home in the South may have underscored the silence around Samantha's sexuality and dating. Expanding on interactions with family of origin, such as the narratives in the current study, plays a significant role in intersectional analyses for QTPOC college students (Blockett, 2017; Coleman et al., 2020).

Although racial and ethnic norms played a role in influencing gender and sexuality, what was surprising from the participants was the highlight of a safe family member or chosen family member who encouraged discussions on race and racism. Reflecting relationality, this interaction showed how addressing genderism and heterosexism could promote ways to address racism. Daniel, for instance, discussed how the relationality in his story allowed him to be more critically conscious about pervasive Whiteness within his college context in the Midwest. When family members attempted to break relationality, it became more of a tactic to sanction discrimination by often associating Whiteness with LGBTQ+ identities. This aspect is especially relevant for the context of colleges because ignorance of relationality could implicitly endorse Whiteness as the norm for LGBTQ+ services on campus (Blockett, 2017; Hutchings, 2024).

Social context is indeed an important backdrop for the organization of power of QTPOC college students on campus (Duran, 2021; Patrón, 2021c). Participants in the current study shared stories about how the institutional contexts of their colleges heightened their experiences of family belonging and isolation. For instance, Grass elaborated on how finding chosen family was difficult at her institution because the majority of queer communities were predominantly White. Instead, she would have found more profound connections if other Black queer students existed on campus. Similarly, Shay amplified the importance of QTPOC communities existing in college as a way to form chosen family. She discussed that having more people with her identities, particularly Black and Black queer communities, was fundamental to her finding a sense of family, given the problematic experiences with her mother. As some of the participants described, families can be self-defined through fictive kin as a way to resist structural forms of oppression (Fish et al., 2024). Conversely, explicit hostility and exclusion can disrupt the notion of family and community within college (Coleman et al., 2020; Garvey et al., 2019). The intersection of race, sexuality, and gender remain a crucial opportunity to reinforce this possibility for forming chosen family and maintaining more relevant definitions of family (Acosta, 2013), especially in collegiate contexts (Duran & Pérez, 2019; Hutchings, 2024).

Unique to Jessie's story, they navigated social context and power within chosen family member relationships and their collegiate institution. Notably, they formed a chosen family relationship with another LGBTQ+ student due to the cisnormative and heteronormative nature of the institution. However, this relationship was with a White gay cisgender male student who harbored racist and cisnormative assumptions that complicated their interactions. Still, this relationship mattered to them because the chosen family member recognized the faults in their own beliefs and maintained the connection rather than walking away. Conversely, Jessie cited another relationship with a different chosen family member who is also queer and Indigenous, which buffered the inequities and harm of racism and genderism. Taking Jessie's narrative together with other narratives (e.g., Daniel, Grass), collegiate contexts operate as fundamental social contexts that enact power through two avenues. In one avenue, collegiate contexts could shed light on environmental conditions that generate expression and integration of identities (e.g., race, gender, sexuality for QTPOC; Duran, 2021; Patrón, 2021c). Additionally, collegiate contexts could play a role by augmenting the retention initiatives specific to QTPOC college students (Coleman et al., 2020), given that more QTPOC college students could provide more opportunities to enhance chosen family and safety within race, sexuality, and gender identity (Hutchings, 2024).

Limitations

As researchers and practitioners consider the transferability of the findings, they should take note of the identities represented within each narrative and consider the unique aspects of QTPOC students or clients they might encounter. Although the sample included nonbinary individuals, it did not include participants who explicitly identified as trans. Similarly, the sample did not include participants with Asian American and Pacific Islander heritages, which could have elucidated a wider range of experiences of QTPOC college students. Although the social context did emerge throughout participant narratives, the focus of the study did not pinpoint differences among urban, suburban, and rural environments surrounding the institutions unless participants indicated as such. The differences among urban and rural institutions can shape whether participants felt safe to cultivate chosen family or navigate the confluence of racism, classism, and heterosexism within the institution.

Implications for practice and institutions

Practitioners within college contexts could integrate several key actions and initiatives to support QTPOC college students and enrich their notion of family and community within the collegiate context. Many participants oscillated between family of origin and chosen family relationships that illustrated how ties to family of origin still factor into college student development, persistence, and retention. Some college students who are not engaged in residential life on campus may be living at home with their family of origin and may not have opportunities to form chosen family through a collegiate context. Practitioners should consider the wide breadth of definitions to include family of origin, even if QTPOC college students have a tenuous relationship with their family of origin (Blockett, 2017; Patrón, 2021a).

Additionally, many QTPOC college students face a common trend of discovering LGBTQ+ communities, groups, centers, and programming to cater to White LGBTQ+ members (Hutchings, 2024). Although this trend has been documented in practice, it is worth highlighting that administrators and practitioners who initiate LGBTQ+ programming should reevaluate policies that implicitly overlook QTPOC in the broader categorization of LGBTQ+ students. Staffing LGBTQ+ centers intentionally with the supports and representation of QTPOC leaders and administrators could create another opportunity for affirming QTPOC in their sense of communities. It may also be helpful to continue training staff members, administrators, and leaders on campus on the importance of honoring intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Otherwise, they run the risk of incurring potential exclusion within marginalized groups on campus. Given how the participants in the current study emphasized a chosen family in college that integrates both their identities, it would be helpful to develop programming to promote peer support and mentorship. As discussed in Hutchings (2024), numerous programs exist for faculty–student and student–student mentorship, but many collegiate mentorship programs silo students based on single identities. Devising mentorship programs intentionally focused on intersections among multiple marginalized identities would reinforce opportunities to seek a sense of family that can be instrumental to QTPOC college students (Duran & Pérez, 2019).

Future directions for research

Researchers in family studies can consider a plethora of possible research investigations based on the insights developed from the study. In addition to other exemplars (e.g., Abreu et al., 2020), the current study indicates a need for significant attention to affirm intersections along racial, ethnic, sexuality, gender, and other salient domains of identity. For instance, quantitative researchers could examine the relationships among masculinity, outness, and familial safety for samples of QTPOC college students, given the consistent attention to familial cultural values and the binary of masculinity and femininity highlighted by the participants. Because our participants originated mainly from the Midwest and the South, future research could address the experiences of QTPOC in other regions in the United States, such as the Northeast, Pacific Northwest, and Mountain West regions, to gain a better understanding of how social context can accentuate different interpretations of family in tandem with systems of power within their institutions. Studying rural QTPOC college students could elicit a more nuanced examination of the intersections with social class and classism, which did not surface explicitly in this study. Given the lack of representation of trans and Asian students in the sample, researchers could devote more focused studies on trans college students of color and queer and trans Asian students to amplify the way that they negotiate their family relationships during college.