Resisting and transgressing cisheteronormativity at home: LGBT+ youths’ active strategies

Abstract

Many of the struggles and advances in LGBT+ rights are fought in domestic spaces. However, the political and emotional complexity of the home in relation to gender and sexual dissidence has received limited attention. This research aims to explore the discrimination and coping strategies of young LGBT+ youth in their family and personal home. Through a qualitative methodology, I examine how 27 LGBT+ youth from Bages (Catalonia) experience different home spaces according to their age, gender, and sexual orientation. The results show adultism and pressure to conform to cisheteronormative expectations at the family home. However, these norms dissolve in the personal home, allowing the free development of their LGBT+ identities. The study reveals the resistance and transformation strategies they use to tackle cisheteronormativity, highlighting home as a place of politics, negotiation, power, and complex emotions.