Beyond Biological Ties?

It is a worldwide trend for LGBT people to have children outside the legal framework of heterosexual marriage.It is estimated that there are about 70 million sex and gender minorities in China.Under the structural conditions of the development of assisted reproductive technology and the inclusion of fertility policies,more and more LGBT people with good identity are completing the "impossible task" of bearing children.However,in stark contrast to the growing number of LGBT-parent families,there has been far less attention in academic,political and legal circles.The kinship relationship of the LGBT-Parent families constitutes the most significant difference from the mainstream heterosexual family.At most,only one partner in a same-sex couple can be biologically linked to a child,which is seen as the core of kinship.In same-sex parenting families,how does "consanguinity",the core element of traditional kinship,affect the practice of family kinship? Can they creatively construct and maintain family ties "beyond blood ties" ? This is the core issue discussed in this paper.Kinship in this paper mainly refers to direct kinship,which is examined through mutual assistance and emotional intimacy between different generations.Based on the data of China’s first national online survey of LGBT Parents(covering595 valid questionnaires from 28 provinces(municipalities/autonomous regions)except Tibet,Xinjiang and Ningxia),this paper first presents the current situation of kinship practice in LGBT-Parent families from three aspects of behavior,emotion and concept.Based on the overall situation of the kinship practices in LGBT-Parent families,this paper further analyzes the influence of blood connection on the practice of kinship,including reproductive practice,intergenerational care,parental care,intergenerational intimacy,parent-child intimacy and the concept of kinship.It is found that the parents of LGBT-parents and their family of origin are closely related in behavior and emotion.The close kinship relationship between the LGBT parents and native families challenges the common consensus of "sex,no plurality" and "family" between the academic community,which leads us to further reflect on the functional connotation of fertility,the functional assumptions behind the "fear of the same" culture and the strategic implications of individual actors negotiating kinship to jointly counter systemic risks associated with the individualization of social structures.The influence of blood connection on kinship practice mainly plays a role in the ancestral generation,and the LGBT parents themselves not only challenge the properties of the nature of the blood connection but also show the positive meaning construction ability.By deconstructing the blood connection and the legal parenthood relationship for the family,giving emotional connections beyond the importance of the former,The rationality of LGBT-parent families exists and the relationship between family members is balanced.Here we may assume that the two different types of families,the kinship among LGBT-parent families,are almost not based on the biological ties,and when the ancestors are involved,the blood connections will work,and it will show the collision of the two generations of relatives.In conclusion,the kinship among LGBT-parent families is a kind of active response to the social change of the transitional state.LGBT parenting families are not based on the complete deconstruction of existing social norms,ethical ethics and pro-family systems,and they are also influenced by the main flow culture while making new meaning construction.And the creative kinship practices among LGBT-parent families also gives us a variety of possibilities for social functionality,and implications on how we can build kinship relationships beyond the relative relationship of the blood to negotiate life’s reproduction,death and the basic form of human dependence.