This article celebrates and critically examines the contributions of Sociological Research Online (SRO) in reshaping sociological debates on family practices and intimacy. The article is structured into two main sections. In the first, I discuss the insights offered by SRO, identifying key issues associated with the reconceptualization of family studies: the interplay between individualisation processes and the enduring relevance of family practices; the debate on de-reifying and de-essentialising ideas of ‘the family’; and the connection between agency and assimilative inclusion of queer subjects in family life. Drawing on these debates, the second section presents the results of an empirical study focused on coming-out narratives of Italian parents with children from heterosexual relationships. The analysis underscores how parents’ reflexivity regarding their coming out in the family is intertwined with daily pragmatism and is influenced by social and cultural ideas of parental competence. The findings are utilised to address the theoretical key points discussed in the first part, with particular emphasis on the intersection of normativity and subversion in queer experiences within and beyond heterosexual and traditional family models.
AllenKRDemoDH (1995) The families of lesbian and gay men: A new frontier in family research. Journal of Marriage and the Family57(1): 111–127.
2.
BaumanZ (2003) Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds. Cambridge: Polity.
3.
BeckUBeck- GernsheimE (1995) The Normal Chaos of Love. Cambridge: Polity.
4.
BozettF (1981) Gay fathers: Identity conflict resolution through integrative sanctioning. Alternative Lifestyles4(1): 90–107.
5.
ButlerJ (2002) Is Kinship always already Heterosexual?Differences13(1): 14–44.
6.
BuxtonAP (1994) The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming-out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families. New York: John Wiley.
7.
BuxtonAP (2005) When a spouse comes out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Journal of GLBT Family Studies1(2): 49–70.
8.
CarterJ (2017) Why marry? The role of tradition in women’s marital aspirations. Sociological Research Online22(1): 1–14.
9.
CarterJ (2022) Traditional inequalities and inequalities of tradition: Gender, weddings, and Whiteness. Sociological Research Online27(1): 60–76.
10.
CheneyKE (2022) Discordant expectations of global intimacy: Desire and inequality in commercial Surrogacy. Sociological Research Online27(1): 43–59.
11.
ClarkeVEarleyE (2021) ’I was just fed up of not being myself’: Coming out experiences of White British divorced and separated gay fathers. Journal of GLBT Family Studies17(3): 251–272.
12.
De las Heras GómezR (2019) Thinking relationship anarchy from a Queer feminist approach. Sociological Research Online24(4): 644–660.
13.
DugganL (2002) The new homonormativity: The sexual politics of neoliberalism. In: CastronovoRNelsonDD (eds) Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics. London: Duke University Press, pp. 175–194.
14.
DuncanS (2011) Personal life, pragmatism and bricolage. Sociological Research Online16(4): 129–140.
15.
DuncanSCarterJ (2022) Understanding personal lives: After individualisation. In: QuaidSHugmanCWilcockA (Eds) Negotiating Families and Personal Lives in the 21St Century: Exploring Diversity, Social Change and Inequalities. Routledge, pp. 46–60.
16.
DuncanSEdwardsR (1999) Lone Mothers, Paid Work and Gendered Moral Rationalities. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
17.
DunneGA (2001) The lady vanishes? Reflections on the experiences of married and divorced non-heterosexual fathers. Sociological Research Online6(3): 1–17.
FormbyE (2022) LGBT ‘communities’ and the (self-)regulation and shaping of intimacy. Sociological Research Online27(1): 8–26.
20.
FortierAM (2003) Making home: Queer migrations and motions of attachment. In: AhmedSCastañedaC.FortierA-MSchellerM (eds) Uprootings/Regroundings. Questions of Home and Migrations. London: Routledge, pp. 115–135.
21.
FranchiMSelmiG (2020) Same-sex parents negotiating the law in Italy: Between claims of recognition and practices of exclusion. In: DigoixM (ed.). Same-Sex Families and Legal Recognition in Europe. Cham: Springer, pp. 73–93.
22.
GabbJ (2011) Family lives and relational living: Taking account of otherness. Sociological Research Online16(4): 141–150.
23.
GabbJSilvaEB (2011) Introduction to critical concepts: Families, intimacies and personal relationships. Sociological Research Online16(4): 104–108.
24.
GahanL (2018) Separated same-sex parents: Troubling the same-sex parented family. Sociological Research Online23(1): 245–261.
25.
GiddensA (1992) The Transformation of Intimacy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
26.
GilliesV (2011) From function to competence: Engaging with the new politics of family. Sociological Research Online16(4): 109–119.
27.
GinsborgP (2003) Italy and Its Discontents. Family, Civil Society, State, 1980–2001. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
28.
GiuntiDFioravantiG (2017) Gay men and lesbian women who become parents in the context of a former heterosexual relationship: An explorative study in Italy. Journal of Homosexuality64(4): 523–537.
29.
GusmanoB (2019) The Kintsugi art of care: Unraveling consent in ethical non-monogamies. Sociological Research Online24(4): 661–679.
30.
GusmanoBMotterleT (2019) The micropolitics of choice in Italy: How the law affects lesbian and bisexual women’s daily life. Journal of Lesbian Studies23(3): 336–356.
31.
GusmeroliPTrappolinL (2021) Family practices of Italian lesbian and gay parents with children from heterosexual relationships. Identity transition and pragmatic Bricolage. Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia4: 879–904.
32.
GusmeroliPTrappolinL (2023) Queering familialism? Lesbian and gay claims of parenthood and the transformation of intimate citizenship in Italy. In: MoreauMPLeeCOkpokiriC (eds) Reinventing the Family in Uncertain Times: Education, Policy and Social Justice. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 105–122.
33.
HeaphyB (2008) The sociology of lesbian and gay reflexivity or reflexive sociology?Sociological Research Online13(1): 188–199.
34.
HeaphyB (2018) Troubling traditional and conventional families? Formalised same-sex couples and ‘the ordinary’. Sociological Research Online23(1): 160–176.
35.
HeaphyBHodgsonJ (2021) Public sex, private intimacy and sexual exclusivity in men’s formalized same-sex relationships. Sexualities24(7): 874–890.
36.
HeathSMcGheeDTrevenaP (2011) Lost in transnationalism: Unraveling the conceptualisation of families and personal life through a transnational Gaze. Sociological Research Online16(4): 120–128.
37.
JamiesonL (1998) Intimacy. Personal Relationships in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity Press.
38.
JamiesonL (2011) Intimacy as a concept: Explaining social change in the context of globalisation or another form of ethnocentricism?Sociological Research Online16(4): 151–163.
39.
JamiesonLMorganDCrowG, et al. (2006) Friends, neighbours and distant partners: Extending or decentring family relationships?Sociological Research Online11(3): 39–47.
40.
KlesseC (2019) Polyamorous parenting: Stigma, social regulation, and queer bonds of resistance. Sociological Research Online24(4): 625–643.
41.
LynchJM (2005) Becoming a stepparent in gay/lesbian stepfamilies. Journal of Homosexuality48(2): 45–60.
42.
LynchJMMurrayK (2000) For the love of the children: The coming out process for lesbian and gay parents and stepparents. Journal of Homosexuality39(1): 1–24.
43.
McCarthyJRGillesVHooperC-A (2018) Introduction. Sociological Research Online: 23(1): 153–159.
44.
MorganDH (1996) Family Connections: An Introduction to Family Studies. Cambridge: Polity Press.
45.
MorganDH (2011a) Locating ‘family practices’. Sociological Research Online16(4): 174–182.
46.
MorganDH (2011b) Rethinking Family Practices. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
47.
MorganDH (2019) Family troubles, troubling families, and family practices. Journal of Family Issues40(16): 2225–2238.
48.
NaldiniMLongJ (2017) Geographies of families in the European Union: A legal and social policy analysis. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family31: 194–213.
49.
PlummerK (1995) Telling Sexual Stories. Power, Change, and Social Worlds. London-New York: Routledge.
50.
SaracenoC (2004) The Italian family from the 1960s to the present. Modern Italy9(1): 47–57.
51.
SaracenoC (2017) Southern European welfare regimes: From differentiation to reconvergence? In: KennettPLendvai-BaintonN (eds) Handbook of European Social Policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 218–229.
52.
SeidmanS (2002) Beyond the Closet: The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life. New York and London: Routledge.
53.
SgrittaGB (1988) The Italian family: Tradition and change. Journal of Family Issues9: 372–397.
54.
ShipmanBSmartC (2007) ‘It’s made a huge difference’: Recognition, rights and the personal significance of civil partnership. Sociological Research Online12(1): 129–139.
55.
SmartCNealeB (1999) Family Fragments. Cambridge: Polity Press.
56.
SmietanaM (2017) Affective de-commodifying, economic de-kinning: Surrogates’ and gay fathers’ narratives in U.S. surrogacy. Sociological Research Online22(2): 163–175.
57.
StasińskaA (2022) Lost (and found) in translation–Queer ‘wedding-engagement’ tactics in Poland. Sociological Research Online27(4): 984–1002.
58.
WarnerJ (1999) Normal and normaller. Beyond gay marriage. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies5(2): 119–171.
59.
WeeksJHeaphyBDonovanC (2001) Same Sex Intimacies: Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments. London and New York: Routledge.
60.
WestonK (1991) Families We Choose. Lesbians, Gays, Kinship. New York: Columbia University Press.
