Chosen Family and the Care That Built Pride
Pride is often told as a story of freedom, visibility, and rights. We remember the protests, the legal victories, the cultural milestones, and the generations of LGBTQ people who fought to live openly and authentically.
But there is another story woven through that history—one that receives far less attention.
It is the story of care.
Long before marriage equality, anti-discrimination protections, or widespread social acceptance, LGBTQ people built their own systems of support when families, religious institutions, healthcare systems, and governments failed them. Friends became caregivers. Neighbors became advocates. Former partners remained family. Entire communities organized themselves around mutual aid, housing, companionship, and survival.
I explore this history in a new essay published on my Substack newsletter, Care, Actually. The essay traces how LGBTQ communities created forms of care and belonging outside traditional institutions, from chosen families and mutual aid networks to the activism that emerged during the AIDS epidemic. It also examines why care remains a central LGBTQ issue today, particularly for older adults, people with disabilities, family caregivers, and others who continue to navigate systems that were not designed with them in mind.
The following is an excerpt from the full article:
For as long as the historical record shows, LGBTQ people have relied on friends, neighbors, former partners, and other members of their communities to provide the physical, emotional, and material support that their biological families and formal support systems would not.
The story of the estranged queer person whose family has rejected them and instead turns to their friends represents more than resilience. It’s about the role that non-biological family plays in creating safety, belonging, caregiving, housing, companionship, and love—often stepping in when traditional institutions or biological relatives will not. “We survived because someone cared,” we say at The CareWorks Project—and that’s especially true for LGBTQ people, where discrimination shrouds our existence.
In her book Virtual Equality, the late Urvashi Vaid described how the lesbian and feminist communities of the 1970s and 1980s redefined what care could mean when the dominant care systems shut them out. They organized collective living arrangements, caregiving circles, and mutual support networks. This meant that when the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s ravaged gay and bisexual men and others—and government officials and the medical community turned their backs—this network of care stepped in to serve as nurses, advocates, and end-of-life caregivers.
Soon, volunteer networks and direct-action activism organized through groups such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP hit the streets and wherever those with power conferred. Rejected by families and vilified by both religious and political leaders, from Ronald Reagan to Pope John Paul II, queer communities created their own care and political infrastructure when institutions showed their maliciousness.
This excerpt is part of a broader reflection on Pride, caregiving, long-term care, and the enduring role that care has played in LGBTQ history. The essay argues that care is not separate from Pride—it helped build Pride. And as new challenges emerge for LGBTQ people across the United States and around the world, it remains essential to our collective future.
To read the full article, visit Substack:
Chosen Family and the Care That Built Pride
https://careactually.substack.com/p/chosen-family-and-the-care-that-built
The article is also available in Spanish.