“The rainbow is all the colours. But in fact, it was pretty monochrome”: A queer qualitative study of families, governance and normativity in Australia

This research investigates how queer people in Australia articulate, relate to and experience the ‘family’, examining the governance of families in individual practices, social interactions, and institutional technologies. The study highlights that despite considerable efforts by queer people to do family in radical ways, they continue to be (mis)read and (mis)understood through normative frameworks that govern what counts as a ‘real’ family at the interactional and institutional levels. This research enables a more critical understanding of queer families by showing how the nuclear family remains a pervasive normative benchmark and political tool in Australia.