A recent study finds that aunts play a life-saving role in supporting LGBTQ+ youth
Another reason to love on our (good) aunties.
A study published last month in Socius, an open-access journal of the American Sociological Association, found that aunts play a crucial role in supporting their young relatives who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and transgender, including by preventing them from experiencing homelessness if their parents are less supportive.
The paper, “Aunties, Aunts, and Tías: The Forgotten Othermother Supporting and Housing LGBTQ Youth,” is the first research on LGBTQ youth and aunthood and is part of a larger two-year longitudinal study on LGBTQ youth, support from family members who aren’t parents and housing stability.
The researchers interviewed 83 LGBTQ youth in South Texas and the Inland Empire of California in 2022 who reported ambivalence or low support from their parents regarding their identity. Of those youth, 38 mentioned their aunts when asked to identify their most important nonparental relatives, with an additional 12 describing someone who played an aunt-like role but who they weren’t biologically related to.
The study respondents described three types of support that their aunts or aunt figures provided: LGBTQ-specific support; anticipatory housing support, which means their aunts preemptively offered to house them if they became homeless; and actual housing support.
Why is this important?
1 in 10 youth from 18 to 25 experience housing instability in the United States every year, and LGBTQ youth make up about 40% of that population, with Black and Latino transgender youth disproportionately affected.
One 2019 survey found that LGBTQ youth who reported having at least one accepting adult in their life were 40% less likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year, according to The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit.
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