The Everyday Life of LGBT Families in Slovenia: Meanings and Practices of »Doing« Families

LGBT families are increasingly becoming a part of family diversity in Slovenia, contributing to the changes in the perception of family and the practices of family life. The paper will present results of a sociological study on the everyday life of LGBT families in Slovenia, which was conducted in 2023 with five focus groups in which 17 people from LGBT families participated. The focus will be put on the meanings that members of LGBT families attribute to the family and the perceptions they have about their own family, on the one hand, and on the practices by which they are creating everyday family life, especially through parenting and division of family labor, on the other. The focus will be on the characteristics of family life, regardless of the type of family, and on the characteristics resulting from certain specificities of LGBT families, such as living in a heteronormative social environment (discrimination, stigmatization, legally unregulated areas of family life etc.). The focus will be put on the emerging patterns or practices of family life and the associated meanings that arise from the fact that they are so-called families of choice, redefining existing social patterns within and beyond the heteronormative social context and creating new ones, thus changing the characteristics of families and family life in late modernity in general.