Queering Family Violence: Introduction to Queer Family Violence Studies

Queering Family Violence is inspired by the project funded by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS). It has brought together the studies of violence against LGBTQI+ people within the family and explored various ways to improve the well-being of victims in different cultural and political contexts. In this special issue, our focus is on those families where queerness is part of the picture: whether it is a same-sex family, a family with queer children, or a heterosexual family where one of the parents comes out as gay, lesbian, trans, bi, and/or queer. Authors of the issue also consider dating violence as a specific challenge faced by LGBTQI+ people forming intimate relationships in a heteronormative world. By using such an inclusive broad perspective, we intended to add a new reflection to the studies of violence while bringing in the queer aspect of people’s relationships.