You're Safe Here

Exploring family of choice through memorable messages in LGBTQA+ young adulthood

By Tristan Arthur & Jenny Dixon

Abstract

The re-election of Donald Trump has made the need for LGBTQA+ young adults to seek out support systems, such as chosen family, all the more pressing. This article explores the discursive strategies with which LGBTQA+ young adults make sense of their family of choice support systems. Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), and with a keen eye toward to use of memorable messages, this study examines the lived experience of creating, maintaining, and legitimizing family of choice relationships. Results suggest that memorable messages with regard to safety & vulnerability, open communication, commitment, and understanding of self & the family each hold potential for increasing our understanding of how family of choice is understood and legitimized.

Identifying as a Queer man in the suburbs of Denver came with struggles. I was too feminine to be friends with men and too masculine to be friends with women. Once it was time to move to higher education I chose the one place known for extensive diversity, New York City. Moving away from the friends I made along the way was a risk but it paid off. The diversity in the city allowed me to not only find friends but also find a family of people who share my experiences growing up identifying as LGBTQIA+ in tough spaces. This family has held my hand throughout my time in the city and for once I feel heard and seen at once. - The Second Author

You're Safe Here

Social support is a central aspect of the LGBTQA+ community. Greater understanding of the need for social support LGBTQA+ young adults—and how to improve said support, is a vibrant area of interdisciplinary research (Boyd & Mei, 2024; Robinson, Mu, Webb, & Stone, 2024; and Semborski, Srivastava, Rhoades, Fulginiti, & Goldbach, 2021 are merely a few examples). Whereas hotlines provide support for LGBTQA+ youth in crisis, college campuses provide a personalized context for considering how interpersonal support systems form and persist. Casting light on the importance of social support for LGBTQA+ young adults, the Campus Pride Index (2025) provides not only a listing of inclusive college campuses, but also creates criteria for what is means to be inclusive, and assesses campuses based on this criteria.

The need for social support in the LGBTQA+ youth community became all the more acute with the news that Donald Trump was to be re-elected President of the United States. Jaymes Black, CEO of the Trevor Project, stated, “90% of LGBTQ+ young people said recent politics impact their well-being and, transgender policies increased suicide attempts among transgender youth by as much as 72%” (Mack, 2024). GLAAD and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis advises LGBTQ young adults that, in especially difficult times such as the Stonewall Riots, the HIV epidemic, or the (re)election of Donald Trump, it is important to turn to community support (McNamara, 2024).

Though support systems can take on many forms, a common characteristic among LGBTQA+ young adults is that of a found or chosen family. There is no shortage of research focusing on LGBTQA+ communities and the formation of chosen family. Flores’s (2023) examination of Latino/a/x/ LGBTQ chosen families and Hailey, Burton and Arscott’s (2020) study of LGBTQ family of choice as a source of solace amid racialized trauma are two examples among many. However, whereas there is research that points to family of choice as a vibrant component to LGBTQA+ support systems, we do not yet have clear understanding of how these critical sources of support are communicated into being.

One construct with which to consider how LGBTQA+ young adults make sense of family of choice is through memorable messages. Frequently defined as distinct units of communication that influence a person’s life (Cooke-Jackson & Rubinsky 2023; Steimel, 2013), memorable messages are largely regarded as tools with which we make self-assessments and decisions with regard to our behavior. Given that family of choice do not share the widespread legitimacy enjoyed by traditional family (Dixon, 2017), and given the discourse dependent nature of families formed through non-biolegal measures (Galvin, 2006), it makes sense that memorable
messages could be an important aspect of the legitimation of chosen family.

This study lends insight to how support systems are created and maintained for
LGBTQA+ young adults. Such insight would benefit LGBTQ+ individuals as they embark on young adulthood and seek support outside the context of the family in which they grew up. This study would also illuminate the utility of memorable messages for LGBTQ+ young adults who experience rejection from their traditional family unit. Finally, this research could inform programming, such as socialization initiatives on college campuses and institutions for
community engagement. In short, the purpose of this study is to examine how LGBTQA+ young adults legitimize family of choice, with an eye toward the presence (and/or absence) of memorable messages in this sensemaking process.

Literature Review

Understanding the function and utility of family of choice is an interdisciplinary
endeavor. Of particular relevance to the present study is how we communicate family of choice into being. Many scholars across numerous disciplines operationalize a constructivist view of family in which the legitimacy of family is built through our everyday communication with and about family (Baxter, 2004; Coontz, 1992; Galvin, 2006). However, active discursive work is needed to legitimize family of choice, especially as it is measured against far more universally
acknowledged traditional family structures.

As Braithwaite et al. (2010) explains:
"Families that somehow depart from the normative standards of what constitutes a “real” family bear a special discursive burden to present themselves as understandable and legitimate. Because voluntary kin relationships are not based on the traditional criteria of association by blood or law, members of those fictive relationships experience them as potentially problematic, requiring discursive work to render them sensical and legitimate to others (p. 403)"

It stands to reason that chosen family formed by LGBTQA+ young adults bear this same “special discursive burden” in creating and maintaining their family unit.6
Given the burdens of constructing and maintaining the legitimacy of family of choice, it makes sense that we would seek to know the intricacies of the discursive construction process. Boyd and Wei (2024) interviewed eight queer female students to examine “stretched kinship” or the phenomenon in which queer young adults leave the traditional family, form social connections and develop identities that are independent of those forged in earlier adolescence. Taking into consideration the role of media technology, Andreassen (2023) examines how
members of the LGBTQA+ community create chosen family online. What has yet to be explored is how LGBTQA+ young adults make sense of the chosen family relationships they have formed. Accepting the premise that family is discourse dependent, what discourses emerge as especially significant in forming and maintaining a chosen family?

Memorable messages is a concept used by scholars to understand how individuals engage in sensemaking (Stohl, 1986). Considerations of memorable messages within family contexts have been made in many interesting and important ways. For example, Kunkle, Putell, and Shelton (2022) examined college students’ recollection of moral memorable messages about racism spoken by white parents and the young adults’ treatment of said messages as the enter adulthood. Rubinsky and Cooke-Jackson (2017) examined the role of memorable messages in
how LGBTQ women and gender minorities are socialized into sexual identities. In a later study, Rubinsky and Cooke-Jackson (2021) considered memorable messages as a means for examining messages LGBTQ women wish they had received from their parents with regard to sexual health (or, “the talk”). Just as LGBTQ women received memorable messages that both undermine and affirm their self-concept, so too memorable messages hold the power to undermine or affirm the legitimacy of family of choice for LGBTQ young adults.

In order to consider the use of memorable messages as a possible aspect of making sense of the construction of family of choice as a means of social support for LGBTQA+ young adults, Communicated Narrative Sensemaking Theory (CNSM) is an apt theoretical lens. Koenig Kellas (2017) argues that a core proposition of CNSM is that the content of retrospective storytelling reveals meaning-making, values, and beliefs. CNSM has been used as a theoretical framework for examining communal isolation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic (Bruning, 2021)
as well as coping strategies in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook (Cherry, 2024). In the present study, we seek to explore the meaning-making inherent in communication about family of choice and the extent to which memorable messages play a role in this process. To embark of this endeavor, we ask the following research question:
In what ways (if any) do memorable messages function as a discourse for legitimizing family of choice for LGBTQ+ young adults?

Methods

In order to understand how LGBTQ young adults interpret and make sense of memorable messages about family of choice, we selected a phenomenological methodological approach. Amid scholarly debate as to what counts as phenomenology (see Zahavi, 2020), this study uses interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) due to its emphasis on the participants’ lifeworld as well as their personal experience and perception (Smith & Osborn, 2015). We agree with
Brammer, Goodrich, and Sands (2024) that IPA research serves to, “support enhancing participants’ and researchers’ insight on the subjective experience within a given context as narratives aid one in coming to know one’s self and the relationship with the phenomenon” (p.4). In this study, we asked LGBTQA+ young adults to share their experience making sense of8 their family of choice with an eye toward the communication (both sent and received) of memorable messages about family of choice.
Following Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, we sought participants for
qualitative, semi-structured interviews. Participants were recruited through purposive, convenience, and snowball sampling, via word of mouth by the second author at a small liberal arts college in the northeastern United States. Though messaging about the study came from a college campus, participants need not have been (and we not necessarily) college students. All participants were between the ages of 18-25, identified as LGBTQA+, and identified as either currently or formerly being a member of a family of choice. The limited age range allowed the
interviewer to ask participants to relay accounts that have happened in their recent past. By speaking only with members of the LGBTQA+ community, we were able to narrow our focus to family of choice relationships cultivated by those who identify as LGBTQA+. Finally, rather than allowing a specific definition of family of choice to influence the criteria for data collection, we found it illuminating to allow varying definitions to emerge in the interview data. At no point did the authors feel that they disagreed with a participant’s definition.

Six participants were interviewed. “Christopher” was a 21 year-old Latino gay man,
employed at a resident assistant on a college campus; “David” was a 24 year-old non-bisexual, white, non-binary person with an associate’s degree, who juggles several jobs including caterer and desk attendant at a gym; “Elizabeth” identified as a 20 year-old lesbian who is white and a college senior; “Jane” was a 20 year-old lesbian, white, female college student who worked at a bakery; “Rachel” was a 21 year-old female-questioning, white college student who also worked
as a resident assistant; and, “Stella” was a 21 year-old bisexual white female, who worked for a package delivery company.

All interviews were conducted by the second author. Participants engaged in the
interview process either face-to-face or via Zoom. Some questions were posed in order to see if memorable messages came up organically in the interview. For example, participants were asked, “what is the difference between a member of your chosen family and, say, a really good friend?” Later in the interview, more pointed questions were asked, such as, “A memorable message is exactly what it sounds like: A piece of advice or a claim someone has made that has stayed with you over time. What memorable messages, if any, have stayed with you regarding
your family of choice? This could be something someone in the family has said, or something an outsider has said about the family.” Each interview lasted roughly thirty minutes and ended with a demographic questionnaire.

Authors worked to maintain confidentiality throughout the data collection process. Each participant selected a pseudonym. Additionally, all proper nouns were replaced or redacted from the interview transcripts and subsequent notes. Upon receiving written consent from each participant, each interview was audio recorded using a smart phone. After each interview, sound files were uploaded to an external heard drive, deleted from the phone, and ultimately stored in
password-protected cloud storage. Any notes taken during interviews were free of information that would indicate participants’ identities. Consent forms were scanned and stored in a separate digital account.

Analysis of the interview data occurred with the hope of finding clear and informative themes. We agree with Van Manen (1990) that themes ideally serve to (a) examine the notion of the object of study, (b) give cogence to otherwise incoherent concepts, (c) describe the content of the notion, and (d) function as a reduction to the notion. Applying each characteristic of a theme, this study used thematic analysis to approach of the lived experience of legitimizing family of
choice.

For this study, themes of safety and vulnerability, open communication, commitment, and understanding of self and family members were identified using a selective approach in which interview transcripts were analyzed, line-by-line, in an effort to infer meaning (van Manen, 1990). Following the direction of van Manen (1990), selective analysis occurred in three stages: First, both authors separately engaged in a cold reading of the interviews, noting themes
as they began to emerge. Initial themes were made with the purpose of the study in mind. For example, “cultivated heightened criteria for forming relationships” initially served as a theme due to its presence as a recurring description of the legitimacy and utility of family of choice. It was in these initial notes that more representative themes, that include what could reasonably be
regarded as memorable messages, began to emerge. The authors then met to discuss and intimately agree on an initial set of codes that would then serve as departure points for the second stage of analysis.

For the second stage, themes were color-coded and gained complexity as waves of
analysis continued. For example, whereas themes of safety and commitment were apparent from the first round of analysis, a deeper, more context-bound consideration of these themes was employed. For example, in this second stage of analysis, authors considered why safety, commitment, etc. emerged as worthy of discussion. Instances in which initial themes occurred in the context of making sense of- or defending family of choice were considered. This was also the
point at which the authors began to note portions of the interview data that meet the criteria for memorable messages. Though participants were directly asked to share their experiences with memorable messages—both sent and received and from within and outside of the family unit—the entire dataset was analyzed with memorable messages in mind.

The final stage of analysis provided a more nuanced approach to the themes, culminating into a clear and coherent answer to the research question. Analysis continued after the initial drafting of the results. In the final analysis, the authors approached the data using the themes created in the second stage of analysis as a lens. This resulted in more detailed theme development. For example, within the theme of safety, this final wave of analysis considered whether family of choice afforded safety as in agency to be one’s self or safety in the absence of
a threat posed by traditional family or some other source. Themes formed a coherent picture of how LGBTQA+ young adults legitimize family of choice and the memorable messages that are a part of this meaning-making phenomenon.

Results

This project sought to explore memorable messages as an aspect of the experience of making sense of, and legitimizing, family of choice. Participants shared a variety of experiences establishing and maintaining family of choice relationships. The level of intention in forming a family of choice varied considerably from one participant to the next. As an example, one participant explained moving to the United States from Brazil and actively seeking a familial support system upon arrival. In stark contrast, another participant discussed only realizing they
were part of a family of choice retrospectively after forming it. Additionally, whereas some participants held friendships and chosen family relationships as distinctly separate, others viewed the two relational types as being something of a Venn diagram in which the two may or may not overlap. For each participant, the impetus of being a part of a chosen family intersected with LGBTQA+ identity, in some way. For example Christopher succinctly captures, “almost everyone in my family of choice is queer to some extent in that they don’t conform to what society deems normal, but in terms of being LGBT, I would say half of my chosen family formally identify that way, but they all present queerly.” Rachel explained her family of choice as meeting a need unmet by traditional family: “In high school, I had very close friendships with people, but there was always that one thing I couldn’t tell them, and usually that one thing was
my sexuality.”

Four themes emerged as conceptual pathways that participants used to make sense of their family of choice. Safety & Shared Vulnerability, Open Communication, Commitment, and Understanding of Self and Family Members each emerged as meaningful aspects of family of choice for each participant. As explained in the methods section, memorable messages were both directly requested and indirectly elicited. Memorable messages emerged within the context of each theme.

Safety & Shared Vulnerability

Safety and vulnerability were clear and consistent themes throughout the interview data. Complimenting the heightened uncertainty and concern for the LGBTQA+ community mentioned in the introduction, participants spoke specifically of safety and vulnerability within the context of family. Providing examples of substitute and supplemental families (Braithwaite, et al. 2010), this often took the form of realizing traditional family is unsafe, or—at very least— uncomfortable to be around, and forming a chosen family that meets safety and comfort needs.
Whereas all participants discussed the issue of safety, narratives diverged in terms of their relationship to their traditional family at the time of the interview: some participants discussed completely cutting ties with traditional family and allowing a found family to meet these relational needs, others considered their traditional family to be well intentioned and still an13 active part of their lives, but nonetheless sought a chosen family as a primary—but not exclusive—safe space.

The shared safe space of a chosen family was occasionally described as family members being vulnerable together. As Stella explains, “That’s [being LGBTQA+] something where we’re all vulnerable and that we share. Given what’s going on in the country right now, we lean on one another for support.” For Stella, and others, chosen family is a resource for safety and shared vulnerability. Similarly, Christopher shared, “In terms of safety and needing people to rely on and wanting people to rely on, sure, they replace my traditional family because I wouldn’t feel as comfortable going to just my traditional family instead of my chosen family.”
He continues, “Family doesn’t have to be the deepest feeling ever it just has to be people that I can feel safe and that I like to hang around.” Both Stella and Christopher make sense of family of choice as a grouping of people to turn to.

For several participants, safety was characterized as the absence of vigilance in the
presence of family. As Jane stated, “what makes it [my family of choice] a family is that you don’t have to think about who you are.” Similarly, Christopher explained that his family of choice, “doesn’t drain my social battery too much.”
Given the centrality of safety and vulnerability in making sense of family of choice, it is of no surprise that safety emerged as a resonating and reverberating aspect of memorable messages about family of choice. For Trevor, a memorable message came from an experience with his ex-partner’s father: One day, early in the family’s history, Trevor, Trevor’s partner, and the partner’s father were in the garage, tinkering with something. Trevor made an off-hand comment about his traditional family to which the father replied, “well, you’re safe here.” As
Trevor tells the story, the father continued with, “what happens in your house doesn’t influence anything in this house,” alluding to conflict with Trevor and his traditional family about his sexual identity. As Trevor explained, the simple three words, “you’re safe here” was central to how he made sense of his chosen family, from that point forward. The memorable message rendered the safety of the chosen family unit unequivocal.

Open Communication

Themes of safety and open communication go hand in hand as the former paves the way for the latter. Each participant spoke of chosen family as a space where open communication is encouraged. As David succinctly states, “I was never [pause] I’m not necessarily as open or as open as I would like to be with my [traditional] family as I am with my found family.” Similarly, Jane explains, “I’m way more comfortable talking to my chosen family than I am talking to my
immediate family.” Both participants describe an openness and relatability that they get with their family of choice that is missing from their traditional families.

Participants described an approachability that was only available within the context of shared experiences, such as that of being LGBTQA+. Stella explains, “There are things that upset me and I can’t fully express it to my biological family because there are things that I would say that they would disagree with.” She continues, “With my friends, I can be open about it and they can understand me and what I need better than what my biological family would.” Rachel
observed, “Being around people that I will never have to lie to is freeing...[with my traditional family] there has to be a certain level of falsehood in order for us to all live together.” When asked what distinguishes chosen family from really close friends, Elizabeth explained, "It was very difficult to find people my age who could hear me in a way that I think I needed at the time and it wasn’t any fault to the people that I was friends with, it’s just we were kids and there was a lot we didn’t know and it was important that there be adults in my life like Jamie [a chosen family member]."

Memorable messages about open communication did not seem to take the form of open invitations to speak. Not a single participant spoke of a memorable message along the lines of, “you can tell me anything.” Instead, memorable messages emerged as a lack of consequence for saying “the wrong thing.” Relaying a sentiment that she had expressed to her chosen family members, Rachel shared, “you don’t have to impress me” and “you can fuck up and I will understand you enough to know why.” As Rachel explains, these were messages she hoped her
family kept in mind with regard to communication within the family unit.

Commitment

A central obstacle to communicating the legitimacy of one’s family of choice is affirming its staying power. Even though traditional family bonds can be broken just as readily as that of chosen family, the latter is often regarded as transient and less worthy of acknowledgement. There were, indeed, moments in some of the interviews that lend support to the idea that family of choice is a temporary relational dynamic that one eventually grows out of. For example, Elizabeth referred to a traditional family that she plans to form in the future as her “later in life family.” Though one could, and often does, belong to a chosen and traditional family concurrently, it gave the authors pause to consider how a newly formed traditional family would impact the family of choice.

Despite the potential equivocality of commitment, its centrality to making sense of
chosen family emerged in each of the interviews. In continuing her answer to the question of what distinguishes chosen family from close friends, Elizabeth explained that, “with close friends, there’s a reality where we go our separate ways;” however, with family of choice, “you16 can look into the future and say, ‘yeah, you’ll still be there in 10-15 years. That’s family.” Similarly, Rachel described chosen family relationships as having, “a longevity despite all odds.”
Commitment to family of choice was concurrently described as seamless and difficult. The seamlessness occurs in the sense that family of choice does not have to continually re-apply for family status. As Rachel explained, “With family, you have nothing to prove.” At the same time, participants described commitment within a family of choice means being a source of support even when doing so is not the favorable option. As Stella stated, “We help each other even when we don’t want to.” Rachel continued, “[Family of choice] are the people you stick with despite the ugly stuff.”

Memorable messages about commitment often took the form of ascribing traditional family titles to individuals within the chosen family. When asked about memorable messages in the forming and maintenance of his family of choice, Christopher stated that beginning to refer to one another as siblings, and the start of that practice, functioned as a memorable message to him. Some memorable messages related to commitment took the form of communication about the
family of choice from people outside of the family unit itself. Rachel explained that, despite there being no romantic involvement, people say of her family of choice “you guys are married” or (jokingly) “you guys are codependent.” The attribution of constructs that are commonly attributed to committed traditional families—such as being married or being co-dependent— spoke to the strength of her chosen family. Additionally, memorable messages occur within the
family unit to affirm and assure commitment. Rachel explained that she has said to her chosen family members, “I signed up for all of you,” not in the sense of, “I’m committed to each one of you,” but rather, “I’m committed to the entirety of who you are.”

Understanding of Self and Family Members

Participants described chosen family members as having the capacity to effortlessly understand who they are as individuals and, at the same time, allow them to cultivate a greater understanding of themselves. The safety, communication, and commitment afforded by family of choice gave way to opportunity for self-discovery. As Jane stated, “I’ve figured out stuff about
myself because of who they [my chosen family] are,” and then elaborated, “I feel like I’ve explored that part of myself because I was able to with that group, than I would if I had been with my, quote, ‘real family’. Being in the LGBT community isn’t a thought the way it would be with real family.” Sharing a fun and light-hearted sentiment, Elizabeth laughed, “In having a them [a family of choice] I got to be, like, super gay!”

Additionally, the safety, communication, and commitment of family of choice gave way for insight to reasonable standards for forming familial bonds. As Trevor noted, “Family of choice taught be standards of how a person should treat me.” Elizabeth expands the theme, stating:
"My chosen family gave me such a beautiful confidence in myself. Because of them, I was able to look at myself in a way I never had before, because when I was with my chosen family and I was in a different dynamic than the one that I was used to, I got to let different parts of myself shine through. And it was so special to have these opportunities, because I got to figure out, like, ‘oh, I really like who I am in this space’ and why is that and how can I carry that into other parts of my life?"

Memorable messages regarding the understanding of others within the family came largely in the form of affirmations from outsiders looking in. Stella explained that her mom once remarked on the intuitive nature of the relationship: “Something my mom has said about Kevin, for example, she said that we know when something is wrong with the other before the other knows.” She also stated that people have remarked that her family knows her better than she knows herself. Both units of communication serve to affirm and bolster the family as a legitimate relationship.

Discussion

It is not of any great surprise that safety & vulnerability, open communication,
commitment, and understanding of self and family emerged as themes participants gravitated to when making sense of relationships that they care deeply about and are eager to see acknowledged and accepted within the broader community. Owing to Communicated Narrative Sensemaking Theory (CNSM) the retrospective accounts revealed meaning-making, values, and beliefs relative to the formation and maintenance of familial bonds. As an exploratory study, comprised of only six participants, the authors did not expect to come away with dozens of
memorable messages. Indeed only one or two were provided per participant. However, the argument could be made that the fewer memorable messages a person carries with them, they more resonant each message proves to be.

Given the discourse dependent nature of family of choice—at least in comparison to their traditional family counterparts—it stands to reason that memorable messages would serve to shape the relationship and function to instill a legitimacy desired by family members. This consideration could serve LGBTQA+ young adults (as well as other minority communities) as they seek and form familial support systems. Just as Trevor conveyed the memorable message “you are safe here,” LGBTQA+ young adults should consider what messages would be
meaningful for them to hear, as well as what messages they feel responsible for conveying. Within the context of LGBTQA+ student group leaders, student engagement staff, and community leaders, the results of this study lend consideration of the question, how does someone help someone else find their chosen family? The results of this study suggest memorable messages are a worthy template for considering one’s relational needs and wants. Campus and community support leaders could use memorable messages as a conceptual starting point in helping LGBTQA+ (and other) young adults formulate what they want from their familial relationships.

The limitations of this study primarily concern sample size. Though six participants provided a limited number of perspectives, it also allowed the authors to consider each participants’ sensemaking process all the more singularly and meaningfully. Another, more substantial, limitation is that each participant lived in the northeastern United States at the time of the interviews, with only one participant having originally lived outside the US (having been born and raised in Brazil). Greater diversity with regard to where participants were raised and where participants moved to in you adulthood (assuming they moved anywhere) would have made for richer, more nuanced data.

Throughout the course of completing this project, both authors noted opportunities for future research. Though this study included only those characterized to be in young adulthood, future research should examine the staying power of memorable messages. As mentioned above, participants occasionally used language to suggest that family of choice was an indispensable
aspect of this stage of their lives. Concurrently, participants emphasized the deep commitment they feel to their chosen family. Future research could consider memorable messages in family of choice that endured through adulthood, relative to memorable messages in family of choice that eventually dissolved. Are there persistent characteristics within—but not across—each population?

Another opportunity for future research has to do with what might be a growing discourse dependence for traditional families. An interesting trend to frequently emerge throughout the data was the conditions under which participants considered traditional family members to be family, following a political fit of pique. As examples, Elizabeth shared, “I don’t know that I would consider my mother family with all the problems with addiction.” Similarly, Christopher
stated that he probably would not consider his father and brother family on account of their political views. Up to now, discourse dependence has considered the communication needed to establish the legitimacy of a relationship. Future research should consider ways in which discourse dependence is needed to maintain the dissolution of a relationship, such as a biological sibling that one no longer considers family. Considering discourse dependence and memorable
messages as factors within relational boundary management could be a fruitful point of departure.

Conclusion

This study examined the use of memorable messages as LGBTQA+ young adults sought to legitimize and make sense of their family of choice relationships. Greater understanding of how to find your people and the values maintained in cultivating these familial bonds was the central focal point of this study. Though some participants spoke of forming family of choice as if it were incidental, others conveyed a deliberate pursuit of familial support. Either way, this study suggests that memorable messages can function as a guiding principle for seeking, building, affirming, and otherwise nurturing chosen family.

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