LGBTQ Genealogy and Software – a conclusion
Most of us have family constellations that do not conform to having just two parents. We have adoptions, step-relationships, remarriages, children born to unpartnered parents, non-biological relationships, friends that are rise to the level of family members. There are a million combinations of how people come together to make a family. Current genealogical software, available on today’s market, does not fit our constellations. Software has been hetero-cis-centric. The focus is on DNA offspring from sanctioned marriages and the language that goes with those roles.
Software needs to expand to capture Family History, welcoming every type of relationship, not just biological lineages.
This rethinking of software is not something that is needed for the future. It is needed now. We already have three+ parent birth certificates, non-gendered records, growing acceptance of sharing our personal pronouns. The world has changed as we’ve watched.
In Part 4 of this series, I share my ideas of what queer-friendly software would look like. It is possible to rebuild from the ground up to fluidly accept the reality of human relationships. In this conclusion, I share my wish list for better software. Please add your ideas for better software in the comments.
- Ability to enter spouses with accurately defined relationships: marriage, domestic partnership, civil unions, partners, co-parents, unmarried…
- Link any person in a family unit, then define their relationship independently
- Allow for more than two parents
- Standard genealogy documents need to evolve to report on FAMILY HISTORY, not just DNA lines
- Gender-neutral parent and spouse labels with gender-neutral iconography
- Allow for birth sex, trans sex, and gender identification
- Adopt the latest GEDCOM 5.5.5 standard removing religious control of genealogical data.
I found your site because I was looking for ways to get a non-binary option into TNG software. On their discussion forum I found some incredibly hateful comments and I’m dismayed to see there is no such software out there at all. As a queer polyam person, I hope software like what you describe is someday written. Thank you for this series.