When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

Chen argues that closeness within a relationship is not based on blood but rather on genuine connection. The rhetoric of the found or chosen family is common within the LGBTQIA+ community, referring to a group of people in an individual’s life that make up their primary support system. A 2020 article by GLAAD underscores the need for this “patchwork family” with statistics from both the UCLA Williams Institute and a Pew Research Center survey of LGBTQ Americans:

Also referred to as chosen families, found or chosen families play an important role in the lives of queer people, as 39% of queer adults have faced rejection from their birth families. Found families can fulfill survival functions as well as emotional ones; 40% of homeless youth are LGBTQ, and found families can sometimes help find someone a place to stay. For these people, family becomes not a biological happenstance, but a group of supportive people providing unconditional support (Gutierrez, Pallas. “the importance of found families for lgbtq youth, especially in a crisis.” GLAAD).

Chen implicitly discusses conditional versus unconditional support throughout “When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities” by juxtaposing his strong platonic and romantic relationships against his less stable family connections (see: Poem Analysis).