Lavender marriages are getting a remix as Millennials and Gen Z embrace the legal manoeuvre in response not just to the current regressive threat against LGBTQ+ rights, but also to ease financial burdens and relish the emotional support of platonic companionship.
Lavender marriages were “formed as a way of concealing same-sex attraction in a society where being openly queer could mean social ostracism, career ruin or even criminalisation”, wrote Gio Dolcecore, an assistant professor of social work at Mount Royal University, on The Conversation.
Today, new circumstances have reignited the interest in lavender marriages. “Censorship of queer culture is on the rise as political and social movements directly attack the LGBTQ+ community,” said Dolcecore.
Along with the revitalised suppression of queer people, modern financial circumstances have affected marriages. The renewed interest in lavender marriages “reflects deeper shifts in how people view relationships”, in that marriage can just be a “legal contract that offers tangible benefits – tax breaks, health insurance, immigration status or even co-parenting rights”, said DW. The promise of a platonic partner with whom to share burdens is also enticing, Edward Reese, a gender and sexuality expert at the LGBTQ+ dating app Taimi, told Vice.
“Learning the history of how queer and trans people survived and defended each other is critical,” said Mikelle Street on the online LGBTQ+ magazine Them. Lavender marriages “represent an interesting nexus of love, relationships, legality and societal pressures”. | 
