‘Nominated Representative’ and Queer Lives

Family upholds social norms of gender-sexuality. Society relies on marriage and childbirth within familial systems to maintain social inequalities. Within that, women offer greater care than they receive. Family systems have also created a certain monopoly of care. This care comes with conditions. When ‘members’ are not heterosexual or their bodies or genders do not fit the social norms, families that may otherwise be a resource suddenly cease to be so. This article explores the possibilities that the Nominated Representative (NR) Clause of the Mental Health Care Act 2017 may have to offer to conceptualise and operationalise what care could look like outside of family systems for people who are queer.