The Fosters is an LGBT-themed youth and family series broadcast between 2013–2018, carrying a strong message. The series might feel a bit old, but it has a very good story. The series touches not only upon homosexual and trans individuals; it also handles family bonds established with love and the struggle against societal prejudices.
Most importantly, it tells how diverse people, sexual orientations, and differently thinking people can live together in peace. In this respect, the series is eye-opening and will perhaps offer us a viewing that shows what should be. That is why I included the series on the site. It was one of the best series and experiences I watched years ago.
Exploring important questions like “Is a biological bond mandatory to be a family?”, the queer series has a warm, sincere, and emotion-filled story by creating awareness regarding different orientations and identities. The LGBT-themed series is available on Freeform and HULU. I don’t know where it can be watched right now. Maybe you would also like to look at IMDb.
For family and homosexuality debates, I wrote my thoughts in the movie His (2020). You can check the details from there by going to the page of this series. I don’t want to get into repetition.
👉 Curator Recommendation: Movies and series worth watching
The Fosters Series Review and Plot
A married lesbian couple, Lena and Stef, live a loving life together with Stef’s son Brandon from her first marriage, and Mariana and Jesus, whom they adopted. Over time, they also include Callie and her little brother Jude, whom they met at the orphanage, into their family.
While this extended family confronts both their own internal dynamics and the pressures and prejudices of the outside world, they will present you with slices of real life. Stef’s ex-husband Mike is also in a close relationship with the family; their police profession, where they work together, will continue to strengthen past bonds.
The series tells the importance of individuals from different ethnic backgrounds living together, not just LGBT characters. Along with Black, Asian, and Latino characters, it also displays an open stance against racism. The relationships Jude and Connor experience as homosexual youths are narrated in both an emotional and realistic way; isn’t the important thing for the audience to get that air of naturalness anyway?
The transgender youth Cole, whom Callie knows, reminds us that differences should be met with understanding. The series shows that instead of marginalizing, we need to be involved in the other person’s life. Thus, we will be able to understand what we do not understand. A little empathy and forgiveness will solve every problem. It is a powerful production especially in terms of being able to understand others’ lives, worlds, and emotions. Isn’t the cause of all the chaos in the world looking down on another and fanaticism?
A little more detail
The series portrays LGBT individuals far from clichés, as normal, loving, sensitive, and responsible individuals. In short, LGBT individuals “are not perverts and people whose minds are only on sexuality.” The exemplary parenting of Lena and Stef will show you not only the “life of a lesbian couple,” but also the value of truly being a family.
In addition, universal themes such as youth mistakes, the nature of love, and how family bonds are shaped are also handled in the series. In this respect, The Fosters is a heartfelt and sincere series that appeals not only to LGBT viewers, but to all viewers open to understanding differences.
Final commentary
The Fosters will convey family bonds, love, and the search for identity to you in a balanced and sincere manner, almost like establishing a telepathic connection with you. The relationships between characters developing in both romantic and familial dimensions is the strongest side of the series because these topics are humanity’s universal shared problems.
When the queer themes of the series combine with youth and family stories, they offer you real slices of life. The internal conflicts of the characters and their struggle with societal difficulties will show you real social and personal problems, not trouble-free love-filled lives lived in a dream world.
Especially in the finale, family members grow up; some part ways to continue their school and some their work. But their communication and brotherhood will always continue. In my opinion, the most striking aspect of this series is the concept of “family,” which is frequently discussed today. When family is mentioned, a concept usually comes before us that politicians construct by putting their own ideologies forward and want to impose by force. This series shatters all these prejudices and tosses them aside. What does being a family mean? Is a blood bond definitely necessary to be a family? Concepts like commitment, love, tolerance, and compassion fall victim entirely to political greed today. Actually, it is possible to see all of what I said in this series. I had watched the series until its final episode. I know long years have passed and it is an old series, but it is still among the productions about which I want to write and share something.
Because we love imposing the concepts and rules in our own minds on others as if they were absolute truth. You know how there is “family structure”; okay, but who will determine the family structure? Everyone’s view of life is different. I am also against this expression: “Turkish family structure”; this expression smells entirely of politics. Which family structure is this? Conservative family structure, the family structure of someone living in the east, the family structure of someone living in the west, or the family structure of someone living secularly? In other words, when politicians impose the ideology in their heads, huge PROBLEMS are experienced, and the ones they first set their eyes on are of course LGBT individuals, whom they see as easy prey.
In the series, the lesbian couple doesn’t just solve the problems of the children they adopted. They give them a warm family, a future, a solid inner world, and “mothers” who will forgive them and stand behind them when they make mistakes. Most families cannot do most of what I said, and they are not doing it either. Drunk fathers beating their wives and children, domestic murders, cheating, economic hardships, divorces—well, where are we going to put these, are LGBT individuals responsible for these too?
A personal comment: Being LGBT and a family
The series touches upon many topics; for this reason, since it is a series that emerged from within life, I loved The Fosters very much. I used to wait for the week and the day it would come out right away, and I would watch it on the day it was released. It was truly a very good experience for me. Sometimes I would make my tea, sometimes I would make my coffee, sometimes I would do neither, go and make a pudding, and watch while eating pudding; I watched not only this series but all series this way. I would put it in front of my laptop and stretch my legs out. Truly, when we leave good memories in life, these memories relax us very much in the future. Rather than spending our time, our days badly, when we spend it with forgiveness, self-acceptance, compassion, understanding someone else, and truly knowing the value of being a family, this life does not pass in vain.
Family and family bonds, the meaning of family, or what we call “family structure” is definitely, absolutely not in a single mold. What is important, as I said above, is for family members to be able to understand each other, to show compassion, to be together in difficult days, and to accumulate wonderful memories until everyone goes their own way one day. Whoever the elder or elders at the head of the family are, they should also try to keep their growing children in the family with minimum damage by utilizing their past experiences, resolve their mistakes, accept them in every way, and make an effort so that they do not fall into a bad path. In this series, I saw completely these things. Anyway, it got too long; in my opinion, this is enough. What I wanted to say was actually things beyond the series. Simply summarizing a series and extracting its plot is not for me. It is necessary to examine fiction on a line parallel with real life.
🏳️🌈 Below I shared LGBT movies and series related to family bonds:
- A Distant Place (2022)
- His (2020)
- Fathers (2016)
- Chosen Home (2025)
- The Fosters (2013) (this production)
- Tales of the City (2019)
