This Heart Holds Many: My Life as the Nonbinary Millennial Child of a Polyamorous Family

Many of us were asked by our mother to do the dishes as children. Perhaps some of us would need to be asked more than once. Koe Creation was the type who’d get asked three times, by three different mothers. Crowded parent-teacher conferences, queer youth summer camp, and parental adoptions over potluck dinner were typical of Koe’s upbringing in a queer, polyamorous family. Taught from young age to embrace sex-positivity and LGBT acceptance, Koe had an experience of “family values” that differs wildly from many raised in conservative North America. Still: all families know conflict and all hearts know struggle, no matter how loved. Though a poster child for the alternative Seattle community, Koe yearned for a realization of theirself beyond the “shadow of their tribe.” This drive for a singular identity led Koe to leave the alt-Seattle scene to find the self that no one person or family could make for them. This Heart Holds Many is a testament of transformative, communal love, as told by an educator and life-long learner who has dedicated their life to helping others grasp their extraordinary love.

Koe Creation grew up in a sex-positive, polyamorous family in Seattle, Washington. They have taught sex education and relationship skills among top educators in the US for the past decade. Koe is a frequent cohost of the Polyamory Weekly podcast and presents at conferences all over the country. Dr. Elisabeth Sheff is an educational consultant and expert witness serving sexual and gender minorities. She is the author of The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple-Partner Relationships and Families and the editor of Stories From the Polycule: Real Life in Polyamorous Families.