Lesbian mothers and their children: the third wave

Law, Blood, and Custody: Sexual Minority Mothers and Heteronormativity

This article analyzes how couples made up of two mothers redefine their roles when they break up as well as how legal professionals frame the custodial arrangements of these former same-sex couples. To do so, we focus on the case of Quebec, Canada, where parentage equality between mothers was attained as early as in 2002. We rely on individual semi-structured interviews with mothers' (N = 17) and legal professionals' accounts (N = 23) as well as on court records regarding physical custody arrangements. We find that the legal recognition of both mothers favors coparenting practices, and especially joint physical custody. However, the heteronormative frame of custody arrangements lingers. Sexual minority mothers struggle with the valorization of birth motherhood and with the standard of gendered parental complementarity. Indeed, professionals can still fall back on heteronormative norms, notably by assigning to non-birth mothers a "paternal" role. In the end, the inexperience of many professionals on LGBTQ+ issues, the embeddedness of heteronormativity in day-to-day relations, as well as the permanence of heteronormative legal categories and professional practices are all factors that set these families apart.

What About the Sexual Orientation of the Offspring of Lesbian and Gay Parents? A Multidimensional, Time and Gender-Based Answer

This study examined the sexual orientation of 30 young adult children of lesbian and gay parents, analyzing three dimensions (sexual behavior, sexual attraction and sexual self-identification), their evolution over time and the possible influence of gender (19 women and 11 men). Sexual orientation was measured using KSOG. The results revealed that most participants defined themselves as heterosexual only, although percentages varied between 87% for sexual behavior to 67% for sexual attraction and 60% for sexual self-identification. Gender differences were found for sexual attraction and self-identification, with men having a polarized profile (responses at both ends of the scale) and women reporting a less exclusive and more fluid sexuality. These findings are discussed in light of the complex nature of sexual orientation, the freedom of these young adults for defining their sexual orientation, and the role played by gender and family experiences.

Different Placement Practices for Different Families? Children's Adjustment in LGH Adoptive Families

Objective

The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of children placed with lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adopters, and to examine children’s problem behaviors and positive psychosocial adjustment across the three family types.

Background

There is evidence that children with hard-to-place profiles may be more likely to be matched with lesbian and gay parents. In addition, children adopted from care face greater developmental difficulties than children raised by their birth families, although adoptive parents may buffer the negative effects of early adversity on their children’s psychosocial adjustment.

Method

A final sample of 149 adoptive families from across the United Kingdom was recruited: 71 heterosexual parented, 39 lesbian parented, and 39 gay parented.

Results

The results showed that gay and lesbian parents were more likely than heterosexual parents to be matched with hard-to-place children, partially because they were more open to being matched with children with hard-to-place profiles. However, no differences among the three family types on children’s psychosocial adjustment were found, when controlling for children’s early adversity.

Conclusion

Adopted children displayed similar levels of problem behaviors and positive adjustment in lesbian, gay, and heterosexual parented families. Early adversity and having a physical problem/disability accounted for much of the variance in problem behaviors whereas parenting did not. In contrast, it was suggested that parenting processes, namely, parental closeness, may help to explain children’s positive adjustment.

Saving Delaney … by white privilege: a memoir of lesbian motherhood and anti-Black ableism

Saving Delaney is one of a number of "special needs" parent memoirs published in the United States since 2000 and is the only memoir about raising a disabled child in the United States written by lesbian parents. Like many representations of disability, "special needs" parent memoirs use a problematic narrative in which the presumed negative effects of disability are individually overcome before life lived happily ever after. Also like popular and positive representations of disability, the children subjects of "special needs" parent memoirs are almost entirely white. In this paper, I contextualize Saving Delaney within histories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) family-making in the United States, drawing particular attention to the overrepresentation of children with disabilities among gay and lesbian adoptive parent households. Then, drawing attention to the overwhelming whiteness of both positive portrayals of children with disabilities in "special needs" parent memoirs and LGBT families in scholarship, data, and media, I argue that white privilege facilitates visibility and protection against disability stigmas. I demonstrate that LGBT family-making and caring for children with disabilities cohere as issues of comprehensive reproductive justice and that narratives like Delaney's fail to advance the reproductive justice movement due to reiterative entrenchment in the material and discursive privileges of whiteness.

The Emotional Experience of Motherhood in Planned Lesbian Families in the South African Context: "… Look How Good a Job I'm Doing, Look How Amazing We Are"

This article focuses on lesbian mothers' emotional experience of motherhood. It forms part of a larger qualitative and exploratory study with 10 lesbian couples in South Africa on their lived experience of planned motherhood. The study is located in a feminist phenomenological framework. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis. Participants described many different emotions associated with new motherhood: hope, joy, love, anxiety, helplessness, exhaustion, and feeling companionship and togetherness as well as feeling compromised and deprived. Mothers described these emotions but also focused on the development of a new identity, that of being a mother.

HOMOPARENTALIDADE: DA ABORDAGEM CIENTÍFICA AOS NORMATIVOS LEGAIS EM PORTUGAL

A homoparentalidade é uma temática que ativa opiniões e tomadas de posição nos vários setores da sociedade que, por sua vez, podem influenciar a postura de cada profissional que trabalha na área das responsabilidades parentais. Neste artigo pretende-se analisar as convergências e dissonâncias entre as disposições da Ordem Jurídica portuguesa e os princípios emergentes da investigação científica adotados por associações como a American Psychological Association (APA) e a American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) na área da homoparentalidade. Pretende-se, ainda, fazer uma análise crítica dos estudos reportados pela literatura, ponderando possíveis implicações para a investigação e para as práticas profissionais.