and the Question of Gender
Stephen Hicks
S. Hicks, Ph.D. (*)
School of Nursing, Midwifery, and Social Work , University of Salford , Salford , M6 6PU , UK e-mail: [email protected]
150 S. Hicks
own research into foster care and adoption by lesbians and gay men (Hicks, 2008, 2011 ) , to ask how to reconceptualize gender as social and political interaction. That is, I ask how to avoid a fi xed view of gender and the tendency to com- pare LGBT parents with, and expect them to live up to, gendered normativities. Here, I hope to shift rei fi ed views of gender, in favor of an approach that asks how gender is enacted and attributed in talk, text, and practice.
What Is “Gender?”
The word “gender” was initially used by sexolo- gists working with transsexuals (e.g., Money, 1978 ; Stoller, 1968 ) and by feminists (e.g., Oakley, 1972 ; Rubin, 1975 ) to describe a role, identity, or social category based upon biological sex difference. Later de fi nitions variously de fi ne gender as a form of institutional and social rela- tions, in which knowledge about women and men is produced and used to sustain division and inequality, and as a social practice that must be enacted and negotiated within everyday life. This means that not only has the word “gender” been theorized in very different ways but it is a social concept related to questions of power and the institution of heterosexuality, rather than merely describing a characteristic acquired in childhood.
As Woodward ( 2011 ) argues:
Gender is embodied and lived through everyday interactions and, although it is characterised by the endurance of inequalities such as patriarchy, it is also subject to change and is a fl uid concept, which can be negotiated and transformed as well as rein- stated. (p. 4)
In relation to LGBT parents, however,
“gender” has mainly been used in more usual ways; that is, to refer to a natural/biological state, an identity, or a role. Opponents of LGBT parent- ing, for example, refer to “natural” differences between women and men and the need for all children to have parents that re fl ect, and provide role models of, these differences. In the UK, Patricia Morgan ( 2002 ) , a sociologist associated with the Institute for Economic Affairs, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, and the
Christian Institute—all promoters of the married, heterosexual family—argues that “intact mar- riage might be regarded as ‘the gold standard for child rearing’” (p. 44) and that the children of gay or lesbian parents are likely to suffer a confused gender and sexual identity. In the USA, Lynn Wardle, a professor of law who supported the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and is opposed to gay adoption, argues that children have a
“need for dual-gender parenting” (Wardle, 1997 , p. 852) to avoid confusion, and that there are
“gender-linked differences in child-rearing skills;
men and women contribute different (gender- connected) strengths and attributes” (p. 857).
Some research has responded to such claims by evaluating the gender identity and role of the chil- dren of LGBT parents to show “normal” develop- ment and outcome. Green’s ( 1978 ) analysis of 37 children raised by lesbian or transsexual parents, for example, suggests typical gender development and the absence of what is clinically de fi ned as
“gender identity disorder” (Green, 1998 , p. 2).
Tasker and Golombok ( 1997 ) argue, based upon their longitudinal, comparative study of 25 adults with lesbian parents and 21 adults with heterosex- ual mothers, that although those from lesbian households were more likely to consider a rela- tionship with someone of the same gender, they were no more likely than individuals living with a heterosexual mother to develop a gay, bisexual, or lesbian identity in adulthood. While research of this type has been vital in helping to challenge the views of those who argue against LGBT parent- ing, it may also be criticized for measuring those parents against a heteronormative standard and failing to question the notion of expected gender or sexual identity development.
Supporters of LGBT parenting also employ views of gender as a fi xed role, identity, or mea- surable variable in their work. For example, Biblarz and Stacey’s ( 2010 ) meta-analysis of studies from 1993 to 2008 concludes that exist- ing research has “not identi fi ed any gender- exclusive parenting abilities” (p. 16), but goes on to suggest that there may be some “ fi ndings of difference that might conceivably derive from parental gender” (p. 13). They propose the pos- sibility that “two women parent better on average
151 10 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Parents and the Question of Gender
than a woman and a man, or at least than a woman and a man with a traditional division of family labor,” and also that single parents are able to
“foster more androgynous parenting practices”
(p. 17). However, the authors advocate for the examination of gender “as distinct from the num- ber, marital status, sexual orientation, or bioge- netic relationship of parents” and suggest that it is possible to “isolate the variable of parental gender” (Biblarz & Stacey, 2010 , p. 5) to test for its effects.
The problem with these perspectives on gen- der is that they reify a social practice or set of expectations, so that gender becomes measurable and “thing-like,” with all other contextual and interactional matters disappearing from the pic- ture. An alternative perspective, one concerned with gender practices , considers the ways in which it is enacted or performed in everyday life, how such performances are context dependent, and the hierarchical, heteronormative expecta- tions of gender as a social system. For example, ethnomethodological theories of gender argue:
a person engaged in virtually any activity may be held accountable for performance of that activity as a woman or a man … to “do” gender is not always to live up to normative conceptions of femi- ninity or masculinity; it is to engage in behavior at the risk of gender assessment. (West & Zimmerman, 1987 , p. 136)
This is a crucial point, since it recognizes not only that gender is about social prescription and proscription but also that many people—includ- ing heterosexuals—do not live up to normative ideas about what is expected of women and men.
Feminist and queer theorists have also suggested that gender distinctions are part of the mainte- nance of heterosexual superiority. The produc- tion of gender is intimately connected to what Butler ( 1990 ) terms “compulsory heterosexual- ity” (p. 31), so that notions of the feminine/mas- culine are imagined to be opposite, discrete, yet complementary forms.
Sociological perspectives on gender remind us that each of us is required to perform gender everyday, and “role” actually refers to expecta- tions or prescriptions for appropriately masculine or feminine forms. What most people do in everyday life is what Kessler and McKenna
( 1985 ) term “gender attribution” (p. 2), a process by which we are compelled to assign each person into one of two expected categories, female or male. They argue that “the element of social construction is primary in all aspects of being female or male” (Kessler & McKenna, 1985 , p. 7), including supposed sex differences. Notions about what is properly masculine or feminine are treated as behavioral or psychological character- istics, attributed differently to men and women.
Thus, for example, women are assumed to be the
“naturally” better carers/parents. Instead, Kessler and McKenna talk about gender assignment (attribution of a gender category at birth), identity (“an individual’s own feeling of whether she or he is a woman or a man,” p. 8), and role (“a set of expectations about what behaviors are appropri- ate for people of one gender,” p. 11).
As is the case for everyone, LGBT parents must take up or enact gender in everyday life.
They must be taken for a woman or a man and, while this expectation does not necessarily imply willing adherence to gender norms, it does mean that any perceived deviance from the norm will be problematized. The breaching of gender role expectations will usually result not in any questioning of the gender order, but in stigmati- zation of the individual, group, or category (LGBT parents) that they are taken to represent.
Ethnomethodological theorists, such as Kessler and McKenna ( 1985 ) , also argue that it is impor- tant to examine gendered subjectivity as practiced within an everyday context, rather than in the abstract, and so I return to this point in relation to LGBT parenting toward the end of the chapter.
But fi rst, it is necessary to consider in more depth how gender is analyzed in the existing research on LGBT parents and their children.
Gender in Existing Research
on LGBT Parents and Their Children Gender and LGBT Parents
Many LGBT parents talk about the constrain- ing effects of gender. For example, in a focus group-based study of 25 gay fathers based in New York, Boston, and Connecticut, the majority
152 S. Hicks
reported “gender role strain” (Benson, Silverstein,
& Auerbach, 2005 , p. 3), based upon the per- ceived need to conform to expectations about masculinity. In other studies, gay dads talk about being made to feel that the care of children ought to be carried out by women (Doucet, 2006 ; Lewin, 2009 ; Mallon, 2004 ; Riggs, 2010 ) . Lesbian mothers also state that, in some contexts, they are positioned as gender nonconformists; for example, in some people’s reactions to a two- mother family (Dalton & Bielby, 2000 ) , or in sur- prised responses to butch-identi fi ed lesbians who become mothers (Epstein, 2002 ; Pelka, 2009 ) . Epstein’s ( 2002 ) interviews with lesbian mothers who identify as butch reveal assumptions that mothers are assumed to be typically female/“feminine” or unremarkably gendered.
As she argues, “Butch pregnancy and mother- hood disrupt notions of coherent butch identity and butch mothers are subject to the cruelty that can result from a lack of willingness to see beyond these notions” (Epstein, 2002 , p. 47).
Ryan’s ( 2009 ) interviews with 10 female-to- male trans parents also suggest that “what trans men juggle is not the supposed baf fl ing conun- drum of how someone born female could be a father, but the rigid rules of gendered family life set up by other people” (p. 140). Trans parents in both Hines’ ( 2007 ) and Ryan’s ( 2009 ) research reported that they experienced prejudicial and negative reactions from some people who did not accept their gender determination or the notion that they may be suitable parents.
These gender con fi gurations—gay dads, two mothers, butch moms, transgender parents—are all treated by some as unusual or even abnormal because they are perceived to challenge expecta- tions about standard, heterosexual roles, includ- ing the notion that children ought to be parented by a caring/nurturing mother and a providing father. In this way, LGBT parents disrupt expected social categories in terms of gender and parent- ing. While this means that they may be subject to opprobrium, such disruptions also help to trans- form gender prescriptions. LGBT parents recog- nize, however, that the opportunities for gender transformation are limited. Gender presentation is context dependent, and so there will be situa- tions in which gender nonconformity is embraced
and others in which to do so might be unsafe, unwise, or dif fi cult for parents and children.
As the literature considered in this section reveals, LGBT parents both “do” and “undo” gender simultaneously.
Gay Fathers and Gender
Parenting and caring activities among gay men are sometimes taken as evidence of gender dissi- dence, since “nurturing, caretaking, and domestic activities [are] simultaneously more necessary for gay men and less likely to be threatening to their masculine identity” (Stacey, 2006 , p. 47).
Based upon interviews with 29 gay fathers in the greater Los Angeles area, Stacey ( 2011 ) argues that most expressed a mix or range of gendered positions not always tied to notions of masculin- ity. Other studies also suggest gay dads blend male/female roles or take up androgynous ones (Bigner & Bozett, 1990 ; Bozett, 1989 ) . There are instances of “degendered parenting” in the litera- ture (Benson et al., 2005 , p. 19), where gay men reject standard notions about the proper roles of mothers/fathers. Schacher, Auerbach, and Silverstein ( 2005 ) , too, suggest situations in which the “gender role distinctions between
‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ [are] obsolete” (p. 44).
Yet this largely has to do with gay fathers’ desires to avoid typically gendered divisions of labor within the home. In other contexts, particularly more public ones—schools, workplaces, com- munity groups, health settings, social spaces, childcare facilities, and so on—gay dads have to weigh how much they are prepared to challenge gender assumptions and are particularly con- scious about the fact that their children have to negotiate conventionally gendered expectations.
In her ethnography based upon individual, couple, and group interviews with 118 “primary, caregiving fathers” (p. 12), of which 9 were gay men, Doucet ( 2006 ) argues that gay dads are able to recognize both masculine and feminine aspects within themselves. But, at the same time, such ideas are actually heavily gendered. For example, Bernard, a participant in Doucet’s research, says:
I do some things that are typical of fathering.
I throw a ball and play catch, mini golf, take him on the roller coaster, watch movies, play sports.
But I also do non-typical things. I let him cry; I am
153 10 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Parents and the Question of Gender
physically demonstrative. I want to break that gen- erational cycle. I let him play with dolls, watch women superheroes … (p. 123)
While Doucet’s ( 2006 ) analysis recognizes the “border crossings” (p. 123) engaged in by gay fathers who wish to break down some of the sup- posedly female/male aspects of identities and activities, at the same time, a concern with the
“doing” of gender reveals the ways in which Bernard’s speech actually genders activities, so much so that going on a roller coaster or watch- ing a movie is associated with “fathering.” His talk demonstrates an acute awareness of gendered expectations, which he wishes to challenge.
Bernard uses ideas about the “generational cycle”
in interesting ways here. He wants to “break that
… cycle” so that he does not model typical ways of being a man to his son, but at the same time, Bernard imagines that his nontypical behaviors will be passed on. The notion of gender as some- how modeled by parents and taken up by children remains intact.
Doucet ( 2006 ) , however, also notes occasions at which “gay fathers … have to demonstrate that they can blend into parenting settings so that gen- der and sexuality lose critical signi fi cance” (p.
205). Lewin’s ( 2009 ) research with 95 gay fathers in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Iowa City also found that they had to contend with notions that parenting was essentially mater- nal but, at the same time, most of her respondents rejected the idea that they were “mothering” to emphasize their masculinity. In Mallon’s ( 2004 ) study of 20 gay men who became fathers through foster care or adoption, most reported that they had to contend with others’, and sometimes their own, views that men ought not to care for chil- dren, and also that such caring work is generally devalued because it is primarily undertaken by women. One couple reported that their ability or willingness to perform caring and household tasks had been commented upon by heterosexual neighbors, whereby women were generally approving but men seemed to feel that the gay couple had made things dif fi cult for them; that is, the performance of childcare and household duties by gay men implied that all men ought to be able to do these tasks.
Lesbian Mothers and Gender
Lesbian mothers, similarly, both “draw upon and resist dominant cultural practices, scripts, and assumptions” (Dalton & Bielby, 2000 , p. 57) concerning expected gender roles and identities.
Lewin ( 1993 ) , who interviewed 135 women (73 lesbian and 62 heterosexual single mothers) residing in the San Francisco Bay Area, argues for more commonalities, rather than differences, between the two groups, suggesting that:
a lesbian who becomes a mother has effectively rejected the equation of homosexuality with unnat- uralness and the exclusion of the lesbian from the ranks of “women.” In this sense, fi nding a way to become a mother constitutes a form of resistance to the gender limitations, and particularly to the constructions of sexual orientation, that prevail in the wider culture. Curiously, though, this act of resistance is achieved through compliance with conventional expectations for women, so it may also be construed as a gesture of accommodation.
(p. 74)
Lewin ( 1993 ) thus argues, not that lesbian mothers are simply “the same” as heterosexual ones, but rather that both share in a “system of meaning that envelops motherhood in our culture”
(p. 182). In some senses, she suggests, lesbian mothers occupy an expected gender role in a way that any woman who is a not a mother does not.
Sullivan’s ( 1996 ) research with 34 lesbian co-parent couples in the San Francisco Bay Area found a mixture of responses to the notion of gender roles. Most couples described their household labor, including parenting, as equally shared rather than divided by role, but fi ve had a full-time bread winner/
stay-at-home caregiver con fi guration in which the stay-at-home parent was more dissatis fi ed and anxious about domestic arrangements. In later research, Sullivan ( 2004 ) theorizes lesbian families as “free of historically produced, socially enforced gender conventions” (p. 6), yet her respondents actually create and hold on to gender difference within their talk. For example, Danielle, a partici- pant in Sullivan’s research, says:
I think that [Nathan]’ll have a different view of women, not even so much from me but from Lee [her partner]. Because Lee can do anything.
I mean, she cooks, she cleans, she builds, she does gardening…I think Nathan’s going to, I don’t think
154 S. Hicks
that Nathan’s not going to lose not having a man. I think that he’s um, you know, he’s going to have the loss on some level of not knowing who his father is and not having that person here in his life, but Lee puts my brother-in-law to shame! (p. 86)
As with the example of Bernard, Danielle’s talk is acutely conscious of gender and its impli- cations, and she too takes up the idea of passing on a positive gender role to her son. Danielle’s talk both challenges expected gender roles (“Lee can do anything”) and re fl ects worries about male role models in relation to Nathan. While Sullivan ( 2004 ) argues in her study that lesbian parenting
“may disrupt the cycle of gender reproduction”
(p. 79), Danielle’s talk nevertheless relies on the notion of gender role models, even though she proposes nontraditional ones. Both Danielle and Bernard feel accountable for gender identity/
presentation.
Egalitarian Roles?
There is evidence in some research that lesbian or gay parents challenge gendered assumptions through attempts to develop more egalitarian ways of living and dividing up household roles and tasks (Ciano-Boyce & Shelley-Sireci, 2002 ; Goldberg, 2010a ; Sullivan, 1996, 2004 ; Weeks, Heaphy, & Donovan, 2001 ) . Dunne ( 2000 ) argues, based upon interviews with 29 UK les- bian couples with children conceived through donor insemination, that the absence of polar- ized gender roles leads to the “construction of more egalitarian approaches to fi nancing and caring for children” (p. 13). However, this notion of the egalitarian family is questioned elsewhere. Carrington’s ( 1999 ) ethnography based upon interviews and observations of 26 lesbian and 26 gay families in the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, concludes that “les- bigay families are neither as egalitarian as they would like to believe nor as we would prefer that others believe” (p. 11). In fact, much of the research that suggests egalitarian shared par- enting amongst LGBT families is based upon the experiences of White, middle-class, urban respondents.
Moore’s ( 2008, 2011 ) research with Black mothers in New York (32 from lesbian stepfami- lies and 8 who had children via alternative insem- ination) argues that notions of gendered egalitarianism may be tempered by actual family practices in which Black women strongly value economic independence. In addition, biological mothers, particularly in stepfamilies, undertake signi fi cantly more household chores and budget management, but as a way to retain status and respectability. The control of certain household or caring tasks acts as a way to con fi rm an iden- tity as a “good” mother and to control, or have a deciding voice, in how a household is run. Moore ( 2011 ) argues that Black women value autonomy and economic independence over notions of egal- itarian division of labor, and that her respondents saw these as crucial to the success of their rela- tionships. Given that Black lesbians are also more likely than Whites to experience poverty, lack of opportunity, and social stigmatization, then these questions about respectability and fi nancial autonomy are highly relevant.
The notion of egalitarianism is also problema- tized in further studies where social class is taken into account. Gabb’s ( 2008 ) research, based upon diaries, interviews, and observations of 14 lesbian parents and their 10 children in the North of England, and Taylor’s ( 2009 ) interviews with 60 gay and les- bian parents in the UK suggest the notion is a largely middle-class one, derived from research that does not ask questions about class or that is based solely upon middle-class samples. Gabb and Taylor both suggest that questions to do with poverty or lack of opportunity may mean, for example, that a lesbian couple who appears to occupy traditionally gen- dered homemaker/breadwinner roles may derive some sense of ordinariness or respectability from this arrangement, an important dynamic in a social context that is otherwise stigmatizing. They may also lack the choice or opportunity to adopt what is considered to be a more egalitarian model of family life, since this model is sometimes derived from research with couples in which both partners work part time or can afford to pay for day care (Dunne, 2000 ; Sullivan, 2004 ; Weeks et al., 2001 ) .