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Abstract

This article analyses social worker’s assessments of appropriate same-sex parenthood in the case of second-parent adoption in Sweden, thereby investigating the governmentality directed towards same-sex parents and how this governing practise normalises certain discourses on parenthood. The material consists of interviews with social workers assessing second-parent adoptions, which have been analysed through a discourse analysis deploying theoretical frameworks on governmentality and heteronormativity. Great differences were found among which criteria were used to condition same-sex parenthood and the impact of social workers own perceptions of suitable parenthood and the purpose of the assessment process. Different standards for appropriate same-sex parenthood and heterosexual parenthood were apparent in the governmentality directed towards same-sex parents, where the legal parenthood of same-sex parents was conditioned by for example unemployment, overweight or a possible forthcoming divorce, conditions that clearly wouldn’t terminate heterosexual parents’ custody rights nor their legal parenthood. A juridical-biological hegemony was often dominating the social worker’s perception of “normal” legitimate parenthood rendering same-sex parent’s already existing social parenthood of little importance in the assessment process. Through the social worker’s assessments and the heteronormative discourses on suitable and desirable parenthood they imply, the state’s biopolitical strive were made visible. Same-sex parents were disciplined both in regard to their bodies, such as health and weight, as well as their way of life, such as their relations and economic resources. The governmentality directed towards same-sex parents thus demands self-governing practises and assimilation to the social worker’s both hetero- and homonormative standards in order to attain a legal affirmation of their parenthood.