Bathrooms, Baseball, and Bra Shopping: Lesbian and Gay Parents Talk about Engendering Their Children

Abstract

Drawing on an integrated theoretical lens of vocabularies of motive, gender interactionism, and queer theory, the authors explore how eighteen lesbian mothers and twenty-two gay fathers negotiate the cultural narratives of heteronormativity and gender essentialism as they imagine and participate in constructing their children's gender. Findings highlight the extent to which participants' parenting fantasies and realities occur within a context of heightened gender accountability that they manage for their children. The authors show how the practice of securing gender role models for their children is one way that non-heterosexual parents manage this accountability. Next, the authors introduce “queer ruptures” in participants' narratives and detail the subtle ways that they destabilize the existing heteronormative gender order. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for empirical and theoretical development.