Gender

Abstract

Ideas about lesbian and gay parents typically make use of ideas about gender, about versions of femininity and masculinity and — as in the example above — about the notion of gender role models. My earlier work in this field (Hicks, 2000, 2006c) didn’t really consider what might be termed the micro-doing of gender in talk and practices, and so here I want to get closer to complexities and contradictions, as well as asking how lesbian and gay parents position themselves as gendered subjects. Whilst I pay some attention to those who, like O’Cathain, are opposed to all gay parents and who make use of gender socialization theory in order to bolster their arguments, I am more interested in everyday theorizations of gender that occur when social workers talk about potential lesbian/gay carers or when gay parents talk about themselves.

Damaged children need both male and female role models, a mother and a father. Homosexual adoption would deliberately place some of the most damaged children in a home without either a father or a mother. Is that in the interests of the child? … How would they feel if their friends knew that they had either two dads or two mums? It is likely that they would be mocked and made to feel even more different.

(Baroness O’Cathain, UK House of Lords debate on Adoption & Children Bill, 16th October 2002: column 884)