'We're doing just fine': The Children of Australian Gay and Lesbian Parents Speak Out

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“We Are Doing Just Fine”: The Childrenof Australian Gay and Lesbian ParentsSpeak OutGipsy Hoskinga, Monique Mulhollanda & Barbara Bairda

a School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide,South Australia, AustraliaPublished online: 23 Feb 2015.

To cite this article: Gipsy Hosking, Monique Mulholland & Barbara Baird (2015) “We Are Doing JustFine”: The Children of Australian Gay and Lesbian Parents Speak Out, Journal of GLBT Family Studies,11:4, 327-350, DOI: 10.1080/1550428X.2014.988378

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Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 11:327–350, 2015Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1550-428X print / 1550-4298 onlineDOI: 10.1080/1550428X.2014.988378

“We Are Doing Just Fine”: The Children ofAustralian Gay and Lesbian Parents Speak Out

GIPSY HOSKING, MONIQUE MULHOLLAND, and BARBARA BAIRDSchool of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

This article foregrounds the public voices of children of gay and les-bian parents in Australia. In doing so, it contributes to scholarshipabout these children but its focus is one that has been only partiallyexplored. It begins by showing how children’s welfare continuesto be the ground on which both homophobic and pro-gay publicdiscourse stakes territory. The article documents the emergence inAustralia, since the early 2000s, of a new self-defined subject po-sition, evident in a range of Internet sources. The article analyzesthe ways in which the voices which speak from this position areboth constituted by the pro-gay discourse and also speak back to it.Three themes are identified and analyzed: resistance to the binaryopposition of the child at risk versus the prospering child, responsesto heteronormativity and homophobia, and the “love makes a fam-ily” discourse. While the children of gay and lesbian parents arenot immune to the public discourses that create them as objectsof debate, attention to their self-consciously political voices revealsthat they also resist the norms of the pro-gay position (and the ho-mophobic position) and begin to create space for a more diversepicture of their lives.

KEYWORDS children of GLBTQ parents, same-sex parenting,same-sex families

INTRODUCTION

In 2012, Lachlan Dunjey, a spokesperson for Doctors for the Family(http://www.doctors4family.com.au), an Australian medical organization

The authors are indebted to the generous comments from the journal’s two anonymousreviewers.

Address correspondence to Dr. Barbara Baird, Women’s Studies, School of Social andPolicy Studies, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, South Australia, 5001. E-mail:[email protected]

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328 G. Hosking et al.

“supporting the traditional family” established in 2011, stated in an inter-view on ABC Radio National, the national public broadcaster, that the re-search that concludes children raised in same-sex families are well-adjusted isflawed and that “a growing and increasingly sophisticated body of research”shows that children of married heterosexual couples have better health, ed-ucational, and social outcomes (Radio National Breakfast, 2012).1 Dunjeyfurther argued, through the rhetoric of child protection, that legalizing same-sex marriage would be detrimental to the future health of our nation ashomosexuality would be normalized and thus more children would grow upwithout a mother and a father. Children raised by gay and lesbian parentswere positioned as “at risk” of a range of adverse outcomes.

In response to the emergence of Doctors for the Family, a countergroup called Doctors for Marriage Equality formed (Doctors for MarriageEquality, 2012). Former Australian Medical Association president and gay ac-tivist Professor Kerryn Phelps spoke back to Dr. Dunjey on Radio National,commenting that his assertion showed “a breathtaking lack of reason” (RadioNational Breakfast, 2012). She referred to the support for gay marriage from“every major medical association and psychological and psychiatric associa-tion now worldwide” and their belief, “based on the research,” that “childrenraised in same-sex households where the parents are the same gender haveat least equivalent outcomes to children raised in heterosexual families”(Radio National Breakfast, 2012).

This recent instance of the Australian same-sex marriage debate acts as apoignant capture of the ways in which children continue to be a key discur-sive site for expressing anxieties around the legitimization of gay and lesbianrelationships more generally and for allaying those anxieties. The well-beingof the children of lesbian and gay parents has been positioned at the centerof public debates through the continued discursive association of nonhetero-sexual parenting with harm to both individual children and to “the child” asthe signifier of the nation’s future (Clarke, 2007). In response, the positivehealth and social outcomes experienced by the children of gay and lesbianparents, which have been mapped out in quantitative and qualitative socialscience research (Golombok & Tasker, 1994, 1996; Millbank, 2003; Patterson,2006; Ray & Gregory, 2001; Sarantakos, 1996; Short, Riggs, Perlesz, Brown,& Kane, 2007; Stacey & Biblarz, 2010; Tasker, 2005) are regularly offered asproof that nonheterosexual parenting is not detrimental to the children orsociety in general. What is missing in the debate on ABC radio with whichwe began, and indeed in much public debate, are the voices of the chil-dren and young people themselves (Kuvalanka, Teper, & Morrison, 2006).When present they are often spoken of within very narrowly determinedcontexts (Clarke & Kitzinger, 2005; Riggs, 2010). While “the child” exists asan abstract it can be used, through the discourse of child protectionism, as asymbolic marker for or against same-sex marriage and parenting rights withlittle attention to children’s own voices (McCreery, 2008).

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Children of Australian Gay and Lesbian Parents 329

Publicly available firsthand accounts from Australian young people aresparse, an absence that is not unique to Australia. Such accounts are impor-tant, however, for evidence of the ways these young people speak out asknowing political subjects, often speaking back to public discourses whichimpugn or oversimplify their experience. In Australia, a response to the ob-jectification of these children, and their relative absence in public discussionas speaking subjects, is slowly growing. Australia has no ongoing nationalorganizations, societies, groups, or online communities for children with gayor lesbian parents.2 Thus the responses from the children of gay and lesbianparents are not yet a coordinated or organized response but are presentin loosely linked pockets of activism and advocacy. There are a few ex-amples which signpost a shifting political landscape where children withgay and lesbian parents are becoming political subjects with a public voice.Most recently, and testament to the growth in prominence of the voicesof the children of gay and lesbian parents, in late 2013 an early shortenedversion of Maya Newell’s documentary film called Gayby Baby (Newell &Mars, 2014) was televised on ABC2, one of the national broadcaster’s televi-sion stations. Director and narrator Newell shared her personal experienceas the daughter of lesbian mothers and filmed other children sharing theirexperiences.

The timing of the emergence of these voices is due in part to the ageof the children. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw many children born andraised in gay and lesbian families (Baird, 2012; Benkov, 1994; Patterson, 1994;Ryan-Flood, 2009; Short et al., 2007). In 1984, Melbourne hosted Australia’sfirst national lesbian mothers conference attended by about 200 women(Baird, 2012). In 1990 the National Lesbian Conference held a workshopon Lesbians and Conception, attended by more than 60 women (Borthwick& Bloch, 1993). By 1991, lesbian parenting and insemination was receivingmainstream media attention (Baird, 2012), circulating knowledge and ideasbeyond those in lesbian communities. In 1992 we saw the inclusion of thefirst float in the Sydney Mardi Gras parade representing children of gay andlesbian parents (Borthwick & Bloch, 1993). These children are now youngadults.

The nationwide campaigns for the recognition of same-sex relationshipsin the states and territories, where most law that pertains to relationshipssits, have been another causal factor prompting children of gay and les-bian parents to speak out. Campaigns in the federal arena, focused on thelegalisation of same-sex marriage, have also had an impact. The rights ofsame-sex couples in relation to children were often not included in the earlystate-based reforms that recognized their relationships. The right to adoptand the automatic recognition of the non-birth mother in a lesbian fam-ily were the major key points of contention in most states.3 The Australiancampaign for marriage equality took off in 2004 when the federal govern-ment legislated to explicitly exclude same-sex marriage. As noted in the

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introduction to this article, children have often been central to the argumentsopposing same-sex marriage and are also increasingly central to pro-same-sex-marriage arguments (see Hosking & Ripper, 2012; McCreery, 2008). Asa national phenomenon—and one that has gained increasing visibility andpolitical legitimacy over the past decade—the campaigns for and againstsame-sex marriage have both intensified the debate about the well-being ofthe children of gay and lesbian parents and provided platforms from whichthe children can speak.

We have already noted that children’s experiences have been the objectof academic research, as Professor Kerryn Phelps stated in her responseto Doctors for the Family. When the first studies emerged in the 1970s,common understandings of the children of gay and lesbian parents wereframed within homophobic legal and social systems that accepted, as adefault position, that gay and lesbian parenting was harmful to children(Clarke, 2008). Homosexuality at this time was in many countries illegal andcategorized as a mental illness. Set against this backdrop, and in response toa growing number of disputes about the custody of children in divorce cases,researchers began to investigate the health and well-being of the childrenof gay and lesbian parents (Green, 1978; Osman, 1972; Weeks, Derdeyn,& Langman, 1975). On the whole, the children have been studied througha range of psychological assessments (see, for example, Patterson, 2006;Wainwright, Russell, & Patterson, 2004). Data for the quantitative studieswere collected through a range of measures from parents, teachers, andthe children themselves. A large majority of the studies used interviewsand questionnaires to examine children’s experiences. Typically, though,when children were involved in interviews or questionnaires, this was via apredetermined schedule where the main concerns were already mapped outby the researcher. Thus the research was carried out on, rather than with,the participants.

As mentioned earlier, and at the risk of oversimplifying a large body ofresearch, the quantitative research found no statistically significant differencebetween children with one or more gay or lesbian parent and children withheterosexual parent(s) (for comprehensive reviews of the research literature,see Allen & Burrell, 1996; Millbank, 2003; Patterson, 2005; Short et al., 2007;Stacey & Biblarz, 2010; Tasker, 2005).4 The reviews showed that findings areconsistent regardless of study demographics and include children from solo-parent homes, children with gay or lesbian stepparents and, increasingly,children in planned same-sex families, adopted children, and children bornthrough donor insemination or other assisted reproductive technologies. USpsychologist Charlotte Patterson observed that “more than two decades ofresearch has failed to reveal important differences in the adjustment or de-velopment of children or adolescents raised by same-sex couples” (2006, p.241). Prominent sociology scholar in this area Judith Stacey reiterated this,commenting that “rarely is there as much consensus in any area of social

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science as in the case of gay parenting” (in Short et al., 2007, p. 7). Thatis, the vast majority of academic research has supported gay and lesbianparenting (Stacey & Biblarz, 2010). This research has been used by pro-gaylobbyists to show that the children are prospering.

The overwhelming finding of “no harm” within quantitative researchthat disproves the hypothesis that children of gay and lesbian parents are atrisk has no doubt been both necessary and important. These research find-ings have been used to challenge homophobia in the courts, in legal reform,in education, and in public policy (Riggs, 2010; Stacey & Biblarz, 2001). Thisbeing said, the research—and, more importantly for us, its deployment inpublic debate—is implicitly framed by the push and pull of the notions of“harm/risk” and “prospering.” As argued by Stacey and Biblarz (2001, p. 160),“because anti-gay scholars seek evidence of harm, sympathetic researchersdefensively stress its absence.” In his account of an Australian senate in-quiry, Riggs (2010, para 19) also argued that “whilst some of the report fromthe inquiry clearly refutes negative stereotypes. . . in other places it simplyrehearses the stereotypes in ways that actually reinforces them, rather thanfundamentally challenging the terms on which they operate.” He argued fur-ther that “it can also be the case that new stereotypes or norms are createdin the rush to ‘prove’ the normality of lesbian and gay parenting” (2010, para20). Riggs’ observation of the reiteration of the “harm/risk” binary highlightsan important effect, namely the tendency to limit the possibility for diversity,voice, and agency in both research and its deployment in public debate.

Following the quantitative research, which set the discursive ground forconsidering the issues, qualitative approaches from psychologists and sociol-ogists have allowed more agency for the children of gay and lesbian parentsto speak. They have been small in number and first appeared in the UnitedStates in the 1980s and in the United Kingdom in the 1990s (Fairtlough, 2008;Goldberg, 2007; Kuvalanka & Goldberg, 2009; Lewis, 1980; O’Connell, 1993;Saffron, 1998). They have included critical reflections by now adult children(Davies, 2008; McGuire, 1996; Paechter, 2000). A small number of Australianstudies are a recent contribution to this literature (Lindsay et al., 2006; Per-lesz, Brown, Linsday, et al., 2006; Perlesz, Brown, McNair, et al., 2006; Ray &Gregory, 2001). These studies have given more voice to the children of gayand lesbian parents, challenging the inevitably objectifying practices of thequantitative work (Ramazanoglu & Holland, 2002). Across these importantstudies, researchers have also attempted to challenge “harm/at risk” hypothe-ses, asserting that the family experiences have been productive of individualwell-being and fostered an acceptance of diversity. Nonetheless, renderingchildren’s experience as positive, even through engagement with their ownvoices, can still have the effect of reaffirming notions of risk and harm (Riggs,2010). This makes more complex and varied readings of children’s experi-ences more difficult, especially those that fall outside of harm-versus-prosperaccounts.

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A growing body of avowedly critical scholarship has emerged fromthe social sciences, research which articulates more complex readings andexperiences of the issues (Clarke, 2006, 2007, Clarke, 2008; Gabb, 2013;Hicks, 2013; Lindsay et al., 2006; Perlesz, Brown, Lindsay, et al., 2006; Perlesz,Brown, McNair, et al., 2006; Riggs, 2010). This research has served to deepenthe analysis of the lived experience of gay and lesbian parents and theirchildren. It has also argued (Riggs 2010, para 6) that the effects of relyingon “scientific ‘proof”’—and in particular the adherence to “the supposed‘gold standard’ of longitudinal, quantitative data”—can create marginalizationanew for some groups even as it offers inclusion to others. Drawing from thework of Lehr (1999), Riggs (2010, para 5) wrote that “what often occurs whenthe positive outcomes from (primarily positivist psychological) research onwhite, middle-class coupled lesbian parents are repeatedly emphasised is thatthere are negative categories created by contrast.” This article offers a furthercontribution to this scholarship, with the aim of complicating accounts andavoiding the rigidity of “harm” versus “prosper” accounts. We respond inpart to Riggs’ conclusion (2010, para 27) that “I believe it is vital that wemove towards finding ways to actively recognise the lifeworlds that childreninhabit on their terms, and to resist co-opting these into the agendas ofadults.”

Rather than focus on the experiences, feelings, attitudes, and outcomesof growing up with same-sex parents, we explore the political subject po-sitions created by Australian children of gay and lesbian parents. Whilesome authors have discussed public statements by such children (Clarke& Kitzinger, 2004; Riggs, 2010), they have been given little specific atten-tion. Kuvalanka and colleagues (2006) gave an account of COLAGE, theU.S. organization run by and for the children of gay, lesbian, bisexual, andtransgender (GLBT) parents, outlining its history and current operation at thetime of writing. Their account made clear that the United States and Australiahave different histories in relation to GLBT family issues: the voices of thechildren of GLBT parents in the United States emerged in a coordinated waymuch earlier than that of the Australian children; COLAGE is enabled byan economic base that is hard to imagine in Australia; the national politicalenvironments are also significantly different. Furthermore, Kuvalanka andcolleagues (2006) wrote as key insiders and, while they described their po-litical framework, their purpose was not to analyze the discourses throughwhich the organization was constituted. It is to this end we focus our at-tention on articulating how the Australian children represent themselves inpublic. What claims do they make? What claims do they respond to? Howdo they negotiate what others say about them?

We look to instances where children of gay and lesbian parents havespoken out in public forums in Australia, often in response to public de-bates about issues such as same-sex marriage and same-sex parentage. Inthis article, our definition of “public” is inclusive rather than exclusive. We

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consider material that has been publicized in, or had its origins in, publicforums as conventionally understood (e.g., mainstream newspapers, politicalrallies) as well as material that, publicly available, appears in non-mainstreamand therefore less visible places (e.g., Web sites for pro-gay campaigns). Inall cases these accounts are self-consciously public political narratives, andoffer another way to consider the desires of the children of gay and lesbianparents in relation to the ways they are discussed in public.

We do not claim that the accounts examined here are by definitionmore authentic than the voices of children that emerge in the psychologicaland sociological academic literature. All narratives bear the imprint of thesocially constituted subjects who speak them and the specific contexts inwhich they are produced (Weedon, 1987). We privilege them because theyadopt a position of speaking within and to mainstream discourse (bothpro- and antigay) and are at least partially self-generated. We argue thatthese accounts both reproduce and resist the discourses through which thechildren are constructed in public debate and in research (Weedon, 1987).(We bracket the academic literature with the public debate here becauseit is so often referred to by pro-gay activists and those who adopt theirperspectives, and because the two discourses often coincide so neatly.) Weunderstand the main body of social science research as (broadly) both goodscholarship and constitutive of the objects it claims to study (see Riggs, 2010).The children’s accounts are evidence of complex and interesting negotiationsof the notions of risk and prospering that go some way to challengingthe risk/prosper binary framing. Furthermore, we argue that the accountsfrom the children of gay and lesbian parents examined here amount to theemergence of a new collective political subject position in the Australiancontext.

METHODOLOGY

We used the Internet to obtain instances where Australian “children of” spokefor themselves in any media. We used multiple search terms including lesbianmum; lesbian mother; lesbian parent; two (2) mums/mothers/dads/fathers;gay dad; gay father; gay parent; same-sex parent; same-sex family; gayby;queerspawn; children of; and rainbow baby. The time frame we set for thestories was 10 years, up to and including May 2012. After our initial periodof data collection we added the film Growing Up Gayby, which was releasedin 2013. (It was present in our original collection of texts as several shorttrailers available on YouTube. The film’s themes were captured well in thetrailers but it is to the fully developed text that we refer.) Given the scope ofthis article, this time period was bracketed in order to create a body of datawhich we thought would be manageable (similar to Clarke and Kitzinger’sdecision to select talk shows for analysis as an “ad hoc corpus” [2004,

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p. 198]). This was a period in which there was a proliferation of same-sexrelationship reform campaigns and same-sex marriage debates in Australia.We do not claim that these stories represent all that exists for the 10-yearperiod of interest but they were all that we found at the time of search;publicly available Australian content is scarce.

We transcribed any video or audio footage (verbatim) and then con-ducted a thematic discourse analysis on all texts (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Asargued by Braun and Clarke (2006), thematic analysis is a flexible methodthat can be viewed as a tool for use across a diverse set of theoretical ap-proaches. It is often used by researchers informed by theories of discourseand subjectivity due to its focus on articulating themes, tropes, and mean-ings. As feminist post-structural researchers we are interested in the subjectpositions of the speakers and the discourses they draw on to make theirarguments (Fairclough, 2013; Ramazanoglu & Holland 2002; Weedon, 1987).We drew on thematic analysis in order to identify key and recurring themesin the children’s accounts. Initially and as a preliminary analysis we examinedwho spoke, why they went public, and what they had to say; the speaker’sage, gender, and family composition; and the context and location in whichthey spoke and the reasons they gave for speaking (if any). Our centralmethod was to identify and investigate the relationship between the rep-resentations from public political discourse and academic research and thechildren’s own self-representations, asking what parts of the public discoursethey responded to, and how. In Braun and Clarke’s terms, our approach was“more explicitly analyst-driven” (2006, p. 84) than data driven. Three dom-inant themes are presented in this article. After establishing the children aspolitical subjects, in their own words or as evidenced from the context inwhich they spoke, we focused on their negotiations of the “risk/harm” versus“prospering” binary construction, their engagement with heterosexism andhomophobia, and their use of the “love makes a family” discourse. Throughour elucidation of these themes we offer an account of how the subjec-tivity of “children of” is being shaped in negotiation with existing publiclyavailable representations.

Fifteen children, ages 3 to 29 at the time of speaking, 7 male and 8female, spoke from the position of a “child of” across these texts. Whilemany are young adults, in this article we refer to them as “children” becausethat is the identity that they adopt in this context. There are slightly morechildren with lesbian parents than gay male parents and some children havefamilies consisting of both lesbian mothers and gay fathers. A breakdownof the speakers and their speaking contexts is presented in Table 1. Threestories are videos of the children speaking made for forums on lesbianand gay activism through digital story-telling.5 Seven children appear in thefilm Gayby Baby (Newell & Mars, 2014). There are two speeches given atpublic rallies, and a written personal reflection, all subsequently made (morewidely) public via the Internet. We also include three journalistic articles that

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TABLE 1 Summary of Children of Gay and Lesbian Parents Speaking Out in Australia

Citation Those Speaking Age Gender Speaking Context

Boardman2010

Akira Boardman 14 Female Lismore Equal RightsRally Video

Burns 2009 Kate Burns 20 Female Rainbow Family TreeVideo

Cook 2012 Maeve Marsden; MayaNewell

27, 23 Female Cherrie Magazine

Hadgraft 2011 Maeve Marsden; MayaNewell; Jocelyn deGroot

27, 23, 27 Female Daily Telegraph Feature

Harding 2012 Brenna Harding 15 Female Australian MarriageEquality Video

Horin 2007 Eamon Waterford 21 Male Sydney Morning HeraldFeature

Levett 2004 Tom Dunsford 15 Male Tasmanian Rally forRelationshipRecognition

Newell &Mars 2014

Maya Newell;Maeve Marsden;Raj & Jesse;Gus;Matt;Ebony

3–29 3Females,4 Males

Gayby Baby (Previouslyaccessed throughonline trailers)

RainbowFamily Tree2011

Name not given 9 Female Rainbow Family TreeVideo

Tyrfell-Jones2012

James Tyrfell-Jones 14 Male ReachOut Web site toprovide young peoplewith mental healthinformation

reflect self-presentation through extensive quoting. Two of these are fromthe mainstream press and one from the Sydney lesbian magazine Cherrie. AsBaird (2012) has noted in her analysis of the “explosion” of representationsof lesbian mothers in the mainstream press in 2000 and in a lesbian magazineat that time and in the years that followed, content in the two domains wasnot especially different, and this was the case in the three stories we focuson here.

All sources were publicly available, and while they exist in differentmedia and are produced in different contexts, all offer a politically con-scious voice. Our engagement with them is sympathetic and respectful oftheir purpose. For these reasons we do not consider that our use of theaccounts poses any ethical issues. Research of this kind is consistent withthe ethical guidelines and codes for analysis of Internet Web sites and onlineenvironments provided by the Association of Internet Researchers (Markham& Buchanan, 2012). Research that deals with young people and minors canraise particular ethical considerations, and 8 of the young people whose

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public presence we identify were under the age of 18 at the time whenthey spoke or wrote. The 4 who are under 14 are identified by their firstnames only, or are anonymous, as they appear in the film or video. Wewere cognizant that issues around public versus private data can also betricky terrain, although Markham and Buchanan note in their discussion ofInternet research ethics (2012, p. 6), “individual and cultural definitions andexpectations of privacy are ambiguous, contested, and changing.” Arguablythe young people whose voices appear in this article are part of contestingand changing the definitions of privacy and silence around non-normativefamilies. While researchers need to be sensitive to these dynamics, we areconfident that the context of each narrative that we discuss indicates an im-plicit and explicit consent to a public engagement with its content. We areguided in relation to the issues of privacy and the age of our subjects by theactive desires of the young people (and their parents) for a public voice.

As noted earlier, the set of accounts considered here draws on a smallcohort of self-consciously politicized, pro-gay voices. Those that publiclyclaimed the subject position of “child of gay and lesbian parents” did notidentify themselves in relation to class or socioeconomic status or race or eth-nicity and all had same-sex-coupled parents. Some of them recount parentalseparation but explain how their parents’ new lovers become parents tothem. One identified herself as a lesbian and the rest either identified asheterosexual or did not comment on their sexuality. The privilege bestowedby a heterosexual family of origin has been denied them early in life but insome cases it is clear that other vectors of privilege have been experienced.Confidence and access to the means of media representation suggest, ipsofacto, class privilege, and this is confirmed by other (less reliable) visiblemarkers of class, race, and body (ability) privilege.

POLITICAL SUBJECTS

Most speakers have gone public with a political agenda of “telling it like it is”by claiming a position as the expert on their own lives, an established strategyfor marginalized people (e.g., Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 1997). They have beenmotivated to dispute myths regarding children of gay and lesbian parentsand to campaign for equal rights. A key motivation for speaking out was toclaim a right over the direction of the conversations concerning them. In anarticle published in the lesbian magazine Cherrie, Maeve Marsden stated thefollowing:

You get asked a lot of questions when you grow up with two mothers.Unfortunately, people rarely ask the ones you want to answer. . .. If I hada dollar for every query about my sperm donor, what I call my mothers,

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discrimination at school or if I wish I had a dad, I’d be a rich woman.(Marsden in Cook, 2012, para 3)

Maya Newell said, “to those who ask, I answer in this order: No I didn’tspend my childhood longing for a father, I call my mothers by their firstnames, and yes, I was occasionally teased at school” (in Cook, 2012, para16). It seems Australian “gaybies” are aware of the discursive frameworkthrough which they are constructed and are getting frustrated with the stag-nant conversations and the lack of engagement with the people at the centerof the issue. Marsden continued, “the media and naysayers talk about chil-dren’s rights without ever speaking to any of us” (in Cook, 2012, para 5). Inthe same article, Newell said of the one-off forum she and Marsden orga-nized for adult children of same-sex parents to speak out that “we have beenpushed onto panels organised by our mothers, or made to chat endlessly tothe pregnant lesbians, this time it’s our turn to choose the topic and framethe questions” (in Cook, 2012, para 24). That is, it is not only in relation tomainstream antigay discourse but also to the demands and expectations ofthe gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) community (andsometimes their activist mothers) that children of gay and lesbian parentsspeak back: “it’s our turn.”

Not only aware and frustrated, Newell and Marsden seemed resentfulof the denial of agency and voice for children with gay and lesbian parentsin all discussions about their existence. These accounts which spoke backto such denials of agency are sociologically and politically important for theways in which they challenged the objectifying construction of the childrenof gay and lesbian parents in public discourse, providing more complex andnuanced narratives.

Another clear motivation for speaking was the political debate aboutgay marriage and, in the earliest case considered here (Levett, 2004), thecampaign for same-sex-relationship recognition in the state of Tasmania.Indeed, Maya Newell (Newell & Mars, 2014) stated at the beginning of herfilm that it was not until the gay marriage debate in Australia began that shequestioned her assumption that “I was doing fine.”

Children growing up in an “othered” family have access to learningabout politics at a young age (Goldberg, 2007). Some children of gay andlesbian parents are given a language by their family and community to ar-ticulate, at a young age, the experience of being othered. Maeve Marsden,daughter of lesbian mothers, described in the lesbian magazine referred toearlier how “so early were we expected to have the language to describeour other-ness that many of us quickly became outspoken, opinionatedkids” (in Cook, 2012, para 9). As many children faced challenges to thelegitimization of their families, they quickly learnt the skills to speak backto this challenge. Newell observed that “while most kids are getting theirteeth into the idea of Man + Woman = Baby, gaybies are fluent in IVF,

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Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the many uses of turkey basters”(in Cook, 2012, para 23). Ten-year-old Gus gave an eloquent account of hisconception, which begins with a man giving his “spam” (sic) to 2 women,and 12-year-old Ebony is regularly called on to explain to school friendsthe meaning of “donor” (Newell & Mars, 2014). The story of these children’sexistence is different from the commonly told story of conception and it re-quires challenging heteronormative assumptions about sexuality and genderroles.

Indeed, many of the children adapted and incorporated the discourseof gay pride into their self-presentations. The concept of “pride” has beencentral to gay and lesbian rights campaigns since the 1970s when the ideaspread that people should publicly come out as a political statement andclaim pride in a previously marginalized identity (Willett, 2000). Akira Board-man began her speech at the Lismore equal [marriage] rights rally with thewords, “I am proud to be the daughter of lesbian mums” (Boardman, 2010).6

In a reflective story published in an online resource for young people aboutmental health, James Tyrfell-Jones wrote that he is “proud” of his parentsfor being who they are (2012, para 14). In her video story on a Web sitefor queer digital storytelling, Kate Burns made the plea that “gay peopledo have children and these children should not feel scared to be proud oftheir families, they should be encouraged” (Burns, 2009). These children ofgay and lesbian parents extend the already established discourse of prideto include their existence; they are proud of their gay and lesbian parents,proud to be the child of these parents, and proud of their gay and lesbianfamilies.

COMPLEX READINGS OF THE “PROSPERING CHILD”

Many of the accounts refer to the construction of the children of gay andlesbian parents through the “harm versus prosper” discourse discussed ear-lier. These children of gay and lesbian parents demonstrate fluency in thelanguage of their assumed pathology. They often use their own lived expe-riences to challenge their positioning of “at risk” by stating they are fine ornormal. For example, Akira Boardman responded to accusations from theconservative political party Family First that children like her will suffer emo-tional abuse by commenting, “Actually we are doing just fine . . . . Scratch that;we do fantastically” (Boardman, 2010). In his speech at a Tasmanian rallyin support of same-sex relationship law reform, Tom Dunsford commentedthat it is not the case children with lesbian mums are disadvantaged (in Lev-ett, 2004, p. 18). In an article in a mainstream Sydney newspaper, EamonWaterford observed that his four mothers “fulfil different aspects of parentingthat I needed” (in Horin, 2007, para 4). Some children echo the outcomesmentioned in the research (Short et al., 2007; Stacey & Biblarz, 2001) and

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some speak more broadly of being undamaged. By actively claiming theprospering child subject position they posit their mere existence stands asproof that gay and lesbian parenting is not harmful and thus validates theirfamily (e.g., see Goldberg, 2007).

Claiming normality through the image of the prospering child is an ef-fective but potentially limiting political response. Maeve Marsden critiquedthe strategy of claiming normality through academic research and personalexperience in a Sydney newspaper article. In regards to the authoritativeresearch she said, “I feel those surveys are used to justify something thatshouldn’t need to be justified” (in Hadgraft, 2011, para 9). Referring toa prompt that research shows children with same-sex parents do betteracademically than children with heterosexual parents, she continued, “weshouldn’t have to prove we’re better to be allowed to exist” (in Hadgraft,2011, para 9). This is a powerful statement where she refuses to acknowl-edge the legitimacy of the arguments against her family, and indeed those intheir defence, and devalues them by simply refusing to engage with them.Marsden identifies as a lesbian, and thus cannot claim to be the success-ful heteronormative child of lesbian parents, but she is refuting the cre-ation of a failed child subject position by challenging the classification andcategorisation that may lead to this. In the terms of Riggs’ (2010) argu-ment concerning gay and lesbian parents, she refuses to counter a neg-ative stereotype with a positive one and instead refuses the terms of thedebate.

The GLBTQ community, as well as the mainstream, exercise a carefulgaze on the development of the children of gay and lesbian parents. Theyalso exert the pressure to prosper on the children of gay and lesbian parents.Brenna Harding’s mother testified to the New South Wales parliamentary in-quiry into adoption by same-sex couples, “the proof is in the pudding. . .

it’s in our children” (in Riggs, 2010, para 18).7 Her argument needs prosper-ing children and leaves little room for those who are less than prospering.In an article in a lesbian magazine, Maeve Marsden has drawn attention tothe downside of this tactic, when she spoke of the pressures coming fromwithin the GLBTQ community “where our families, as ‘pioneers’ of same-sexparenting, were pressured to be high achievers, to succeed, to show societychildren of queer parents can thrive” (in Cook, 2012, para 7). Marsden isdrawing attention to the symbolic role that children with gay and lesbianparents occupy in debates around gay and lesbian rights. The normativedevelopment of children with gay and lesbian parents, as “proved” throughthe research, is used as justification for legitimizing gay and lesbian par-ents, a phenomenon widely recognized in the research (Clarke & Kitzinger,2004; Kuvalanka et al., 2006; Riggs, 2010). This silences other stories andexperiences in case they can be taken as ammunition against same-sexparenting. Marsden challenged this normalizing (Clarke & Kitzinger, 2004)strategy.

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NEGOTIATING HETERONORMS AND HOMOPHOBIA

The research literature has conventionally had a focus on “appropriate” gen-der and sexual development of children raised by gay and lesbian parents(Tasker, 2005; Anderssen, Amlie, & Ytteroy, 2002). The research consensuswas that while the children of gay and lesbian parents have more openideas about sexual identity and gender fluidity, they identify as heterosexualin rates comparable to the rest of the population. One feature through which“harm” and “prospering” is framed is the implicit celebration of heterosexualchildren of gay and lesbian parents and the problematization of nonhetero-sexual children (see Stacey & Biblarz, 2001; Kuvalanka & Goldberg, 2009;Hosking, 2012). The former are represented as the successful embodimentof normative development and heterosexuality. Some of the accounts in theliterature reflected the pressure to present a heteronormative sexual identity(Clarke & Kitzinger, 2004; Kuvalanka et al., 2006; Goldberg, 2007). Childrenof gay and lesbian parents across qualitative studies comment on the scrutinyof their sexuality: “Since my mom was gay, I had to be very straight,” saysone (in Kuvalanka & Goldberg, 2009, p. 911). Some of those who identify asheterosexual speak of “the need to display it, for their own and the public’sbenefit” (in Goldberg, 2007, p. 556). “Gayness” in parents is thus deemedacceptable as long as it is not reproduced. Rather than normalizing diversesexualities, some of the research and the public discourse that follows it le-gitimizes gay and lesbian parenting on the implied condition that normative,prospering children are produced (Hosking, 2012). But more recently thistendency in the research has been identified and challenged (Clarke, 2008;see Clarke & Kitzinger, 2004, and Riggs, 2010, for a critique of the waysthat the norm of heterosexual children is reproduced in political and mediadiscourse).

Heterosexual orientation is usually left silent as the taken-for-granteddefault. But because the sexuality of gaybies is such a contentious issue(despite assurances from the research), there seems to be a desire to waylayfears by identifying as straight. In some ways this represents an internalisationof the “child at risk,” and leads the children of gay and lesbian parentsto reproduce heteronormative markers of appropriate development. EamonWaterford, for example, commented in the Sydney Morning Herald that he isnot gay (in Horin, 2007, para 40; see Clarke & Kitzinger, 2004). Many of theaccounts, however, were reflective of the complex reading of sexuality andgender and diversity that emerged from the qualitative research. As statedby 14-year-old Akira Boardman when arguing for equal marriage, “Most ofus will be straight, but we won’t be narrow” (Boardman, 2010). Here, she isrepeating a slogan that circulates globally (e.g., see the organization StraightBut Not Narrow; http://www.straightbutnotnarrow.org/home). In a sensitiveinterview with a leading Australian antigay Christian politician in her filmGayby Baby (Newell & Mars, 2014), Maya Newell went one step further.

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She answered the politician’s question to her about whether or not she hada boyfriend but before doing so gently challenged him about the premisebehind its asking.

While heteronorms are being negotiated, homophobia is placed frontand center in most of the accounts by children of gay and lesbian parentsas a regular occurrence. The children’s response to homophobia is not lim-ited to identifying victimization and stigma, as some research suggests (Ray& Gregory, 2001). Some of the children and young people refuse to inter-nalize the homophobia and instead shift the focus of “the problem” fromthemselves to homophobia. At Lismore’s equal marriage rights rally, AkiraBoardman (2010) spoke back to the “right-wing Christian views” that main-tain “legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse” by stating, “Itis your homophobia that is child abuse.” She claimed that the fundamentalpremise of the accusation against her family was homophobic and flawedand thus refused to dignify it by refuting this allegation with research andstatistics. Fifteen-year-old Brenna Harding (2012) said in her video that shehas “never really understood homophobia” and that marriage inequality is“just ridiculous, it’s beyond my comprehension.” She described the govern-ment’s refusal to legalize same-sex marriage as “homophobic” and breedinga culture of hate.

Many of the young people argued that legalizing same-sex marriagewill bring with it legitimation of their family. Akira Boardman said, “Marriagebrings with it legal and social recognition; it legitimises family status. Whyshould I be denied this status because of who my parents love?” (Boardman,2010). Brenna Harding added her heartfelt video plea for marriage equalitythrough tears:

You know, children like me. . . how do they feel when their parentsaren’t allowed the same rights as everyone else? I think that having theirparents be able to be married is going to give them another thing, youknow, in the playground when another kid says your parents can’t evenget married, they’re not good enough, they’re disgusting, they can’t getmarried, they can say yeah, yeah they can, they’re just as good as yourparents, they can get married, they pay taxes, they’re just as good asanyone else. (Harding, 2012)

Equal marriage is seen as a means to family recognition and an end toone basis of the idea that children of gay and lesbian parents are somehowdamaged. It should be noted, however, that the claims by these childrenthat same-sex marriage is a children’s rights issue joins their discourse towhat some (lesbian) feminists and queer theorists maintain is a normalizingand conservative strategy that legitimizes some families and relationshipsat the expense of others (see Butler, 2002; Valverde, 2006). Indeed, forthese children marriage equality provides a way to re-position oneself from

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abnormal to normal; if same-sex marriage was legalized then with it wouldcome a legitimation of the same-sex family. However, this is legitimacywithin the already established heteronormative boundaries of family andrespectability and claiming it continues to exclude and problematize otherfamily types, such as solo parents, regardless of sexuality (see Clarke &Kitzinger, 2004; Riggs, 2010). There is little evidence in the accounts ofthe Australian children of the criticism of, or ambivalence about, marriageexpressed by a significant minority of respondents in a U.S. study of thechildren of gay, lesbian, and bisexual parents (Goldberg & Kuvalanka, 2012).

On the other hand, several accounts redefine the normative nuclearfamily from the start. Significantly, these children were born into plannedgay or lesbian families. Growing up in a gay or lesbian family from birthprovides a unique experience as the early years are spent in an environ-ment where being gay or lesbian is normal (see Kuvalanka et al., 2006).Others may see gay and lesbian families as different or unusual, but for thechildren within them their families are normal and all they have known. Inher YouTube Australian marriage equality campaign video, Brenna Harding(2012) describes her family of two lesbian mothers, a gay donor, and hismale partner before concluding, “So that’s my family. That’s what I havealways known and I’ve never really understood homophobia because I havenever seen my family as different from other families.”

The children who speak in Gayby Baby (Newell & Mars, 2014) alsooffered accounts that redefine gender. In a to-camera discussion with hisbrother, 28-year-old Raj said, “I don’t believe you have to be a dominant,aggressive kind of guy to get ahead in life; I think gender roles can bequite fluid.” Perhaps reflecting the generational differences that director andnarrator Newell observed, 10-year-old Gus’ understanding of gender goesfurther. He reflected that “a boy does need somebody a bit like a man, or aman, to be around and do like all that stuff, but with me, my man is Jamie”[one of his mothers]. (His passion is for wrestling and in the film Jamie finallyrelents and takes him to a professional international wrestling match.) Hisaccount queers heteronormative genders by breaking the link between sexand gender (Butler, 1990).

This is not to say that a sense of normality beyond the mainstream isstable or sustainable. A common feature of the children’s accounts whichelucidated how the hegemonic “normal” was working are vivid memoriesof the moment they first realized others did not view them as a real orlegitimate family and of a sense of otherness emerging. For Maya Newellthis realization occurred at age three during an interaction with one of hermothers and the local butcher. The butcher made a joke about the mother’shusband, assuming heterosexuality, and the mother did not correct him.Newell recalls, “I realised for the first time that my family was different,and apparently sometimes it was easier for that to be a secret” (in Cook,2012, para 21). For James Tyrfell-Jones the moment of realization came later

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in primary school when his graduating class had photos taken with theirfamilies and displayed on the wall:

I remember looking proudly at the photo of my parents and I thensuddenly realised something was different . . . . I carefully scanned eachphotograph on the wall and it was very clear to me that I was the onlykid there with two fathers. (Tyrfell-Jones, 2012, para 4)

This process of realization is often difficult because it represents a grow-ing awareness of heteronormativity and the sense that others see your familyas different. Many children talk about self-management strategies to avoidbeing the target of homophobia. Kate Burns, who made a short film chal-lenging homophobia in schools, recalled the following:

At school I felt so scared of revealing my family that I pretended that oneof my parents did not exist. At rowing one of my dads had to stand onthe other side of the river because I was scared of people finding out Ihad gay parents. (Burns, 2009)

This is a self-surveillance strategy (Bozett, 1987) that children can adoptto present themselves as “normal.” James Tyrfell-Jones (2012) recalled heonce hid the parent-teacher interview night notices from his gay dads tokeep them away from his school. Brothers Raj and Jesse reflected on thelies they told to avoid disclosing knowledge about their mothers (Newell &Mars, 2014). This was difficult and a cause of sadness. In addition, secrecyand silence can be accompanied by a sense of guilt for denying one’s parents’sexuality. Burns (2009) also said whenever she heard the deprecatory phrase“That’s so gay” in school she felt personally affronted and guilty for notstanding up for her parents (see Goldberg, 2007).

DISCOURSE OF LOVE

Another way the children and young people resisted the modes of their con-struction in research was through a discourse of “love” (Clarke & Kitzinger,2004; Gabb, 2013; Riggs, 2006). This is the third and final significant themethat we identify in the children’s accounts. Many of these accounts legitimizetheir family through the notions of love and planned families. The discourseof love challenges the “at risk” assumption that underpins academic research.In her speech at the Lismore rally, Boardman (2010) claimed “kids like meare planned, wanted, and loved.” Jocelyn de Groot, daughter of two lesbianmothers, commented in a Sydney Daily Telegraph article, “as long as same-sex families provide love and a stable environment, what’s the problem” (inHadgraft, 2011, para 29). The discourse of love is also used to challenge the

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perspective that children of lesbian parents are disadvantaged because theydo not have a father in their lives. Victoria Clarke argues that lack of malerole models has been a key strategy for attacking lesbian families since theybecame visible (Clarke, 2006; Clarke & Kitzinger, 2004). In his speech TomDunsford, age 15, responded to the idea that children do best when raisedby a mother and father by saying that his family “is not a traditional familybut to me it is all anyone could want, because I have love, support, and agreat family” (Levett, 2004, p. 18). When asked by a journalist if she everwished for a dad, Maya Newell replied, “I’ve always had two loving parentsand that’s all I needed” (in Hadgraft, 2011, para 6). Speaking for marriageequality, Brenna Harding (2012) commented “her [mother’s] love is just thesame as any other love, it’s equal, it means just as much.” The children arewell versed in the discursive response of “love makes a family.” Like theirdemand for marriage equality on the basis of its normalizing effects, thisfocus on love is not neutral, nor necessarily successful. Riggs (2006), forexample, argues that the discourse of love has historically excluded queerrelationships and that claiming love for queer families is no guarantee thatthe negative portrayals of these families will cease. Furthermore, he arguesthat appealing to love carries an appeal to a range of normative forces, in-cluding allegiance to White Australian national virtues (Riggs, 2006). Clarkeand Kitzinger (2004, p. 213) argue of the television talk shows they studiedthat “the extent to which regular talk shows are premised on heterosexistassumptions and arguments” signifies “the limitations of the normalizing ap-proach.” That is, love does not necessarily trump exclusion or discriminationif the context is already based in heterosexism. Baird (2012) has arguedthat reference to the planned and wanted nature of children born to gayor lesbian individuals or families, as a sign of love, can work to marginal-ize those mothers and families who allegedly do not plan their children orwho otherwise fall outside of neoliberal discourses of control, choice, andplanning.

CONCLUSION

Many of the discursive assumptions that are deployed in public debate suchas the radio program discussed at the beginning of this article, and bothpresent in and critiqued in the academic research which underpins the pro-gay position, are recognizable in the public accounts and self-presentationsof the children of gay and lesbian parents presented here. The childrenstress that no damage is caused by having gay and lesbian parents. Theypresent themselves as nonjudgmental, open-minded, and accepting of diver-sity. Some of the children also articulate a pressure to present as heterosex-ual. They also tend to adopt normalizing arguments in support of marriageequality and gay and lesbian parenting in the quest for discourses that will

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legitimate them. These qualities are all documented in the qualitative re-search about these children (Goldberg & Kuvalanka, 2012; Short et al., 2007;Stacey & Biblarz, 2001).

Some of the speakers strongly resist the claim that they are the “same” aschildren of heterosexual parents, and most speak in complex ways about theexperiences of homophobia and heteronormative othering and normalizingstrategies. They also present complex readings of sex and gender in waysthat queer the heteronormal, as captured by the phrase “we might be hetero-sexual, but we are not straight.” They allude to a discourse of love in waysthat powerfully resist “at risk” assumptions, providing a new language fordescribing their lives in positive terms. They also challenge in very powerfulways the public homophobic discourses of same-sex parenting and anti-gaymarriage. At the same time they sometimes inadvertently reinforce normsthat work to marginalize new groups of people.

Notably, some also challenge GLBTQ community discourses and iden-tify pressures on the children of gay and lesbian parents from that source.A pro-gay public discourse that has developed over the past 40 years posi-tions children of gay or lesbian parents as “at risk and/or prospering,” andprivileges and repeats such framings. The binary of damaged/prosperingchild creates a norm unachievable for some children and contributes to thepressure they experience.

We argue that these mainstream and GLBTQ community discoursesprovide both the conditions for the emergence of the political voice of thechildren of gay and lesbian parents and its necessity. The children’s complexreadings—which both affirm and resist the ways the children are constructedin public discourse—then begin to broaden the discursive possibilities forunderstanding the issues beyond those legitimated in the pro-gay politicalrhetoric and the academic literature.

This article reflects on how the children of gay and lesbian parents, aswell as speaking through existing discourse, speak back to public discourseand research that constructs them as (often passive) objects of knowledge.Their accounts of themselves do not differ significantly from those offeredin the academic literature and in pro-gay discourse generally, but whenthey move beyond the boundaries of the debate to provide more complexreadings, refocusing themselves as agents and active speaking subjects, dis-courses which take the children of gay and lesbian parents as its object arechallenged to move in different directions. The set of accounts consideredhere document the emergence in Australia, over the past decade, of a newself-defined subject position. Furthermore, it marks out an emerging dis-course which promises to create space for a more diverse set of experiencesbeyond those framed in self-conscious political terms. These future accountsmay or may not be politicized, or so explicitly pro-gay, or indeed focused ontheir parentage. The stronger and more confident the voices of the childrenof gay and lesbian parents become, the more diversity we can expect from

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them—including accounts not bound by the needs of political campaign-ing, and accounts that come from children outside the White middle-classmainstream. We conclude by reprising Maeve Marsden’s well-worn but stillrelevant comment that “We shouldn’t have to prove we are better to beallowed to exist” (in Hadgraft, 2011, para 9).

NOTES

1. ABC Radio National did not make an official transcript of the program available. This quotationis based on a transcription of the interview available via online podcast.

2. This contrasts to the United States where COLAGE, an organization for people with a gay, lesbian,bisexual, transgender, or queer parent, formed in 1988 (http://www.colage.org/; see also Kuvalanka,Teper, & Morrison, 2006).

3. The earliest comprehensive reforms to recognize same-sex relationships and award them thesame rights as de facto heterosexual relationships occurred in New South Wales (NSW) in 1999. Otherstates and territories followed and most have added extra reforms to earlier changes. At the time ofwriting (2014), the laws in most state and federal contexts have been changed to give gay and lesbianrelationships equality to (unmarried) heterosexual relationships, including in relation to children andreproductive rights (Witzleb, 2011). Marriage equality is an outstanding issue.

4. A fuller account of the representation of children in this research is found in Hosking (2012).5. The Rainbow Family Tree project and the Australian Marriage Equality campaign.6. Lismore is a small city on the northern coast of New South Wales, a long-time center for

“alternative” cultures and home to vibrant GLBTQ communities.7. Brenna Harding and her two mothers were at the center of the Play School controversy of 2004.

This ABC children’s television normalizing representation of Brenna and her family was followed by amedia frenzy and moral panic. Prime Minister John Howard used the incident to reinforce his views onhomosexuality in the lead-up to passing his bill redefining marriage as exclusively between a man and awoman (Robinson, 2008).

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'We're doing just fine': The Children of Australian Gay and Lesbian Parents Speak Out

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Transcript of 'We're doing just fine': The Children of Australian Gay and Lesbian Parents Speak Out