A Historical Overview Of The Psychological Literature On Lesbian Parenting: 18

Constructions of lesbian parenting

From outsiders to motherhood to reinventing the family: Constructions of lesbian parenting in the psychological literature – 1886-2006 Victoria Clarke

Correspondence Victoria Clarke School of Psychology Faculty of Applied Sciences University of the West of England Frenchay Campus Bristol BS16 1QY Email: [email protected] Tel: 0117 3282176 Fax: 0117 3284407 NB I can access my UWE email at home, so this is best way to contact me at home

Victoria Clarke is a Reader and member of the Critical Psychology Research Group in the School of Psychology at the University of the West of England. She has published two books (both with Elizabeth Peel) – Out in Psychology (Wiley) and British LGB Psychologies (Haworth Press) – and has conducted ESRC funded research on same- sex relationships (with Carole Burgoyne and Maree Burns). She is currently writing a textbook on LGBTQI Psychologies (Cambridge University Press) with Sonja Ellis, Elizabeth Peel and Damien Riggs and conducting British Academy funded research on civil partnership with Elizabeth Peel.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Virginia Braun, Elizabeth Peel and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. This paper is based on my PhD research that was supervised by Celia Kitzinger, Sue Wilkinson and Jonathan Potter and funded by an ESRC research studentship (award number ROO429734421). When this research was conducted Celia Kitzinger and I were based in the Social Sciences Department at Loughborough University.

1 Constructions of lesbian parenting

From outsiders to motherhood to reinventing the family: Constructions of lesbian parenting in the psychological literature – 1886-2006

Abstract

This article provides a feminist critical psychological analysis of the psychological literature on lesbian parenting. Rather than offer an overview of the findings and methods and an evaluation of the scientific merit of the literature, the aim of this article is to examine the construction of lesbians as parents and the evolving history of the category ‘lesbian mother’ in psychological research. The period under analysis begins with the construction of lesbians as outsiders to motherhood in the work of early sexologists and ends with the construction of lesbians as reinventing the family in the work of lesbian and gay psychologists. Five phases of research are identified and the analysis explores what research in each phase reveals about the social and political meanings of lesbians raising children. The article concludes by charting the emergence of feminist critiques of the psychological literature. These critiques raise important questions about the regulatory role of psychology and the (re)production of heteronormativity in research on lesbian parenting.

Key words: children, critical psychology, family, feminism, gender, lesbian parenting, motherhood, sexology, sexuality, social constructionism

From outsiders to motherhood to reinventing the family: Constructions of

lesbians parenting in the psychological literature – 1886-2006

Introduction

Feminists, particularly lesbian feminists, have played a central role in socio-cultural debates about lesbian mothers. For instance, in 1970s and 1980s when lesbian parenting first became visible in wider society, lesbian feminists protested against early negative media coverage of lesbian mothering (Allen & Harne, 1988, Stephens,

1982), and they worked with psychologists who undertook some of the earliest research on lesbian mothers (Hanscombe & Forster, 1981). They assisted lesbian mothers involved in custody cases with their ex-husbands, forming support and action groups (Rights of Women Lesbian Custody Group [ROWLCG], 1986). They wrote about and celebrated the radical potential of lesbian mothering (Pollack & Vaughn,

1987), and they critiqued the limitations of the emerging psychological literature on lesbian families (Pollack, 1987, ROWLCG, 1986). There is now sizeable literature on lesbian mothering across a range of fields such as psychology, sociology, law, social policy, education and nursing. Psychological research on lesbian mothers has remained robustly immune to feminist concerns until very recently; however, most research on lesbian mothers outside of psychology displays a strong feminist influence. At the same time, most feminist research on motherhood continues to assume a generic heterosexual woman and lesbian mothers rarely occupy even a token role in feminist writing about motherhood (see Clarke, 2005). This article brings together feminist research and psychological research on lesbian mothers by offering a feminist critical psychological reading of the psychological literature on lesbian mothering.

The meanings and implications of the psychological literature on lesbian parenting are widely discussed. There are countless reviews of the literature: most (including reviews by professional bodies such as the American Psychological Association,

2005) draw conclusions that reflect a liberal equality perspective (e.g., Golombok &

Tasker, 1994, Patterson, 1992)i. The authors emphasise the ways which lesbian families are ‘just like’ heterosexual families and the typical review juxtaposes

“myths” (Pihama, 1998: 200) and “misconceptions” (Victor & Fish, 1995: 467) about lesbian parenting with the findings of psychological research – ‘the facts’. Lesbian and gay scholars use literature reviews to raise awareness among professionals in fields such as law, mental health, education, nursing, social work and social policy.

Some scholars have also published literature reviews in popular books to assist lesbian mothers in their struggle for just and equal treatment (e.g., Golombok &

Tasker, 1997).

Recently, feminist and feminist-informed post-positivists scholars (including scholars influenced by social constructionist, post-structuralism, ethnomethodology and queer theory) have begun to provide a different approach to reading the psychological literature on lesbian parenting, and it is to this latter tradition of readings that the current article contributes. Unlike liberal equality reviewers, the authors of these readings do not claim to assert the truth of the literature (but see Hicks, 2003, 2005ii), rather they acknowledge that scientific evidence is always open to multiple interpretations that ultimately relate to moral or political agendas (Clarke, 2000).

These authors have explored the ways in which the literature constructs social

‘objects’ such as lesbian parenting, difference, child development and gender (e.g.,

Alldred, 1996, Clarke, 2002a, 2002b, Hicks, 2005, Malone & Cleary, 2002), the ways in which it is invoked in wider debates about lesbian and gay parenting (e.g., Alldred,

1996, Clarke, 2000, Riggs, 2005), and the discourses and rhetorical strategies that shape other interpretations of the literature (Clarke, 2000, Hicks, 2003).

Critical readings of the literature concentrate on research on lesbian (and gay) parenting from the last few decades. This article contributes to this emerging body of work by analysing the historical practices that gave rise to contemporary constructions of lesbian parenting in psychological research. The aim is not simply to document a social and political history of lesbian parentingiii, but to chart the evolution of the category ‘lesbian parent’ within psychology and the different constructions of lesbians as parents that are the effects of the discourses in circulation in various historical eras. The article examines the types of questions that have been asked about lesbian parenting since the turn of the twentieth century, and the presumptions upon which answers have been sought. The relationship between psychological research and the socio-political context is examined, and particularly the ways in which moral stances on lesbianism, motherhood and family inform research on lesbian parenting. This article is part of a wider analysis of the social construction of lesbian and gay parenting (see Clarke, 2000, 2001, 2002a, 2002b,

2006, Clarke & Kitzinger, 2004, 2005, Clarke et al., 2004) and contributes to a growing body of feminist constructionist and discursive work on the meanings of motherhood (Breheny & Stephens, 2007, Elvin-Nowak & Thomsson, 2001, Woollett et al., 1991). This article also demonstrates the value of a feminist critical psychological approach for researching lesbian parenting.

The analysis is informed by a critical realist version of social constructionism (Willig,

1999) that emphasises widespread and enduring oppressions based around, for example, particular constructions of gender and sexuality, as well as acknowledging

5 Constructions of lesbian parenting the culturally and historically contingent nature of knowledge (Cromby &

Nightingale, 1999). Knowledge is viewed as relative but not arbitrary (Parker, 1992) and emerges through social processes that are the product of and embedded in power relationships. Power is always already a significant factor in the processes of social construction (Cromby & Nightingale, 1999). This version of social constructionism also emphasises the links between discourse, power and practice: discourses constrain and facilitate practices through the operation of power (Willig, 1999).

Locating the literature

Relevant literature was initially located by searching electronic databases and printed abstracts using combinations of the following search terms: lesbian, gay, homosexual, same-sex, parent, mother, family. The reference lists of all the books and articles found this way were checked in order to identify further relevant literature.

Additionally, key publications by early and second wave sexologists and psychoanalytic psychiatrists on lesbianism/homosexuality were scanned for any reference to lesbians and parenting. The search for relevant literature was underpinned by a broad definition of the ‘psychological’ – including work published in psychological and psychiatric journals or books, work written by writers with some kind of affiliation to psychology, and work that draws on psychological literature, theories and concepts. The first mention made of lesbians in relation to parenting, as far as I have been able to ascertain, is in the work of early sexologists. Therefore, their work is the point of departure for this history. The period under analysis is divided into five phases or eras of research, which correspond to five constructions of lesbians in relation to parentingiv:

I. The turn and the early part of the 20th century: Early sexology and the masculine

lesbian

II. The middle decades: Psychoanalytic psychiatry and the immature lesbian

III. The 1970s: The beginning of the affirmative era in lesbian and gay psychology

and the fit lesbian parent

IV. The 1980s: Custody, comparison and the good/bad lesbian parent

V. The 1990s/2000s: The ‘new’ lesbian parent reinvents the family

(I) EARLY SEXOLOGY AND THE MASCULINE LESBIAN

At the turn and in the early part of the twentieth century, scholarly representations of lesbians (‘inverts’) were found mainly in the work of sexologists, like Havelock Ellis, who claimed that, “the chief characteristic of the sexually inverted woman is a certain degree of masculinity” (1897/1901: 140). Havelock Ellis was a leading sexual reformer: he co-founded, with Edward Carpenter, the British Society for the

Psychology of Sex and published the six volume Studies in the Psychology of Sex.

Krafft-Ebing (1886/1965: 335), a prominent German-Austrian psychiatrist, similarly wrote of “the masculine soul, heaving in the female bosom” of lesbians in his classic text, Psychopathia Sexualis, a collection of case studies of sexual ‘deviants’.

Calhoun (1997: 141) argued that the “cultural construction of the lesbian was […] from the outset, the construction of a kind of being who was, centrally, an outsider to marriage, family, and motherhood”. The sexological description of lesbianism classified as homosexual forms of behaviour associated with spinster feminism

(Faderman, 1980, Jeffreys, 1985). The ‘sexual invert’ was not primarily a creation based on sexuality, what distinguished her was gender inversion (Calhoun, 1997). The

7 Constructions of lesbian parenting construction of the invert as masculine and sterile was linked to turn of the century gender ideology that posited that women who worked in unsuitably ‘masculine’ professions or undertook ‘too much’ education were doomed to be either sterile or incapable of producing healthy children. The image of the mannish lesbian was used to curtail women’s behaviour and compel conformity to patriarchal gender norms.

Havelock Ellis and other early sexologists distinguished between true inverts and pseudohomosexuals, ‘spurious imitations’. The pseudohomosexual was characterised as a woman who had been seduced by a true invert and led away from natural heterosexuality (to which it was hoped she would return) (Jeffreys, 1985). Krafft-

Ebing (1886: 347) discussed the case of Mrs C., a pseudohomosexual, who “made the acquaintance of a female urning [...] and came home a changed person”. Her husband was compelled to hire a governess for the children because “she was inflamed with passionate love for her female friend, and had taste for nothing else” (1886: 347).

Psuedohomosexual women were, in the view of Havelock Ellis, not well adapted for motherhood and motherhood was a “contradiction in terms” for the innately masculine and sterile true invert (Ruehl, 1982: 35). By tying inversion to heterosexual procreative sex as the model from which it departed, Havelock Ellis portrayed lesbian relationships as sterile and inferior imitations (Ruehl, 1982). There was therefore a clear separation of lesbianism and motherhood in the work of the early sexologists.

Havelock Ellis was one of the few early sexologists to write explicitly about “the children of inverts” (1901: 198). Although widely regarded as a liberal (especially by male writers of gay history, Jeffreys, 1985), Havelock Ellis was firmly opposed to the idea of inverts having children. One of his chief concerns was the transmission of homosexuality from generation to generation. Noting the “inadvisability of

8 Constructions of lesbian parenting parenthood” (1901: 198) for inverts, he argued that it is not “possible to view with satisfaction the prospects of inverts begetting or bearing children. Often, no doubt, the children turn out fairly well, but, for the most part, they bear witness that they belong to a neurotic and failing stock” (1901: 198). Heterosexuality was widely proscribed as a cure for inversion around the turn of the twentieth century, but Havelock Ellis had

“little sympathy with those who are prepared to ‘cure’ the invert at any price” (1901:

195, emphasis added), because the patient is enabled to marry and have children. To support this argument he described the case of a healthy invert whose:

offspring turned out disastrously: the eldest child was an epileptic;

almost an imbecile, and with strongly marked homosexual impulses; the

second and third children were absolute idiots; the youngest child died

of convulsions in infancy (1901: 195)v.

(II) PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHIATRY AND THE IMMATURE LESBIAN

In the middle part of the century, some of the most prominent writing on homosexuality was produced by psychoanalytically trained psychiatrists (Kitzinger,

1987). Freud’s influence on psychological accounts of homosexuality endured far longer than that of his contemporary, Havelock Ellis. During this period, the majority of psychological and medical research on lesbianism and male homosexuality supported a pathological model. Moreover, from 1952 until 1973 ‘homosexuality’ was listed as a ‘sexual deviation’ in the first and second editions of the Diagnostic and

Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association. These authors promoted the psychoanalytic construction of lesbianism as an infantile sexuality, characterised by the failure to attain the maturity that welcomed childbearing and motherhood (Richardson, 1981). A fear of pregnancy was thought to be a major drive

9 Constructions of lesbian parenting in the development of lesbianism: according to Bieber (1969: 2641), the chief

“psychologic problems of female homosexuals include […] fears about having children”. These authors were concerned the destructive effects of lesbianism on the family:

female homosexuality has important and significant social and psychological

effects. It is severely disruptive of the family unit. Any child of an overtly

homosexual mother is exposed to a variety of psychological trauma of intense

proportions. The disorder can, in actuality, destroy the family structure,

produce divorce and great unhappiness (Socarides, 1965: 467).

Like the early sexologists before them, these psychiatrists also promulgated the assumption that lesbians were overly masculine and “waste [...] their motherliness”

(Socarides, 1965: 468). Bieber (1969: 2641) claimed that as young girls, lesbians: “do not express a desire to have babies, nor do they show the usual feminine aspirations for marriage and motherhood”.

As in the previous era, controversy surrounded the promotion of marriage and motherhood as a cure for lesbianism (or accepting these as a sign of a cure). Romm

(1965) viewed fulfilment through pregnancy and motherhood as an indication of successful treatment of lesbianism, whereas Kenyon (1970: 202) warned against metering out “well meaning but naïve advice” to marry and have a baby because “the consequences can be disastrous to all concerned” (see also Terry, 1999).

(III) THE BEGINNINGS OF THE AFFIRMATIVE ERA IN LESBIAN AND

GAY PSYCHOLOGY AND THE FIT LESBIAN PARENT

The removal of homosexuality per se from the DSM-II in 1973, after years of

10 Constructions of lesbian parenting campaigning by gay activists, marked the early beginnings of an affirmative lesbian and gay psychology in the US (that in turn prompted the development of an affirmative psychology in the UK and elsewhere) (Kitzinger, 1987) and represented a major accomplishment for gay liberation (Adam, 1995). The 1970s also witnessed the splintering of the gay liberation movement and the emergence of lesbian feminism

(Blasius & Phelan, 1997). It was a decade in which the meaning of ‘family’ and the position of lesbians in society changed dramatically (Benkov, 1994). Prior to the

1970s, few outside of the lesbian and gay community knew of the existence of lesbians who were parents, but then a significant number of women with children began to identify openly and positively as lesbians (Harne et al., 1997). One consequence of the increasing visibility and confidence of lesbian parents was a large number of lesbian custody cases (Harne et al., 1997); lesbians lost custody of their children in “near-epidemic proportions” (Benkov, 1994: 34).

Media coverage of lesbian custody cases brought lesbian parenting to the attention of the wider public. This coverage prompted both intense scrutiny of lesbian and gay families (that continues today) and collective action in support of the rights of lesbian and gay parents (Allen & Harne, 1988). When judges in lesbian custody cases “turned to mental health professionals to find out about the impact of parents’ homosexuality on children, they found a dearth of information” (Benkov, 1994: 61) that directly addressed lesbian parenting. Therefore, many judges drew on psychoanalytic research supporting a pathological model of lesbianism and male homosexuality to justify a denial of custody to lesbian parents. One US judge claimed that “common sense and modern psychiatric knowledge concur as to the incompatibility of homosexuality and the subsistence of marriage between one so afflicted and a normal person” (quoted in

Stephens, 1982: 92).

The early literature specifically focused on lesbian parenting stemmed directly from questions initially raised in custody cases (Benkov, 1994). Many authors were explicit about the relevance of their work to lesbian custody cases. Green (1978: 696) commented that: “in increasing numbers of cases, courts are being forced to deal with this issue […] I hope this report may be of value”. The judiciary were primarily concerned about the fitness of lesbians to parent, and the effects on children of growing up in a lesbian family; in particular, whether there was a link between the mother’s lesbianism and the sexual identity development of her children. These concerns were of course shaped by the work of early sexologists and psychoanalytic psychiatrists. The first research to be published – a handful of case studies of children in lesbian (and gay) families (Agbayewa, 1984, Green, 1978, Javaid, 1983,

Kirkpatrick, 1982, Osman, 1972, Weeks et al., 1975vi) – examined precisely these issues, focusing on the “psychosexual development” (Weeks et al., 1975: 28) of children in lesbian families. Most of these case studies were conducted by psychiatrists and/or informed by psychoanalytic theorising. In these studies

‘psychosexual development’ (or ‘sexual identity development’) appears to be an umbrella term for the development of gender identity (whether we think of ourselves as male or female), sex- (or gender-) role behaviour (the behaviours associated with being male or female), and sexual orientation (our choice of sexual partner). The focus of these early case studies was almost exclusively on mothers who had their children before ‘coming out’ as lesbian, so-called ‘old’ or divorced lesbian mothers

(Patterson, 1994).

With regard to judges’ first concern, only one case study focused explicitly on lesbians’ (and gay men’s) fitness to parent per se: the authors noted that “the homosexual parent is conscientious and concerned about his or her role as a parent”

(Weeks et al., 1975: 31). The rest implicitly commented through claims about the relationship between a mother’s lesbianism and her child’s psychosexual development.

The case studies were divided over whether there was a link between a mother’s lesbianism and the psychosexual development of her child. Some case studies found no link. For instance, Green (1978: 696) claimed that the sexual identity of the children he studied had “not been dramatically affected: all have developed a typical sexual identity, including heterosexual orientation”. In order to allay fears about atypical gender role behaviour and sexual orientation, Kirkpatrick (1982: 845) presented an example of a girl and of a boy being raised by lesbian parents. Sara was

“a delightful, feminine, 5-year-old girl”. Jerry was “a vigorous, engaging child who delights in rough and tumble play with male visitors, hopes to be a pilot and is ‘in love’ with a girl in his class”.

By contrast, other studies supported a link between maternal lesbianism and children’s psychosexual development. For example, Javaid (1983: 201) plotted a relationship between the sexual behaviour of a lesbian mother and her daughter, Katy, claiming that “in subtle ways, her [Katy’s] sexual behavior was influenced by that of her mother”. For instance, Katy experiments with lesbianism after learning about her mother’s lesbianism and only identified firmly as heterosexual after her mother and her mother’s lover expressed some interest in forming a heterosexual relationship.

The 1970s then witnessed the tentative emergence of the category ‘lesbian mother’ within psychological, legal and wider discourse but this was a problematic category; lesbian motherhood was regarded as a ‘contradiction in terms’, a deviation from the path of natural heterosexuality. Lesbian mothers were widely assumed to transmit

13 Constructions of lesbian parenting their deviance to their children. Psychologists became the arbiters of lesbian mother’s fitness to parent and they chose to accept (rather than subvert) the assumption that lesbian mothering is potentially damaging for children (because of lesbians’ presumed gender inversion and their selfishness for prioritising their sexual desires over their children’s needs). Lesbian motherhood was not entirely divorced from the heterosexual family, even though there was some discussion of planned lesbian parenting in 1970s, attention remained firmly focused on children being raised in reconstituted lesbian families. At the end of the 1970s it was not clear whether lesbian mothers were ‘different from’ or ‘just the same as’ heterosexual mothers (Clarke,

2002a). Moreover, attempts to prove lesbian mothers sameness to heterosexual mothers meant that lesbian motherhood fundamentally remained a contradiction in terms.

(IV) CUSTODY, COMPARISON AND THE GOOD/BAD LESBIAN PARENT

In the early to mid-1980s lesbian mothers continued to lose custody of their children on account of their sexuality. A survey of lesbian mother custody cases by the

London-based Rights of Women Lesbian Custody Group (ROWLCG) (1986) revealed little change in the attitudes of the courts between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s. The Conservative Government in the UK surfed the wave of homophobia unleashed by the AIDS epidemic by launching an aggressive attack on lesbian and gay families in the form of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988. Section 28 prevented local authorities from promoting the acceptability of homosexuality as a

“pretended family relationship” (quoted in Cooper & Herman, 1995: 165). The 1980s also witnessed the fracturing of lesbian and gay politics: a mainstream liberal, rights- based movement and a radical fringe of queer activism (largely) superseded gay

14 Constructions of lesbian parenting liberation and lesbian feminist politics. Parenting had been a divisive issue within lesbian communities in the 1970s. Lesbian journals and newsletters published numerous debates about the politics of lesbian parenting: between women raising sons and lesbian separatists, and between women who argued that lesbian parenting challenged normative definitions of motherhood and held radical potential and women who maintained that mothering was a conformist heterosexual practice (see Clarke,

2005). In the 1980s, however, these communities were increasingly coming under the spell of a heady dose of pronatalism (Kahn, 1995). Some commentators (e.g., Green

& Bozett, 1991) have argued that the AIDS epidemic spurred on many gay men and lesbians to become parents.

In the 1980s, the focus of the literature remained firmly on addressing questions raised in custody cases: about the fitness of lesbians to parent and the effects of lesbian parenting on child development, particularly on the development of children’s sexual identity and their peer relationships. There was, however, a change in the methods used to address these questions: from clinical case studies to quasi- experimental models and quantitative measures, reflecting broader methodological shifts in psychological research on lesbians and gay men (Kitzinger, 1987).

Psychologists compared groups of (mainly) divorced lesbian mothers and their children to groups of divorced heterosexual mothers and their children, with the latter acting as the ‘control group’ (e.g., Golombok et al., 1983, Green et al., 1986, Hoeffer,

1981, Miller et al., 1982, Mucklow & Phelan, 1979). Most comparative studies employed a battery of structured interviews, standardised questionnaires, inventories and tests (including toy preference and draw-a-person tests) to assess how lesbian families compared to heterosexual families over an array of measures of parental competence and child adjustment.

These studies conformed to a liberal equality framework (Clarke, 2002a)vii, positing heterosexual mothers as the norm against which lesbian mothers were to be judged. If lesbian mothers exhibited the same quality of parenting as heterosexual mothers and their children exhibited the same psychological outcomes as the children of heterosexual mothers then lesbian parenting received the psychological stamp of approval. This research echoed the drive in previous decades of affirmative gay psychological research to prove the normality of lesbians and gay men by comparing them to heterosexuals (Anderssen et al., 2002).

What emerged from these attempts to prove the fitness of lesbians to parent and the psychological health of their children and the intersections of judicial and psychological discourses were two very different images of the lesbian mother: the

‘just-as-good-as lesbian mother’ and the ‘bad lesbian mother’. Millbank (1992) noted that judges in lesbian custody cases made an “age old distinction between parents who are ‘private persons’ (good) and those who ‘flaunt’ or are ‘militant’ or ‘missionary’ about their identity (bad)” (p. 25). Judges were more likely to award custody to the good lesbian mother who kept her sexuality private, separate from and subordinate to her role as a mother. By contrast, the bad lesbian mother, who was “almost certain”

(Arnup & Boyd, 1995: 83) to lose custody of her children, was a militant, man-hating dyke. The judge in the case of B v Bviii (1991: 410) stated that as a matter of principle it was important to distinguish between two kinds of lesbians: “militant lesbians who try to convert others to their way of life”, and “lesbians who are private persons who

[...] do not believe in advertising their lesbianism and acting in the public field in favour of promoting lesbianism”.

This is a familiar distinction in anti- (and pro-)lesbian/gay discourse: Smith (1994)

16 Constructions of lesbian parenting has dubbed it the ‘safe homosexual/dangerous queer’ binary. Anti-lesbian/gay groups distinguish between what they consider to be acceptable and unacceptable forms of lesbianism and male homosexuality. The militant queer who ‘goes to far’ replaces homophobia and heterosexism as ‘the problem’. Only lesbians and gay men who

‘know their place’ are fully accepted (the promise of full acceptance is seductive and gives rise to voluntary assimilation). However, Smith argued this is a false promise of acceptance, a form of ‘divide-and-conquer’ politics leading to the marginalisation of those who do not fit the narrow image of the safe homosexual and the social control of all lesbians and gay men. As Richardson (2000) notes, the ‘good gay’ conforms to a liberal model of sexual citizenship. This model is based on a politics of tolerance and assimilation and an assumption of heterosexuality as ‘natural’ and ‘normal’; people who deviate from dominant norms have the right to be tolerated as long as they remain in the private sphere.

Judges’ custody decisions had the effect of policing the lives and behaviour of lesbians and of compelling them to play the role of the ‘good lesbian mother’ and to reject publicly lesbian feminism and political activism. They exerted control over mothers by imposing conditions on their custody (ROWLCG, 1986). The ROWLCG

(1986) survey revealed that mothers had been instructed to, for instance, behave in a

‘suitable manner’ in front of their children, have no contact with their lovers, and not tell their children they were lesbians.

The authors of a “landmark” (D’Augelli, 2002: xiii) study, Golombok et al. (1983), clearly invoked and reinforced the figures of the just-as-good-as lesbian mother and the bad lesbian mother and in so doing provided an assimilationist and defensive account of lesbian parenting. The study investigated (amongst other things) lesbian

17 Constructions of lesbian parenting mothers’ attitudes toward men, their and their children’s contact with their ex- husbands, the gender and sexuality of their adult friends, and whether they exerted pressure on their children to adopt counter-normative gender roles or a homosexual orientation. Golombok et al. found that:

most of the children […] were still in regular contact with their fathers […] half

the children has contact with adult male friends of their mothers and the

majority has contact with heterosexual as well as homosexual women […] only

a very few of the lesbian woman were definitely negative in their attitudes

towards men and we found no evidence of pressure on the children to adopt

atypical sex roles. It is likely that the lesbian mothers were much more accepting

than heterosexual women of the possibility that their children might turn out to

be homosexual, but none expressed a desire that they should be so (nor did they

act in a way that was proselytizing to the children] (1983: 569-570).

Although Golombok et al. were clear that most of the lesbians in their study were good lesbian mothers, they allowed for the possibility that:

‘there are effects on development […] of being brought up in a home that lacks

any contact with men, in which there is a negative attitude towards things

masculine and in which there is active proselytizing of a homosexual way of

life. While such a description may apply to a few lesbian households, it did not

apply to those in our sample’ (1983: 570, emphasis added).

Another noteworthy feature of this and other studies is the focus on the ‘lesbian mother’: there was little possibility of the ‘lesbian family’ or the lesbian co-parent.

Although Golombok et al. noted that around half of the women their lesbian sample

“lived with another woman as a couple” (1983: 555), they did not collect data from

18 Constructions of lesbian parenting these other women. When Golombok et al. refer to ‘lesbian mothers’ they mean only the biological mothers of the children. For instance, they noted a tendency for “the mothers to take a dominant role in the care of their own children” (1983: 560, emphasis added) in lesbian couples. In these studies what is importance is the absence of a father/man, not the presence of another mother/womanix. The regulatory power of psychology was strongly apparent in the 1980s: the drive to categorise optimal and less than optimal forms of behaviour resulted in intense policing of the lives of lesbian mothers, and lesbian motherhood again fundamentally remained a contradiction in terms.

(V) THE ‘NEW’ LESBIAN PARENT REINVENTS THE FAMILY

Family and partnership rights have been at the forefront of Western campaigns for

LGB rights and equality in the last decade or so. Claims that ‘love makes a family’ and lesbian families are ‘just the family next door’ have become familiar refrains, as

(some) lesbian families have achieved increasing recognition and visibility in the wider socio-cultural context (Clarke & Kitzinger, 2004). By the beginning of the

1990s, coming out as a lesbian no longer meant that the courts automatically regarded a woman as unfit to parent (Harne et al., 1997). The 1990s also witnessed a rapid increase in the numbers of lesbians (and gay men) choosing to have children – through donor insemination with a known or unknown donor, adoption, fostering, and a variety of co-parenting arrangements. This is often referred to as the ‘lesbian baby boom’, ‘gayby boom’, or the ‘choosing children movement’ (Benkov, 1994). At the beginning of the 1990s there was a “storm over virgin births” – the provision of donor insemination services to lesbians – in the British press (The Daily Mail, March 11,

1991, quoted in Cooper & Herman, 1995). The most recent debate about lesbians’

19 Constructions of lesbian parenting access to donor insemination has been conducted in relation to the revision of the

Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Act (1990), the law governing the provision of conception services in the UK, and the so-called ‘welfare clause’. Section

13(5) of the HFE Act requires licensed clinics to take account of the welfare of any child who may be born as a result of treatment they provide “including the need of that child for a father” (quoted in Cooper & Herman, 1995: 163). This clause is viewed as a compromise between conservative and progressive standpoints because it allows individual clinics to decide whether to treat lesbian couples and single women

(Cooper & Herman, 1995). There have been a number of indications that the welfare clause will be scrapped and the revised HFE Act, along with the Civil Partnership Act

2004 and the Adoption Act 2002, will offer lesbian families unprecedented levels of legal recognition. Indeed, the rhetoric and practices of adoption and fostering agencies have become increasingly inclusive throughout the 1990s and 2000s: local governments advertise for lesbian and gay foster parents in the gay press and the

Adoption Act 2002 allows same-sex couples to adopt jointly.

In terms of the international outlook, although recognition of same-sex relationships is increasing, recognition of lesbian (and gay) families is less forthcoming. A number of countries that sanction same-sex marriage explicitly exclude adoption and fostering and other parenting rights from the associated package of rights and responsibilities.

For instance, Belgian same-sex marriage law does not provide for presumed paternity for the female spouse of a woman who gives birth during the marriage, there is no provision for joint parental responsibility, and no provision for adoption by a same- sex partner or a same-sex couple (Stonewall, 2006).

The lesbian mother(s) of the 1980s – the divorced (‘old’) lesbian mother and the ‘just-

20 Constructions of lesbian parenting as-good-as lesbian mother’ – have continued to be respectively the subject and effect of psychological discourses in the 1990s and 2000s. However, public concern has shifted from child custody disputes to lesbians’ access to donor insemination, adoption and fostering (Tasker & Golombok, 1995). Some comparative studies of divorced lesbian and heterosexual mother families have continued to pursue questions about children’s sexual identity development and lesbians’ parental competence

(Golombok & Tasker, 1996, McNeill et al., 1998). However, the authors of these studies have sought to intervene into new debates about the phenomenon of planned lesbian parenthood.

As Flaks et al. (1995: 105) noted planned lesbian families began to generate

“considerable sociocultural, psychological, and legal interest” in the 1990s. In many instances, research on ‘new’ lesbian families continued the comparative tradition (but see Gartrell et al., 1996, Mitchell, 1995) and asked familiar questions about children’s

‘psychosocial adjustment’ (Chan et al., 1998). These studies, like the liberal equality studies of the 1980s, have emphasised the absence of “significant differences” (Chan et al., 1998: 453) between lesbian and heterosexual households. Chan et al. (1998:

453) note that “it was impossible to distinguish children born to and brought up by lesbian versus heterosexual parents” in their study. However, research interest has also begun to shift away from children’s gender and sexual adjustment and towards gender and sexuality ‘neutral’ family dynamics such as the organisation of domestic labour and child-care, and parent-child relationships (Patterson, 1995, Tasker &

Golombok, 1998). This new agenda signals another mutation in psychological conceptions of lesbian parenting: the central figure of the solo lesbian mother is being slowly replaced by the ‘two-mother lesbian family’ (Mitchell, 1995). As such, the

1990s and 2000s have witness the debut of the ‘other mother’ in psychological

21 Constructions of lesbian parenting research, variously dubbed the lesbian ‘co-mother’ (Tasker & Golombok, 1998),

‘nonbiological mother’ (Patterson, 1995), and ‘social mother’ (Brewaeys et al., 1997).

Comparative research has revealed “one striking difference between lesbian and heterosexual families” (Brewaeys et al., 1997: 1356): lesbian co-parents are in some ways better than heterosexual fathers. Thus, these studies tell a new story about lesbian parenting, that of the ‘better-than lesbian family’. For example, Brewaeys et al. (1997: 1356) noted that the social mothers in their study “showed greater interaction with their children than did fathers”, and were “significantly more involved in practical child care activities than fathers in both heterosexual control groups”. Similarly, Tasker and Golombok (1998: 50) cautiously noted that “co- mothers played a more active role in daily caretaking than did most fathers”. The gender-sameness of the lesbian family comes to the forex; the lesbian family is thought to provide a model of family liberated from the constraints of gender.

Moreover, the most gender-neutral lesbian families are best for children:

The lesbian couples who took part in this study reported sharing household

tasks and family decision making equally, but biological mothers reported

greater involvement in child care, and nonbiological mothers reported

spending longer hours in paid employment. When lesbian couples shared child

care more evenly, mothers were more satisfied and children were more well-

adjusted. Thus, even within the context of largely egalitarian arrangements,

more equal sharing of child case was associated with positive outcomes

among both lesbian mothers and their children (Patterson, 1995: 119-20).

Echoing the ‘love makes a family’ claims of lesbian and gay activists, psychologists have emphasised the importance of endogenous activities over particular family

22 Constructions of lesbian parenting configurations in relation to child development and, more radically, what makes a

(good) family. Tasker and Golombok (1998: 50-1) claimed that: “it seems to be family processes (such as family conflict), rather than family structure (parental sexual orientation and number of parents), that have the greater influence on children’s psychological adjustment”. Similarly, Wainwright et al. (2004: 1887) argued that: “variables representing families’ organisation of daily life, such as division of household labour and childcare, are more likely than parental sexual orientation to be associated with children’s outcomes”. This represents something of a seismic shift in psychological and socio-cultural conceptions of lesbian parenting: this research encourages us to turn our attention away from dimensions on which lesbian parents are always losers (sexuality and gender) toward those on which they supposedly come out on top (equality and care).

Thus, psychological research in the 1990s and 2000s engages with debates about the progressive potential of lesbian families. The baby boom has prompted extravagant claims about the capacity of planned lesbian families to ‘reinvent the family’

(Benkov, 1994) and be at the frontier of the ‘postmodern family’ (McLeod &

Crawford, 1998). Psychologists have also revisited traditional theories of child

(psychosexual) development: psychoanalysis, social learning theory, and cognitive development theory. These theories, it is argued, underlie assumptions about the aberrant development of children in lesbian families. Whereas these theories once underpinned research on lesbian families (e.g., Agbayewa, 1984), the ‘fact’ that children develop successfully in lesbian families necessitates:

a reformulation of extant theories, such as psychoanalytic and social learning,

which prescribe that healthy development requires two opposite-sex,

heterosexual parents for the developmental tasks of identification and rejection

on the one hand and modeling on the other (Flaks et al., 1995: 105).

The literature in the 1990s and 2000s constructs lesbians as fit to parent and lesbian families as good for children. By the end of the 1990s, stories of the ‘just-as-good-as lesbian mother’ became intertwined with and were eventually superseded by stories of the ‘better-than lesbian family’. The category ‘lesbian mother’ (and the newer categories ‘lesbian family’ and ‘lesbian co-parent’) does now unequivocally exist as a subject for psychological research and theorising. However, this category remains problematic, not least because lesbians’ fitness to parent is rarely assumed, but has to be proven. Moreover, lesbian motherhood continues to be regarded as a departure from the norm even in affirmative contexts, mothers are assumed to be heterosexual unless otherwise stated. Although lesbian and gay psychologists have been relatively successful in putting lesbian families on the map of alternative family forms, the broader challenges that lesbian families present to heteronormative conceptions of family have yet to be realised within and beyond psychology.

Discussion: Feminist Perspectives on the Lesbian Parenting Literature

From the mid-1980s onwards, lesbian feminists began to critically analyse the psychological literature on lesbian parenting (particularly the comparative psychological literature of the 1980s and 1990s), arguing that it reinforced rigid norms of masculinity, femininity and heterosexuality (Pollack, 1987, ROWLCG,

1986). They also critiqued its reactive and defensive stance to heterosexists assumptions about lesbian families. Lesbian feminists in the 1980s were concerned about the implications of the research for lesbian custody cases and for women’s rights more generally. In relation to the earliest studies of lesbian mother families,

Lynne Harne (1984) argued that psychological research takes as its premise that lesbianism is abnormal and can only be defined negatively against the heterosexual family. The research denies that lesbian and feminist influences and that being brought up in an all-female environment might be beneficial for children. Sandra

Pollack (1987: 316), in a ground-breaking piece, ‘A lesbian-feminist perspective on research’, argued that while the conclusion that lesbian mothers are no different from heterosexual mothers might be reassuring it is ultimately problematic, making lesbian mothers “once more invisible” and eclipsing “the radical alternative lesbian lives can model”. Just like early sexological writings, comparative psychological research defines lesbian mothers out of existence. Pollack argued that findings of no difference would not lead to social acceptance for lesbian mothers. She urged lesbian mothers to avoid invisibility by defining themselves and held that “self-definition and empowerment should anchor future research” (1987: 317).

Pollack (1987) maintained that lesbian mothers should not be judged on how well they conform to the heterosexual norm. According to Harne and the Rights of Women

(1997: 42) most psychological research is underpinned by the assumption that

“lesbian families are second best to a two-parent, heterosexual family”. Pollack

(1987) argued that comparative research overlooked serious questions about the specifics of lesbian mothering and urged a focus on the differences between lesbian and heterosexual mothers (both the positive differences resulting from resistance to heterosexual norms and the negative differences resulting from heterosexist oppression).

Harne et al. (1997: 30) identified two central assumptions of the psychological literature: that “it is preferable for children to grow up to be heterosexual rather than

25 Constructions of lesbian parenting lesbian or gay” and that “it is better for children to conform to… gender stereotypes”.

Feminist and feminist-influenced post-positivist authors have argued that comparative studies promote essentialist understandings of gender and sexuality – as things that are inherent and measurable rather than social constructed and acquired and performed in interaction with others (see Hicks, 2005, Kessler & McKenna, 1978). In an early academic critique, Pam Alldred (1996, p. 156), a feminist sociologist, noted that psychological research creates dilemmas for feminists in that effective intervention in debates about lesbian parenting requires reinforcement of the notion that “complete, appropriate and normal outcomes require the production of ‘proper’ boys and ‘proper’ girls”.

Pollack (1987: 321) argued that what comparative psychological research actually examines is “whether the children conform to acceptable societal norms”, which contrasts sharply with lesbian feminists’ commitment to eradicating such norms.

Pollack urged a focus on the positive role models provided by lesbians and gay men that challenged restrictive gender norms. Feminist sociologist, Bridget Fitzgerald maintained that comparative studies accomplish the:

promotion of gender hegemony […] by judging ‘appropriate’ child development

in terms of such outcomes as girls wearing dresses and being emotionally

supportive, and boys playing with trucks and displaying independent, aggressive

behavior (Fitzgerald, 1999: 60).

Fitzgerald suggested more ‘constructive’ measures of child development such as

“self-management, adjustment, self-esteem, and how well they are equipped to manoeuvre through life” (1999: 61). From a feminist critical psychological perspective, although self-esteem may be a less oppressive measure of child

26 Constructions of lesbian parenting development than conformity to traditional gender norms, in advocating its use,

Fitzgerald reinforces the role of psychologists as “the arbiters of what constitutes optimal human existence” (Benkov, 1995: 54). The belief that it is interesting and necessary to ask questions about the development of children in lesbian families derives ultimately from heterosexist assumptions about lesbians and the ideal family

(Richardson, 1978) and essentialist assumptions about gender and sexuality. From a feminist critical psychological perspective, psychologists’ (and feminists’) engagement with the question ‘are lesbians fit to parent?’ is troubling. The question

‘are lesbians are ‘fit to parent’?’ renders ‘no’ lesbians are not fit to parent a plausible and intelligible answer: if their sons do not play with trucks and their daughters do not wear dresses, or if they lack self-esteem. Pollack (1987) urged researchers to focus on the actual lives of children and the possible benefits of being raised by a lesbian mother (see also Harne et al., 1997). Although some aspects of these early feminist critiques diverge from the assumptions of a feminist critical psychology, they have informed more recent post-positivist readings of the literature, including the current article.

It seems that lesbian parenting will occupy a politically volatile position for some time; therefore, it is vital that we continue to reflect on the assumptions underpinning psychological research. As I have briefly noted, it is possible to read some of the stories about lesbian parenting evident in research as class-inflected stories (Gabb,

2004). Gabb critiques the notion, evident both in lesbian and gay psychological and sociological research, that lesbian families are inherently progressive. She argues that middle class, highly educated, white, urban dwelling lesbian parents tend to be the focus of lesbian parenting research and that the heavy reliance on such samples obscures the diversity of lesbian family forms. Many working class lesbians are

27 Constructions of lesbian parenting barred from what Gabb (2004: 173) calls “the privilege of ‘lifestyle parenting’”. The absence of a class-based analysis from research on lesbian parenting means that family practices are taken out of context, and models of good and bad parenting are mapped onto social class, and more traditional family forms are excluded from the idealised story of lesbian parenting as progressive. She argues that few studies question the wider implications of conducting research based on a set of selective accounts; the limitations of data are usually glossed over in the introduction and the analysis proceeds unproblematically. These practices result in a particular (privileged) version of the lesbian family coming to dominate the research narrative about lesbian families. The silence around class in relation to research on lesbian families is also evident in wider discussions of lesbian and gay parenting. Boggis (2001) argues that the political face of lesbian and gay parenting is white and middle class, and political campaigns that are supported by psychological research and centre on cries of ‘we are just like you’ are premised on the denial of ‘dangerous queers’. Cries of ‘we are just like you’ actually mean ‘we (white, middle class lesbians and gay men) are just like you (white, middle class) heterosexuals’. Publicly visibility (and acceptance) of lesbian and gay families requires the further marginalisation of already marginalised members of lesbian and gay communities.

Issues relating to diversity within lesbian parenting communities have been sorely overlooked in psychological research, as they have in critical readings of the literature. There is a need for critical readings of psychological and socio-cultural discourses of lesbian parenting that examine how constructions of lesbian parenting intersect with class, race, culture and so on, and which explore how all lesbian parents are positioned in relation to race, culture, class, ability and age. It is important to acknowledge experiences of oppression and privilege, and intersections of both, and

28 Constructions of lesbian parenting how these shape the stories that get told about lesbian parenting. Who we research and why are increasingly weighty questions. There is also a need to acknowledge other types of queer families, including gay father, bisexual, transgender and polyamorous families. These types of families are beginning to be examined under the psychological microscope (e.g., Barrett & Tasker, 2001, Riggs, 2006); thus, it is important that critical interrogations of psychological (and socio-cultural) discourses of queer families proceed in parallel and pose challenging questions about how and why we research these families. It is equally important that feminist researchers interrogate their heteronormative assumptions and abandon the generic heterosexual mother that forms the foundation of most feminist research on motherhood.

In conclusion, in the last century of psychology, the category ‘lesbian parent’ has changed from a contradiction in terms to the subject of psychological inquiry. In research specifically focused on lesbian parenting, there has been a shift from presenting lesbian families as ‘just-as-good-as’ to ‘better-than’ heterosexual families.

This article has highlighted the ways in which politics and social values inform psychological research (and ways in which psychology shapes and reinforces social values), and the regulatory role of psychology and the reinforcement of heteronormative ideas about sexuality, gender and family in research on lesbian parenting.

References

Adam, Barry D. (1995). The rise of a gay and lesbian movement, rev. ed. New York,

NY: Twayne Publishers.

Agbayewa, M. Louwafemi. (1984). Fathers in the newer family forms: Male or female? Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 29, 402-6.

Alldred, Pam. (1996). ‘Fit to parent’? Developmental psychology and ‘non- traditional’ families. In Erica Burman, Pam Alldred, Catherine Bewley, Brenda

Goldberg, Colleen Heenan, Deborah Marks, Jane Marshall, Karen Taylor, Robina

Ullah, Sam Warner, Challenging women: Psychology’s exclusions, feminist possibilities (pp. 141-59). Buckingham: Open University Press.

Allen, Sue & Harne, Lynne. (1988). Lesbian mothers – the fight for child custody. In

Bob Cant and Susan Hemmings (Eds.), Radical records: Thirty years of lesbian and gay history, 1957-1987 (pp. 181-94). Routledge: London.

American Psychological Association (2005). Lesbian and gay parenting. Available from: http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/lgparenting.pdf

Anderssen, Norman, Amlie, Christine, & Ytterøy, Erling André. (2002). Outcomes for children with lesbian or gay parents. A review of studies from 1978 to 2000. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 43, 335-51.

Arnup, Katherine & Boyd, Susan. (1995). Familial disputes? Sperm donors, lesbian mothers, and legal parenthood. In Didi Herman & Carl Stychin (Eds.), Legal inversions: Lesbians, gay men, and the politics of law (pp. 77-101). Philadelphia, PA:

Temple University Press.

B v B. (1991). Family Law Reporter, 402-12.

Barrett, Helen & Tasker, Fiona. (2001). Growing up with a gay parent: Views of 101

30 Constructions of lesbian parenting gay fathers on their sons’ and daughters’ experiences, Educational & Child

Psychology, 18, 62-77.

Belcastro, Philip A., Gramlich, Theresa, Nicholson, Price Jimmie & Wilson, Richard.

(1993). A review of the data based studies addressing the affects of homosexual parenting on children’s sexual and social functioning. Journal of Divorce and

Remarriage, 20, 105-22.

Benkov, Laura. (1994). Reinventing the family: The emerging story of lesbian and gay parents. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.

Benkov, Laura. (1995). Lesbian and gay parents: From margin to center. Journal of

Feminist Family Therapy, 7(1/2), 49-64.

Bieber, Irving. (1969). Homosexuality. American Journal of Nursing, 69(12), 2637-

Blasius, Mark & Phelan, Shane. (1997). Gay liberation and lesbian feminism. In Mark

Blasius & Shane Phelan (Eds.), We are everywhere: A historical sourcebook of gay and lesbian politics (pp. 377-79). New York: Routledge.

Boggis, Terry. (2001) Affording our families: Class issues in family formation. In

Mary Bernstein & Renate Reimann (Eds.), Queer families, queer politics:

Challenging culture and the state (pp. 175-81). New York, NY: Columbia University

Press.

Breheny, Mary & Stephens, Christine. (2007). Irreconcilable differences: Health professionals’ constructions of adolescence and motherhood. Social Science &

Medicine, 64(1), 112-24.

Brewaeys, Anne, Ponjaert, I., Van Hall, E. V., & Golombok, Susan. (1997). Donor insemination: Child development and family functioning in lesbian mother families.

Human Reproduction, 12, 1349-59.

Calhoun, Cheshire. (1997). Family outlaws: Rethinking the connections between feminism, lesbianism and the family. In Hilde Lindemann Nelson (Ed.), Feminism and families (pp. 131-50). New York: Routledge.

Cameron, Paul. (1999). Homosexual parents: Testing ‘common sense’ – A literature review emphasizing the Golombok and Tasker longitudinal study of lesbians’ children. Psychological Reports, 85, 282-322.

Cameron, Paul, Cameron, Kirk & Landess, Thomas. (1996). Errors by the American

Psychiatric Association, The American Psychological Association, and The National

Education Association in representing homosexuality in Amicus Briefs about

Amendment 2 to the U.S. Supreme Court. Psychological Reports, 79, 383-404.

Chan, Raymond, W., Raboy, Barbara & Patterson, Charlotte, J. (1998). Psychosocial adjustment among children conceived via donor insemination by lesbian and heterosexual mothers. Child Development, 69(2), 443-57.

Clarke, Victoria. (2000). ‘Stereotype, attack and stigmatize those who disagree’:

Employing scientific rhetoric in debates about lesbian and gay parenting. Feminism &

Psychology, 10(1), 152-59.

Clarke, Victoria. (2001). What about the children? Arguments against lesbian and gay parenting. Women’s Studies International Forum, 24(5), 555-70.

Clarke, Victoria. (2002a). Sameness and difference in research on lesbian parenting.

Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 12, 210-22.

Clarke, Victoria. (2002b). Resistance and normalisation in the construction of lesbian and gay families: A discursive analysis. In Adrian Coyle & Celia Kitzinger (Eds.),

Lesbian and Gay Psychology: New Perspectives (pp. 98-118). Oxford: BPS

Blackwell.

Clarke, Victoria. (2005) Feminist perspectives on lesbian parenting: A review of the literature 1972-2002. Psychology of Women Section Review, 7(2), 11-23.

Clarke, Victoria. (2006) ‘Gay men, gay men and more gay men’: Traditional, liberal and critical perspectives on male role models in lesbian families. Lesbian & Gay

Psychology Review, 7(1), 19-35.

Clarke, Victoria & Kitzinger, Celia. (2004). Lesbian and gay parents on talk shows:

Resistance or collusion in heterosexism. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 1(3),

195-217.

Clarke, Victoria & Kitzinger, Celia. (2005). ‘We’re not living on planet lesbian’:

Constructions of male role models in debates about lesbian families. Sexualities, 8(2),

137-52.

Clarke, Victoria, Kitzinger, Celia & Potter, Jonathan. (2004). ‘Kids are just cruel anyway’: Lesbian and gay parents talk about homophobic bullying. British Journal of

Social Psychology, 43(4), 531-50.

Cooper, Davina & Herman, Didi. (1995). Getting ‘the family right’: Legislating heterosexuality in Britain, 1986-91. In Didi Herman & Carl Stychin (Eds.), Legal

Inversions: Lesbians, gay men, and the politics of law (pp. 162-79). Philadelphia, PA:

Temple University Press.

Cromby, John & Nightingale, David J. (1999). What’s wrong with social constructionism? In David J. Nightingale & John Cromby (Ed.), Social constructionist psychology: A critical analysis of theory and practice (pp. 1-19).

Buckingham: Open University Press.

D’Augelli, Anthony. (2002). The cutting edges of lesbian and gay psychology. In

Adrian Coyle & Celia Kitzinger (Eds.), Lesbian and gay psychology: new perspectives (pp. xiii-xvi). Oxford: BPS Blackwell.

Elvin-Nowak, Ylva & Thomsson, Heléne. (2001). Motherhood as idea and practice: A discursive understanding of employed mothers in Sweden. Gender & Society, 15(3), 407-28.

Faderman, Lillian. (1980). Surpassing the love of men: Romantic friendship and love between women from the renaissance to the present. London: Junction Books.

Fitzgerald, Bridget. (1999). Children of lesbian and gay parents: A review of the literature. Marriage & Family Review, 29(1), 57-75.

Flaks, David, K., Ficher, Ilda, Masterpasqua, Frank & Joseph, Gregory. (1995).

Lesbians choosing motherhood: A comparative study of lesbian and heterosexual parents and their children. Developmental Psychology, 31(1), 105-14.

Gabb, Jacqui. (2004). Critical Differentials: Querying the contrarieties between research on lesbian parent families. Sexualities, 7(2), 171-87.

Gartrell, Nanette, Hamilton, Jean, Banks, Amy, Mosbacher, Dee, Reed, Nancy,

Sparks, Caroline H., and Bishop, Holly. (1996). The national lesbian family study: 1.

Interviews with prospective mothers. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 66(2),

272-61.

Golombok, Susan, Spencer, Ann, & Rutter, Michael. (1983). Children in lesbian and single-parent households: Psychosexual and psychiatric appraisal. Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 24, 551-72.

Golombok, Susan & Tasker, Fiona. (1997). Children in lesbian and gay families:

Theories and evidence. In Jess Wells (Ed.), Lesbians raising sons: An anthology (pp.

158-87). Los Angeles, CA: Alyson Books [Originally published in 1994].

Golombok, Susan & Tasker, Fiona. (1996). Do parents influence the sexual orientation of their children? Findings from a longitudinal study of lesbian families.

Developmental Psychology, 32(1), 3-11.

Golombok, Susan & Tasker, Fiona. (1994). Children in lesbian and gay families:

Theories and evidence. Annual Review of Sex Research, 5, 73-100.

Green, Richard. (1978). Sexual identity of 37 children raised by homosexual or transsexual parents. American Journal of Psychiatry, 135, 692-7.

Green, G. Dorsey & Bozett, Frederick W. (1991). Lesbian mothers and gay fathers. In

John. C. Gonsiorek & James D. Weinrich (Eds.), Homosexuality: Research implications for public policy (pp. 197-214). London: Sage.

Green, Richard, Barclay Mandel, Jane, Hotvedt, Mary E., Gray, James & Smith,

Laurel. (1986). Lesbian mothers and their children: A comparison with solo parent heterosexual mothers and their children. Archives of sexual behavior, 15(2), 167-84.

Hanscombe, Gillian E. & Forster, Jackie. (1981). Rocking the cradle, lesbian mothers: A challenge in family living. Boston: Alyson Publications.

Harne, Lynne. (1984, Summer). Lesbian custody and the new myth of the father. Trouble & Strife, 3, 12-5.

Harne, Lynne & Rights of Women (1997). Valued families: The lesbian mothers’ legal handbook, 2nd ed. London: The Women’s Press.

Havelock Ellis, Henry. (1897/1901). Studies in the psychology of sex, vol 1: Sexual inversion. Philadelphia, PA: F. A. Davis Co.

Herrington, B. S. (1979, October). Children of lesbians developmentally typical.

Psychiatric News, 20-2.

Hicks, Stephen. (2003). The Christian right and homophobic discourse: A response to

‘evidence’ that lesbian and gay parenting damages children. Sociological Research

Online, 8(4), available from: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/8/4/hicks.html

Hicks, Stephen. (2005). Bad for kids? Responding to the ‘very ideal of difference’ in research on lesbian and gay parents. Sexualities, 8(2), 153-68.

Hoeffer, Beverly. (1981). Children’s acquisition of sex-role behavior in lesbian- mother families. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 51(3), 536-43.

Human Behavior. (1976, August). A new look at lesbian mothers. Human Behavior,

Javaid, Ghazala Afzal. (1983). The sexual development of the adolescent daughter of a homosexual mother. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 22(2),

196-201.

Jeffreys, Sheila. (1985). The spinster and her enemies: Feminism and sexuality, 1880-

1930. London: Routledge.

Kahn, Karen. (1995). The politics of family. In Karen Kahn (Ed.), Frontline feminism, 1975-1995: Essays from Sojourner’s first 20 years (pp. 132-137). San

Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books.

Kenyon, F. E. (1970, February). Homosexuality in the female. British Journal of

Hospital Medicine, 183-206.

Kessler, Suzanne J. & McKenna, Wendy. (1978). Gender: An ethnomethodological approach. New York: John Wiley.

Kirkpatrick, Martha. (1982). Lesbian mother families. Psychiatric Annals, 12, 842-8.

Kitzinger, Celia (1987). The social construction of lesbianism. London: Sage.

36 Constructions of lesbian parenting von Krafft-Ebing, Richard. (1886/1965). Psychopathia Sexualis: A medico-forensic study. New York: Putnam’s [originally published in 1886].

McLeod, Andrew & Crawford, Isiaah. (1998). The postmodern family: An examination of the psychosocial and legal perspectives of gay and lesbian parenting.

In Gregory M. Herek (Ed.), Stigma and sexual orientation: Understanding prejudice against lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (pp. 211-22). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Malone, Kareen & Cleary, Rosemary. (2002). (De)Sexing the family: Theorizing the social science of lesbian families. Feminist Theory, 3, 271-93.

McNeill, Kevin F, Rienzi, Beth M & Kposowa, Augustine. (1998). Families and parenting: A comparison of lesbian and heterosexual mothers. Psychological Reports,

82, 59-62.

Millbank, Jenni. (1992). Lesbian mothers, gay fathers: Sameness and difference.

Australian Gay and Lesbian Law Journal, 2, 21-40.

Miller, Judith Ann, Jacobsen, R. Brooke, & Bigner, Jerry J. (1982). The child’s home environment for lesbian vs. heterosexual mothers: A neglected areas of research.

Journal of Homosexuality, 7(1), 49-56.

Mitchell, Valory. (1995). Two moms: The contribution of the planned lesbian family to the deconstruction of gendered parenting. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy,

7(3/4), 47-63.

Morgan, Patricia. (2002). Children as trophies? Examining the evidence on same-sex parenting. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: The Christian Institute.

Mucklow, Bonnie M. & Phelan, Gladys K. (1979). Lesbian and traditional mothers’ responses to adult response to child behavior and self-concept. Psychological Reports,

44, 880-2.

Osman, Shelomo. (1972). My stepfather is a she. Family Process, 11, 209-18.

Parker, Ian. (1992). Discourse dynamics: A critical analysis for social and individual psychology. London: Routledge.

Patterson, Charlotte J. (1992). Children of lesbian and gay parents. Child

Development, 63, 1025-42.

Patterson, Charlotte J. (1994). Children of the lesbian baby boom: Behavioral adjustments, self-concepts, and sex-role identity. In Beverly Greene & Gregory M.

Herek (Eds.), Lesbian and gay psychology: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp. 156-75). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Patterson, Charlotte J. (1995). Families of the lesbian baby boom: Parents’ Division of Labor and Children’s Adjustment. Developmental Psychology, 31(1), 115-25.

Pihama, Leonie. (1998). Reconstructing meanings of family: Lesbian/gay whánau and families in Aotearoa. In Vivienne Adair & Robyn Dixon (Eds.), The family in

Aotearoa New Zealand (pp. 179-207). Auckland, New Zealand: Longman.

Pollack, Sandra. (1987). Lesbian mothers: A lesbian-feminist perspective on research.

In Sandra Pollack & Jeanne. Vaughn (Eds.), Politics of the heart: A lesbian parenting anthology (pp. 316-24). Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books.

Pollack, Sandra & Vaughn, Jeanne. (Eds.), (1987) Politics of the heart: A lesbian parenting anthology. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books.

Rand, Catherine, Graham, Dee L., & Rawlings, Edna I. (1982). Psychological health and factors the court seeks to control in lesbian mother custody trials. Journal of

Homosexuality, 8(1), 27-39.

Richardson, Diane. (1978, August). Do lesbians make good parents? Community

Care, 224, 16-7.

Richardson, Diane. (1981). Theoretical perspectives on homosexuality. In John Hart

& Diane Richardson (Eds.), The theory and practice of homosexuality (pp. 5-37).

London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Richardson, Diane. (2000) Constructing sexual citizenship: Theorising sexual rights.

Critical Social Policy, 20(1), 105-135.

Riggs, Damien W. (2005). ‘Proving the case’: Psychology, subjectivity and representations of lesbian and gay parents in the media. In Laura Castañeda &

Shannon B. Campbell (Eds.), News and Sexuality: Media Portraits of Diversity.

London: Sage.

Riggs, Damien W. (Ed.), (2006). Lesbian, gay, polyamorous and queer families.

Lesbian & Gay Psychology Review, 7(1).

Rights of Women Lesbian Custody Group (1986). Lesbian mother’s legal handbook.

London: The Women’s Press.

Romm, Mary E. (1965). Sexuality and homosexuality in women. In Judd Marmor

(Ed.), Sexual inversion: The multiple roots of homosexuality (pp. 284-99). New York:

Basic Books.

Ruehl, Sonja. (1982). Inverts and experts: Radclyffe Hall and the Lesbian Identity. In

Rosalind Brunt & Caroline Rowan (Eds.), Feminism, culture and politics (pp. 15-36).

London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Smith, Anna Marie. (1994). New right discourse on race and sexuality: Britain, 1968-

1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Socarides, Charles. (1965). Female homosexuality. In Ralph Slovenko (Ed.), Sexual

39 Constructions of lesbian parenting behavior and the law (pp. 462-77). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

Stacey, Judith & Biblarz, Timothy J. (2001). (How) does the sexual orientation of parents matter? American Sociological Review, 66, 159-83.

Stephens, Eleanor. (1982). Out of the closets into the courts. In Marsha Row (Ed.),

Spare rib reader: 100 issues of women’s liberation (pp. 91-8). Middlesex: Penguin

Books.

Stonewall. (2006). Countries that recognise or proposed to recognise same-sex relationships [On-line]. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on June 13, 2006: http://www.stonewall.org.uk/information_bank/partnership/international/137.asp#3

Tasker, Fiona & Golombok, Susan. (1995). Adults raised as children in lesbian families. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 65(2), 203-15.

Tasker, Fiona & Golombok, Susan. (1998). The role of co-mothers in planned lesbian-led families. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 2(4), 49-68.

Terry, Jennifer. (1999). An American obsession: Science, medicine, and homosexuality in modern society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Victor, Sherri B. & Fish, Marian C. (1995). Lesbian mothers and their children: A review for school psychologists. School Psychology Review, 24(3), 456-79.

Wainwright, Jennifer L., Russell, Stephen T., & Patterson, Charlotte J. (2004).

Psychosocial adjustment, school outcomes, and romantic relationships of adolescents with same-sex parents. Child Development, 76(6), 1886-98.

Wardle, Lynn D. (1997). The potential impact of homosexual parenting on children.

University of Illinois Law Review, (3), 833-920.

Weeks, Ruth B., Derdeyn, Andre P., & Langman, Martha. (1975). Two cases of

40 Constructions of lesbian parenting children of homosexuals. Child psychiatry and human development, 6(1), 26-32.

Willig, Carla. (1999). Beyond appearances: A critical realist approach to social constructionist work in psychology. In David Nightingale & John Cromby (Eds.),

Psychology and social constructionism: A critical analysis of theory and practice (pp.

37-51). Buckingham: Open University Press.

Woollett, Anne, Phoenix, Ann & Lloyd, Eva. (Eds.), (1991), Motherhood: Meanings, practices and ideologies. London: Sage.

41 i There are a small number of reviews by conservative christian authors that provide a rather different assessment of the literature (e.g., Belcastro et al., 1993, Cameron, 1999, Cameron et al., 1996, Morgan, 2002, Wardle, 1997). These authors argue that the literature supports the ‘common sense’ view that lesbian parenting is harmful to children and that children in lesbian families are more likely to become lesbian or gay. A widely cited re-analysis of 21 lesbian parenting studies (Stacey & Biblarz, 2001) also supports the conclusion that children in lesbian families are more likely to be lesbian or gay, but does so from a lesbian-affirmative perspective. The authors of this review argue that most psychological research on lesbian parenting is limited by a defensive heterosexist stance on sexuality. ii Although Hicks offers his own interpretation of the research, he does acknowledge the dilemma of reinforcing the ‘evidence game’, whereby one set of interpretations are replaced with a corrective set of truths. iii Most of the literature under discussion was published in North America and in the UK; as such the discussion of the social and political context is confined to the US and the UK. iv A comprehensive review of the literature during these eras is beyond the scope of a single article; this article provides a discussion of trends and patterns using key papers as examples. Studies that constitute a particular pattern or trend are discussed together even if some fall outside the boundaries of a particular historical era. v Havelock Ellis conceded that this was not an average case; however, it was the only case he presented. vi A number of other studies were underway in the 1970s (see Green, 1978, Human Behavior, 1976, Kirkpatrick, 1982, Richardson, 1978) and a symposium on lesbian parenting was conducted at the 1979 American Psychological Association convention in New York (see Herrington, 1979). These findings were published in the 1980s and 1990s. vii This is not the only story contained in the research of the 1980s: some studies ‘found’ differences between lesbian and heterosexual mother families, which signalled the possibility of a ‘better-than’ lesbian mother (e.g., Miller et al., 1982, Rand et al., 1982). This alternative story was to become a prominent narrative in the 1990s and early 2000s. viii Because of the limited number of primary reports of lesbian custody cases published in the 1980s I have also drawn on primary reports of cases conducted after the 1980s and on secondary reports of custody cases. ix In explaining their findings, Golombok et al. did concede “perhaps it is relevant that the heterosexual women were living on their own in an unsupported relationship whereas most of the lesbians were not” (1983: 570). x As others have noted, this story disappears the possibility of class, income, race, culture, ability and age differences between lesbian partners (Gabb, 2004). It is not surprisingly that most research that emphasises the gender-sameness of lesbian couples is based on samples of relatively privileged groups of lesbians.