Week Four Discussion Post
Asynchronous discussion enhances learning as you share your ideas, perspectives, and experiences with the class. You develop and refine your thoughts through the writing process, plus broaden your classmates’ understanding of the course content.
Initial Response
- First, collect all the Weeks 2, 3, 4 course curricular materials, in-class writing, mini-lecture materials, and your notes for this course in one place.
- Now that you have everything collected, reflect on the materials and your writing for evidence of how your thinking has changed and developed as a result of your participation in Weeks 2, 3, & 4 in this course—focus specifically on identifying shifts related to your identity(ies), relationships, community(ies), family(ies), adoption, and/or family in the broader U.S. or international context.
- Create a claim to frame your response. For instance, I might write, “In reviewing course curricular materials and my own writing in relation to Weeks 2, 3, 4 in this course, one shift I identified related to my identity as US White international, transracial adoptive mother of a minority race child is …. XXXX.
- Then, provide evidence and reasoning for your claim.
Course curricular materials as evidence: Evidence must be based, in part, on Weeks 2, 3, 4 course curricular materials. When you are drawing upon course curricular materials, be certain you are integrating these in concrete and specific ways. Concrete and specific ways mean referencing specific terms/lines/concepts and/or a specific instances/examples/stories from the course curriculum you select.
In addition to course curricular materials, draw upon logic (your thinking), feelings (e.g., your affective involvement/reactions), your lived experiences, and/or your knowledge from other classes as evidence. Be certain to speak from the “I ” perspective, meaning - To post your initial response to the discussion board, simply click in reply box located below the question. You will notice the box will then enlarge and display word editing options. When you have finished typing your response in the box, click “Post Reply.”
WRITING EXPECTATIONS
- Write from the I perspective: This means you are writing from your own personal point of view, you are conveying your own personal experiences of learning in this course. Accordingly, write uses the pronouns “I,” “me,” “my” “we” when writing the first-person text. The use of the first-person point of view will make your writing seem more conversational and natural in tone, congruent with the discussion post genre.
- Honoring Your Audience: From a point of honoring our course ground rules and commitments to inclusion and diversity in this course, writing from the I perspective will help ground you in speaking for yourself and owning your words. Distance can convey a degree of anonymity, and as a result, many people feel less inhibited in online situations than in their everyday lives. This lessening of inhibitions sometimes leads people to drop their normal standards of decorum when communicating online. Remember your audience when you are writing your initial post and your replies to other students. Imagine you are talking to the group face-to-face during an in-class discussion.
- Due Dates: Submit an initial post(s) responding to the prompt before 11:59 pm on Sunday and post your reflections on at least one other person’s post before 11:59 pm on Monday. Respond to someone who has not yet received a response.
- Spelling and Grammar: Please Note: Compose your initial posts and peer replies using a word processing application such as Microsoft Word to save your work. Be certain you then check your writing for spelling and grammar errors. Then, simply copy and paste your answers into the discussion board.
- Length: Initial posts should be within a range of 250 words (equivalent to 1 page double-spaced) to 300 words (equivalent to 1 ½ pages double-spaced), Response: 100-150 words.
easy to understandinggood grammar
235
Communication in
Lesbian and Gay Families
Elizabeth A. Suter
University of Denver
L esbian and gay families represent a grow-ing population in the United States today. Approximately 2 million U.S. children are
currently growing up with a lesbian or gay parent
(Movement Advancement Project [MAP], 2011).
This number is predicted to rise in coming years
as one third of lesbians and over one half of gay
men without children plan to parent (MAP, 2011).
No longer concentrated in large metropolitan
areas, lesbian and gay families can be found in
96% of U.S. counties (MAP, 2011). In fact, in 12
U.S. states, more than 25% of same-sex couples are
raising children (Gates & Cooke, 2011). Moreover,
lesbian and gay families are racially and ethnically
diverse. Same-sex couples are less likely to identify
as White as compared to their different-sex coun-
terparts and these non-White same-sex couples
are more likely to have children than White same-
sex couples (MAP, 2011).
Thirty years of social scientific research dem-
onstrates that this growing, diverse family form
promotes the well-being of its children (Biblarz
& Savci, 2010). Yet, in the face of strong evidence
of high family functionality and positive parent-
ing outcomes, lesbian and gay parents and their
children still face social stigma. Stigmatization of
lesbian and gay families is rooted in the domi-
nant cultural ideology of heteronormativity.
Heteronormativity narrates that the natural, nor-
mative, preferred manner in which families are
connected is through heterosexual ties (Oswald,
Blume, & Marks, 2005). Although the number of
lesbian and gay families continues to rise, the
powerful normalizing force of heteronormativity
frequently positions these families on the mar-
gins, as decentered, and as less “natural” than
heterosexually-headed families.
As a culturally less-valued family form, lesbian
and gay families face a myriad of challenges. Yet,
in the face of challenge, lesbian mothers, gay
fathers, and their children often demonstrate
resilience. The primary goal of this chapter is to
review and synthesize the current body of schol-
arship on lesbian and gay families. As such, the
CHAPTER 15
236———PART III. Family Forms
first section of this chapter examines extant litera-
ture on lesbian and gay families organized within
a challenge and resiliency framework. Despite the
insights of past scholarship, there is still much to
learn about this growing family form, particularly
from a communicative perspective. Gay and les-
bian families have been primarily studied in allied
fields, such as psychology (e.g., Johnson &
O’Connor, 2002) and family studies (e.g.,
Goldberg, 2010) and remain understudied in the
field of communication studies. Hence, a second-
ary goal of this chapter is to stimulate research on
the communicative practices and processes of
lesbian and gay families. In pursuit of this goal,
this chapter concludes by articulating an agenda
for future communication-based research on les-
bian and gay families. Review and Synthesis of
Extant Literature: Challenges
Lesbian and gay families experience a myriad
of challenges. This section reviews and synthe-
sizes the extant literature in terms of: (a) chal-
lenges to gay and lesbian parents; (b) challenges
to children with gay and lesbian parents; (c) chal-
lenges in legal and social services contexts; and
(d) communicative challenges.
Challenges to
Gay and Lesbian Parents
The negative cultural positioning of gay and
lesbian parenthood represents a significant chal-
lenge to gay fathers and lesbian mothers.
Ideologically, U.S. society still positions gay and
father as incompatible constructs. Fatherhood
continues to be conceived in heteronormative
terms (Giesler, 2012). Gay fathers contend with
negative social messages (e.g., perceptions that
they are unfit parents and untrustworthy around
children) associated with their three overlapping
identity categories: gay, male, and father (Wells,
2011). Gay adoptive fathers depict themselves as
“‘unwanted fathers’ adopting ‘unwanted chil-
dren’” (i.e., hard-to-place, mainly older children
of color with mental, physical, and/or emotional
difficulties) (Broad, Alden, Berkowitz, & Ryan,
2008, p. 513). Likewise, dominant cultural dis-
courses position lesbians as inept mothers,
lesser-than their heterosexual counterparts
(Broad et al., 2008).
Gay fathers and lesbian mothers internalize
their negative cultural positioning to lesser or
greater degrees. Some believe that coming out
negates their potential for parenthood
(Berkowitz & Marsiglio, 2007). For those who
do become parents, internalized marginaliza-
tion troubles the transition to parenthood
(Brinamen & Mitchell, 2008). For instance, gay
fathers report coping with a heightened sense
of visibility and vigilance upon becoming par-
ents (Gianino, 2008), and lesbian mothers
experience more internalized homophobia
than lesbians without children (Demino,
Appleby, & Fisk, 2007). Internalized marginal-
ization also leads to a decreased internal sense
of parental competency. For instance, when
comparing gay fathers and heterosexual fathers,
Bos (2010) found no significant differences on
emotional involvement and parental concern in
the father-child relationship, parental burden,
or children’s well-being. However, gay fathers
reported feeling significantly less competent in
their child-rearing role. Moreover, internalized
marginalization leads to more parenting stress.
For instance, in addition to stress factors shared
with heterosexual adoptive parents (e.g., lower
levels of perceived social support), gay father’s
stigma sensitivity significantly adds to their
parenting stress (Tornello, Farr, & Patterson,
2011). Gay fathers’ higher levels of parental
justification (needing to externally justify and/
or defend one’s role as a gay father) and lived
experiences of societal rejection are signifi-
cantly related to higher levels of parental stress
(Bos, 2010). Gay- and lesbian-headed families
have been identified as highly discourse depen-
dent. More reliant on communication for iden-
tity building, maintenance, and repair as
compared to heterosexually-headed families,
gay- and lesbian-headed families are more
often called upon to explain, justify, and defend
themselves (Galvin & Patrick, 2009).
Chapter 15. Communication in Lesbian and Gay Families ——237
Challenges to Children
With Gay and Lesbian Parents
Stigmatization is challenging not only for gay
and lesbian parents but also for their children.
Children with gay fathers routinely experience
peer homophobic teasing and bullying
(Berkowitz & Kuvalanka, 2013). Moreover,
teachers and school staff reportedly fail not only
to intervene when overhearing antigay remarks
but also perpetuate antigay comments them-
selves (Berkowitz & Kuvalanka, 2013). Similarly,
adolescents growing up in lesbian families report
peers as the main perpetrators of bullying behav-
iors and school as the primary context for bully-
ing (van Gelderen, Gartrell, Bos, van Rooij, &
Hermanns, 2012). Studies find that today’s early
childhood teachers and staff remain unprepared
to work with gay and lesbian families (Kitntner-
Duffy, Vardell, Lower, & Cassidy, 2012) and
continue to report low levels of personal comfort
in working with gay and lesbian parents (Averett
& Hegde, 2012).
Challenges in Legal
and Social Services Contexts
Stigmatization extends beyond the challenges
experienced by children in the educational con-
text to legal and social services contexts. In the
legal context, the lack of a legal and culturally
recognizable term for lesbian parents whose
partners give birth to their child both discon-
firms the legitimacy of their motherhood and
impedes lesbian comother maternal identity for-
mation (Miller, 2012). In a poignantly concrete
example, formal support systems’ tendency to
invalidate same-sex family relations undermines
the formal help-seeking behaviors of lesbian
mothers experiencing intimate partner violence
(Hardesty, Oswald, Khaw, & Fonseca, 2011).
Relatedly, bereaved lesbian mothers have been
found to experience a double disenfranchise-
ment wherein “chronic invalidation—socially,
legally, psychologically—of their relationship
(and thus implicitly, the grief experience) further
ostracizes them,” rendering the bereavement pro-
cess more difficult (Cacciatore & Raffo, 2011, p.
175). In the social services context, the dominant
cultural discourses of gender and sexuality
invoked in the everyday discourse of social work-
ers positions gay parenthood and caregiving as
unnatural, and maternal gay men as deviants
who present problematic models of gender
(Hicks, 2006). Lesbian and gay adoptive parents
identify perceived discrimination during the
adoption process as the greatest barrier faced in
becoming parents (Brown, Smalling, Groza, &
Ryan, 2009).
Communicative Challenges
These institutional, cultural, and interper-
sonal challenges become embodied in specific
discursive practices. Lesbian and gay parents
interacting with school systems and other exter-
nal others experience difficult conversations
ranging from complicated (emanating from out-
siders’ misunderstandings about the nature of the
parent’s relationship) to annoying or frustrating
(manifesting in response to external expectations
that the same-sex family adapt to heteronorma-
tive assumptions about family relations) to pain-
ful (arising from direct challenges to the
authenticity of the familial relations) (Galvin,
Turner, Patrick, & West, 2007). Likewise, lesbian
mothers have been found to encounter four main
types of discursive legitimacy challenges: com-
parison questions (e.g., definitional or role-based
confusions arising from default comparisons to
different-sex families), direct questions (e.g.,
direct rebukes of the lesbian family form, non-
verbal challenges (e.g., silence, ignoring, nonver-
bally hostile behaviors), and master narrative
challenges (e.g., grounded in conservative reli-
gious or political sanctions of homosexuality).
Legitimacy challenges range from direct attacks
to silence to legalized discrimination and ema-
nate from community members, friends, and
even family (Koenig Kellas & Suter, 2012).
238———PART III. Family Forms
Review and Synthesis of
Extant Literature: Resilience
Countering persistent cultural assumptions that
same-sex families are dysfunctional and some-
how deviant, a growing body of literature reports
strengths and resiliency factors of the lesbian and
gay family form. Lesbian and gay families are
highly functioning, bound by close relationships
(Johnston, Moore, & Judd, 2010; Leddy, Gartrell,
& Bos, 2012). These close, positive relationships
foster resilience (Bos & Gartrell, 2010), promote
positive coping with stigmatization of parents
and children (Ryan & Brown, 2011), and facili-
tate positive adolescent adjustment and well-
being (Patterson & Wainright, 2011).
Resilience Factors Unique
to Gay and Lesbian Families
Not only do lesbian and gay families function
at comparable levels to heterosexual families
(Ryan & Brown, 2011), lesbian and gay families
also manifest strengths and resilience factors
unique to their family form. Gay fathers may
actually have an easier time managing work-
family demands than heterosexual fathers, as gay
fathers’ departure from hegemonic masculine
gender norms facilitate prioritizing family over
work (Richardson, Moyer, & Goldberg, 2012).
Furthermore, research finds positive gay and
lesbian parenting with the hardest-to-place chil-
dren in the U.S. foster care system. Child welfare
workers view lesbian and gay prospective parents
as more willing than heterosexual parents to raise
children with serious physical, emotional, or
behavioral problems. Additionally, lesbian and
gay parents are viewed as better equipped to par-
ent these more challenging children due to higher
levels of parental resourcefulness and stronger
support systems of extended networks of family
and friends (Brooks & Goldberg, 2001). Not only
are gay men and lesbians perceived as more open
and better equipped, but they also produce higher
family functioning outcomes than heterosexuals
for more difficult-to-place foster children,
namely sibling groups, older children in general,
and older children who have been abused (Erich,
Leung, Kindle, & Carter, 2005).
Adding to their unique strengths and resil-
iency factors, gay men and lesbians’ experiences
of heterosexist stigmatization promote resiliency
for adopted children experiencing racism or feel-
ings of exclusion. Gay and lesbian parents’ expe-
riences of heterosexist oppression promote
sensitivity to their minority child’s racial dis-
crimination and increase parental capacity to
facilitate children’s positive coping (Ausbrooks &
Russell, 2011). Furthermore, a mutual sense of
marginalization between parent and child has
been found to redress adopted children’s feel-
ings of exclusion and promote positive attach-
ment between parent and child (Rootes, 2013).
Gay fathers’ marginalization as a sexual minor-
ity and as a man in a caregiver’s role connects
with their foster and adopted children’s sense of
marginalization and difference from peers with
biologically connected families. Gay fathers’
marginalization heightens their empathy, attun-
ement, and sensitivity to the child, which in turn
bolsters the child’s empathy and attunement,
forming a close attachment between father and
child (Rootes, 2013).
Communication Resilience
A number of communicative processes have
been found to promote resiliency in lesbian and
gay families. Disclosure is one such process. Gay
men and lesbians have a uniquely challenging
task of disclosing their sexual orientation to
their children. These disclosures, though, have
been linked to positive learning and relational
outcomes. Parental disclosure of sexual orienta-
tion teaches children about tolerance and the
need to honor individual differences (Bigner,
2000). Father-child relationships have been
found to increase in intimacy after parental disclo-
sure of sexual orientation (Benson, Silverstein,
& Auerbach, 2005), and lesbian mothers’
Chapter 15. Communication in Lesbian and Gay Families ——239
coming out has been found to promote family
identity-building (Breshears, 2010). Parental
disclosures also positively influence youth dis-
closure processes—both within and outside the
family. In terms of within the family, children of
gay and lesbian parents have been found to be
more likely to discuss their sexuality with their
parents as compared to children of heterosexual
parents (Tasker & Golombok, 1997). In terms of
outside the family, conversations in early child-
hood about family structure and heteronorma-
tivity have been found to positively influence
youth disclosure processes to peers about family
form (Gianino, Goldberg, & Lewis, 2009).
However, the age of the child when the parent
discloses matters. Golding (2006) found that
children whose parents disclosed their lesbian-
ism during childhood or late adolescence were
more receptive of their mother’s lesbianism,
reported more positive coping with social stig-
matization, and were more likely to assert resil-
ient behavior as compared to children who
received the information during early or middle
adolescence or early adulthood. Children who
were more open about their mothers’ lesbian-
ism reported higher levels of self-esteem and
lower levels of feelings of isolation and unique-
ness from other children.
As a discourse dependent family form (Galvin
& Patrick, 2009), lesbian and gay families face
not only internally challenging conversations,
such as discussing a parent’s sexual orientation,
but they are also subject to challenging outsider
remarks on family difference that contest the
validity and morality of their family form
(Breshears, 2011). Koenig Kellas and Suter (2012)
found that in response to discursive legitimacy,
lesbian mothers account for family difference
both in ways similar to heterosexual parents (i.e.,
by offering refusals, justifications, and conces-
sions) and in ways unique to the experiences of
lesbian mothers. Leading by example constituted
a unique lesbian family response strategy in
which mothers’ responded to outsider skepticism
and challenge by modeling a happy and well-
functioning family.
These discourse dependent families promote
their own resiliency by both verbal and nonverbal
means. Internal family discussions about external
challenges promote resiliency. By explicitly dis-
cussing the homophobia underlying outsider
remarks and helping children understand the love
between same-sex parents and their decision to
parent as morally ethical, lesbian mothers have
been found to actually use intrusive interactions as
a way to build family identity (Breshears, 2011).
Parental discussions of challenging remarks not
only redress the negative identity implications of
homophobic comments but also assist children in
better handling later peer discrimination.
Nonverbally, lesbian and gay parents employ ritu-
alistic and symbolic bids to negotiate external
affirmation. For instance, as efforts toward secur-
ing external identity affirmation for both the fam-
ily as a unit and the nonbiological mother as a
legitimate mother, lesbian mothers have been
found to enact patterned interactions similar to
those of heterosexual families, assign parallel
address terms for both biological and nonbiologi-
cal mothers, share a common family last name, and
choose sperm donors that look like the nonbio-
logical mother (Bergen, Suter, & Daas, 2006; Ryan
& Berkowitz, 2009; Suter, Daas, & Bergen, 2008).
Children’s Resilience
Recent examinations of children with same-
sex parents redress long-held negative stereotypes
and demonstrate resilience. In the wake of the les-
bian baby boom, children raised by lesbian moth-
ers from infancy are now old enough for researchers
to examine these children—now adolescents—
on their own terms. Bos, Goldberg, van Gelderen, &
Gartrell (2012) redress a long-held stereotype that
the lack of a different gender role model negatively
impacts the well-being of children reared in
same-sex households. Comparing adolescents
with and those without a male role model raised
by lesbian mothers, Bos and colleagues found that
the absence of a male role model did not nega-
tively impact the psychological adjustment of
240———PART III. Family Forms
adolescents. Furthermore, recent research refutes
cultural presumptions that these adolescents
would manifest significant adjustment difficul-
ties. Measuring quality of life, a positive aspect of
psychological adjustment, van Gelderen, Bos,
Gartrell, Hermanns, and Perrin (2012) found no
difference between adolescents raised by lesbian
mothers and adolescents raised by heterosexual
parents. As they write, “This finding supports
earlier evidence that adolescents reared by les-
bian mothers from birth do not manifest more
adjustment difficulties (e.g., depression, anxiety,
and disruptive behaviors) than those reared by
heterosexual parents” (van Gelderen et al., 2012,
p. 65). These adolescents score high on ratings of
well-being, quality of friendships and familial
relationships, academic performances, activity
involvement, and aspirations (Gartrell, Bos,
Peyser, Deck, & Rodas, 2012).
In fact, research documents that adolescents
raised by same-sex parents demonstrate resilience
in the face of the cultural stigmatization of their
families. Homophobic stigmatization has not
been found to be associated with lower life satis-
faction ratings or substance abuse (Goldberg,
Bos, & Gartrell, 2011). Furthermore, the dis-
course of lesbian and gay identity as acceptable
has been found to occupy the centered position in
adult children’s talk about their parents coming
out as gay or lesbian, while the discourse of les-
bian and gay identity as wrong occupies the more
marginalized position (Breshears & Braithwaite,
in press). These results suggest that relational
discourses may be more salient that the stigmatiz-
ing cultural discourses surrounding lesbian and
gay families and provide further evidence of chil-
dren’s resilience from stigmatization of their fam-
ily’s identity (Breshears & Braithwaite, in press).
Fostering Gay and
Lesbian Parents’ Identities
Not only has gay and lesbian parenting been
found not to harm children as often culturally
assumed, gay and lesbian parenting leads to
positive outcomes for both parents and their
children. The decision to become a parent has
been found to foster gay and lesbian parents’
individual, relational, and familial identities. The
transition to parenting has been found to pro-
mote closeness in parents’ families-of-origin
(Brown et al., 2009) and increase parents’ sense
of familial validation (Bergman, Rubio, Green, &
Padrón, 2010). On the individual level, becoming
parents strongly increases parents’ sense of self-
esteem, increases both positivity and pride,
brings greater meaning to life, and facilitates
identity growth (Bergman et al., 2010; Gianino,
2008). The gay fathers in Brinamen and Mitchell’s
(2008) study described how the process of
becoming a parent forced them to confront nega-
tive cultural messages that positioned their gay
male identities as incongruent with their pro-
spective father identity. As one participant
described this process, “There a line in Moby
Dick where the captain is searching for the great
white whale, admiring in astonishment the
whale’s capacity . . . He says ‘Be thou like the
whale’. . . You can be more than you suspect—
more than you ever thought is possible”
(Brinamen & Mitchell, 2008, pp. 539-540).
Likewise, motherhood allows lesbians to negate
heteronormative-based cultural discourses that
position lesbians as inept at mothering (Broad
et al., 2008).
Restructuring the Gender Order
Gay and lesbian parenting disrupts tradi-
tional, hegemonic understandings of sexuality
and of gender. As such, gay and lesbian parenting
holds the potential to restructure the gender
order in the present and in the future. For their
sons, gay fathers serve as a model of androgyny,
offering an alternative to traditional masculine
role development (Bigner, 2000). Children of gay
fathers exhibit increased empathy, tolerance, and
acceptance of difference. Lesbian mothers func-
tion as positive role models of women’s financial
and emotional independence from men and
Chapter 15. Communication in Lesbian and Gay Families ——241
egalitarianism in domestic life that their hetero-
sexual daughters have transferred to their own
relations with men (Saffron, 1998). Gay and les-
bian parenting also engenders a future restruc-
turing of current hierarchies (Broad et al., 2008).
Scholars expect that it is reasonable to assume
that children raised in same-sex families will
positively influence future generations’ negotia-
tions of gender inequality (Berkowitz, 2011b).
Race, Ethnicity and
Social Location Matter
Strengths, resilience, and positive outcomes
may not be same across all same-sex families,
however. Research findings demonstrate that
race, ethnicity, and social location matter. For
some, the intersection of class and racial privilege
with sexual marginalization promotes positivity
in adoption processes and experiences. For
instance, Berkowitz (2011a) found that gay
adopting fathers’ social location as White eco-
nomically privileged men positively shaped their
adoptive experiences, allowing them to success-
fully navigate adoptive racial and class hierar-
chies in ways inaccessible to gay men with
non-White bodies and less economic power.
However, the intersections of race, ethnicity, and
social location with sexual marginalization are
not always positive. For instance, Rincon and
Trung Lam’s (2011) examination of perceptions
of Latina mothers towards Latina lesbian parents
found that more than one fourth of participants
perceived Latina lesbian parenting as abnormal
and remained concerned that the children would
be confused about their own sexual preference,
miss having a father, and be subjected to peer
teasing and be socially ostracized.
Context Matters
Research finds that in addition to race, eth-
nicity, and social location, context matters. One
aspect of context—community climate—weighs
significantly. Community climate is defined as
the degree of community support for homosexu-
ality as measured by religious and political affili-
ations, legal rights, workplace opportunities and
policies, and the presence of gay, lesbian, bisex-
ual, and transgender (GLBT) community mem-
bers and services and ranges from hostile to
supportive (Oswald, Cuthbertson, Lazarevic, &
Goldberg, 2010). Affirmative social environ-
ments have been found to counter the negative
impact of homophobia on the well-being of
children raised in same-sex families. For
instance, inclusion of LGBT school curriculum
and mothers’ higher levels of identification with
a lesbian community have been found to serve as
protective factors and foster resilience in young
children (Bos, Gartrell, Peyser, & van Balen,
2008). Community climate has also been found
to predict the well-being of adult children of gay
and lesbian parents. Whereas some social poli-
cies (e.g., lesbian and gay hate-crime policies)
have been found to predict positive well-being,
population characteristics, such as residing in a
densely populated area with a high-proportion of
same-sex couples, are the strongest predictor of
positive well-being (Lick, Riskind, & Patterson,
2012). Same-sex prospective parents residing in
small metropolitan areas report barriers unique
to their communities. Yet, living without gay-
friendly adoption agencies in their communities,
same-sex adopting couples have been found to
manifest resourcefulness, such as seeking out
informal support to cope with the minority stress
and limited support in their communities
(Kinkler & Goldberg, 2011).
Beyond community climate, legal and social
climates are two other significant aspects of con-
text. Comparisons of U.S. same-sex family mem-
bers to family members outside the United States
find that U.S. legal and social contexts negatively
impact both parents and children. For instance,
research suggests that perceived discrimination
and marginal legal status is correlated with more
mental health problems for U.S. lesbian mothers.
U.S. lesbian mothers report more family worries
about legal status and discrimination and more
242———PART III. Family Forms
depressive symptoms as compared to Canadian
lesbian mothers (Shapiro, Peterson, & Stewart,
2009). Nonaffirming legal and social climates
have also been found to negatively impact U.S.
children. As compared to their counterparts in
the Netherlands, who live in a social climate
more accepting of same-sex marriage and par-
enting, U.S. children are less open with peers
about growing up in a lesbian family and experi-
ence greater levels of homophobia (Bos, Gartrell,
van Balen, Peyser, & Sandfort, 2008). Higher
levels of anticipated homonegativity have been
found to negatively predict children’s disclosures
about their parents’ sexual orientation (Tasker &
Granville, 2011). Furthermore, the lack of c-parent
adoption has been found to decrease the psycho-
logical well-being of adolescents with same-sex
parents. For instance, adolescents whose mothers
are not recognized as legal coparents report
lower levels of family closeness and a lower sense
of felt security (Gartrell, Bos, Peyser, Deck, &
Rodas, 2011).
Future Research
As evidenced by this review and synthesis of the
extant literature on lesbian and gay families,
the communication discipline is rather late to the
study of gay and lesbian parenting. With the excep-
tion of West and Turner (1995), communication
scholars did not begin contributing to the conver-
sation until the mid to late 2000s. Since then, com-
munication research remains limited. For instance,
less than 15% of the studies synthesized for this
chapter were conducted by communication
scholars. Currently, knowledge on lesbian and
gay families is largely indebted to research in
allied fields, such as family studies, sociology,
and psychology. However, there is no doubt that
work to date is foundational. Yet, continued
research by communication scholars is needed to
contribute to our knowledge about lesbian and
gay-headed families.
In the most recent decade, communica-
tion scholars have issued calls for research on
nontraditional families’ communication patterns
and processes. For instance, a special issue on
“Communication and Diversity in Contemporary
Families” (Turner & West, 2003) appearing in
The Journal of Family Communication included
an agenda for communication research on adop-
tive families (Galvin, 2003). Prior to the publica-
tion of Galvin’s (2003) research agenda, like
lesbian and gay families, adoptive families had
been historically studied in allied fields, most
notably psychology. Coupled with Galvin’s (2006)
articulation of discourse dependent families’
internal and external boundary management
processes, Galvin (2003) stimulated a now rather
large body of communication-based knowledge
on adoptive family communication.
However, no such communication research
agenda has yet been articulated for the study of
lesbian and gay families. As such, the aim of this
section is stimulate much-needed research to
begin to redress the relative dearth of communi-
cation research on lesbian and gay families.
Moving toward a communication research agenda
for the study of lesbian and gay families, this sec-
tion outlines ideas for the articulation and exten-
sion of communication constructs and theory
highly relevant to lesbian and gay family commu-
nication processes.
Communication research to date has begun to
use the constructs of discourse dependence and
family boundary management processes (Galvin,
2006) as well as the theory of relational dialectics
(RDT) (Baxter, 2011), all developed in the field of
communication studies, to fruitfully frame
examinations of lesbian and gay family commu-
nication processes. The question remains as to
how future research might further articulate and
extend the notions of discourse dependency,
family boundary management processes, and
relational dialectics. For instance, in the case of
communication research on adoptive families,
research framed by discourse dependency and
boundary management processes effectively
shifted adoption research from a focus on adop-
tion outcomes toward a focus on the interac-
tional and meaning-making processes inherent
Chapter 15. Communication in Lesbian and Gay Families ——243
in adoptive family members’ communication
encounters. Research to date on lesbian and gay
families has been very similarly outcome-
focused. This current body of research has done
tremendous work to redress long-standing nega-
tive cultural assumptions about gay and lesbian
parents and the welfare of their children. Not
only have lesbian and gay families been shown to
function at comparable levels to heterosexual
families (Ryan & Brown, 2011), but they have
also been shown to exhibit unique strengths and
resilience factors (e.g., Ausbrooks & Russell,
2011). Similarly, children raised by gay and les-
bian parents have been shown to not only fare as
well as children raised by heterosexual parents
(van Gelderen et al., 2012), but they too have
been shown to also exhibit unique strengths and
resiliency factors (e.g., Bigner, 2000). It seems
that gay and lesbian families and their members
are doing more than all right. The time is ripe for
communication researchers to inaugurate the
shift from outcome-focused research to meaning
and interactional based research on lesbian and
gay families. Discourse dependency, boundary
management processes, and RDT provide useful
frameworks to facilitate this shift.
To date, communication research on lesbian
and gay families, while limited, has begun this
shift. Thus far, communication research has
identified this family form as discourse depen-
dent (Galvin & Patrick, 2009), illuminated the
discursive legitimacy challenges (Koenig Kellas,
& Suter, 2012) and challenging conversations
(Galvin et al., 2007) experienced by parents, as
well as both the nonverbal (Bergen et al., 2006;
Suter et al., 2008) and verbal resilience strategies
enacted by both parents (Breshears 2010, 2011;
Koenig Kellas & Suter, 2012) and their adult chil-
dren (Breshears & Braithwaite, in press).
Galvin (2006) presents a typology of dis-
course dependent families’ internal and external
boundary management processes. Future
research endeavors might use this typology to
enter into discussions and examinations of the
discursive work engendered by discourse depen-
dent families as they work to claim and then
negotiate their identities within and across internal
and external boundaries. Ideas for applying or
extending Galvin’s (2006) typology include
examinations of the discursive practices of nam-
ing and labeling in the context of gay fatherhood,
for instance. Research to date demonstrates that
the lack of a legal and culturally recognizable
term for nonbiological lesbian mothers is inter-
nally identity disconfirming (Miller, 2012), and
that some comothers choose parallel address
terms for bio- and nonbiological mothers as
external identity legitimation efforts (Bergen
et al., 2006). Whereas past scholarship similarly
illuminates the identity incongruence of the
categories of gay, male, and father (e.g., Wells,
2011), research has yet to illuminate the internal
and external discursive practices of gay fathers
as they internally name and externally label.
Future research might interrogate gay fathers’
internal discursive practices of naming, external
discursive practices of labeling, or gay fathers’
discursive work across their internal and exter-
nal borders.
Other ideas for applying or extending
Galvin’s (2006) typology might center around
the discursive practices of discussing and
explaining/justifying/defending both within and
across families’ internal and external borders.
Research to date illuminates much positivity
around parental successful management of
challenging family discussions about topics such
as parental sexual orientation, family structure,
and heteronomativity (e.g., Breshears, 2010).
Moreover, research demonstrates explicit inter-
nal family discussions about intrusive interactions
that require parents to explain, justify, or defend
their family form can actually function to build
family identity (Breshears, 2011; Koenig Kellas &
Suter, 2012). Going forward, communication
scholars would be well-equipped to advance these
findings in and through in-depth examinations of
conversational processes (e.g., disclosure and
privacy management) as well as conversational
meaning (dis)similarities between parents and chil-
dren. In pursuing these questions, researchers might
take up the call to redress the underrepresentation
244———PART III. Family Forms
of children in communication research (Miller-Day,
Pezalla, & Chesnut, 2013) and shift the focus
towards children’s conversational understandings
and meaning-making processes.
Baxter’s (2011) RDT facilitates examination
of the meanings that emerge from the interpen-
etration of the centripetal (centered) and cen-
trifugal (marginalized) struggle of competing
discourses or systems of meaning. Whereas
much research to date has illuminated the nega-
tive cultural discourses surrounding gay and
lesbian parenting and the welfare of their chil-
dren (e.g., Giesler, 2012), to date only Breshears
and Braithwaite (in press) have applied RDT to
the study of lesbian and gay family communica-
tion processes. Ideas for future research extend-
ing Breshears and Braithwaite’s work specifically
using RDT include examining alternate seman-
tic objects other than the meanings of “parental
coming out” experiences in adult children’s talk.
More generally, future researchers might use
RDT to pursue the meanings of any number of
semantic objects (e.g., “family,” “heteronorma-
tivity,” “stigmatization,” “resilience”) in any one
identity category of the gay and lesbian family
form (e.g., gay fathers) or across identity catego-
ries (e.g., gay fathers, their surrogate, and their
child). Such examinations offer the potential to
manifest not only the multiple discourses inherent
in family members’ talk but also most excitingly,
how these competing discourses interpenetrate in
the processes of meaning making. For instance,
are the competing discourses monologic or is
there space for dialogue, a conversation between
alternate systems of meaning? And if there is
dialogue, what forms of interplay emerge and are
there possibilities for new meaning creation?
Past research has indeed discovered uniqueness
associated with the gay and lesbian family form
(e.g., Rootes, 2013). RDT offers great potential
to unearth the new meanings fashioned by gay
and lesbian family members as they struggle
with past cultural and relational discourses
already spoken and in anticipation of those still
yet to be spoken.
Conclusion
As this chapter indicates, despite evidence that the
growing number of gay- and lesbian-headed fami-
lies constitute a highly functioning family form,
gay and lesbian parents and their children face
continued stigmatization at institutional, cultural,
interpersonal, and discursive levels. In the face of
these challenges, gay and lesbian parents demon-
strate resiliency, oftentimes in ways unique to their
family form and oftentimes drawing upon com-
munication as a key resource for resiliency. Lesbian
and gay family members are not only resilient, but
gay and lesbian parenting has been found to lead to
positive outcomes for both parents and their chil-
dren. With the hopes of redressing the scant atten-
tion to date on these families’ communicative
practices and processes, this chapter moves toward
a communication research agenda by identifying
avenues for future research using existing commu-
nication constructs and theory highly relevant to
lesbian and gay family communication processes.
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