Our older son is a fifth-grader who, along with other girls and boys his age, is trying to make sense of the cusp of adolescence. Some of the girls in his class are beginning to talk about boyfriends and the exciting prospect of kissing; all of the boys are figuring out how to deal with this. In the midst of a rapidly-changing social environment, our son is playing true to form: he is asking countless questions in an attempt to figure out how an eleven-year-old should respond. Recently one of his moms fielded a particularly memorable question: “Mom, when you were younger and first kissed a boy… or a girl… or a boy—that part’s not important—anyway, when you first kissed someone, how did you figure out how to do it?”
The Gayby Boom
As one of the children in a family comprised of two moms and two dads (along with numerous aunts, uncles, grandparents, and family friends), our son, along with his younger brother, is part of a growing demographic in the United States: children of lesbian and gay couples. Of course, lesbian and gay adults have been raising children for quite a long time. But there are some differences in the makeup of families today. Our sons were born to parents already living as lesbians and gay men when children became part of the family; they are not the children of women or men who were once in heterosexual relationships but who are now in same-sex relationships. Our sons are the biological offspring of one of the dads and one of the moms; they were not adopted. In short, our sons are part of a new demographic large enough to generate its own moniker: gaybies. Except that, of course, they are not babies anymore.
As our older son wades into the waters of adolescence (with all of its attendant anxiety), he is beginning to negotiate his culture: various social cues and norms, popular media, and the constant attention his friends pay to these measures. He is, in short, becoming a social subject—something that happens to kids his age. But in that process of his becoming a subject, our family becomes an issue. Some of the daughters and sons who are “gaybies,” growing into adolescence, are beginning to tell the broader American public what it is like to grow up in their families. They are becoming speaking subjects and not merely objects of psychological study or public debate or religious posturing.
On January 21, 2010, the New York Times reported on the ways in which children such as ours are beginning to speak out about their lives in state legislatures and courthouses. Their views vary. Some of these children favor full legal recognition and speak to ways in which such recognition would benefit their own families. But some are frustrated by the amount of energy expended on this issue and worry about the ways in which legislation will narrow the spectrum of queer families they know, constraining them to mimicry of straight relationships.
In our own family, this tension is real. The adults in our family yearn for the legal protection that same-sex marriage would offer. And yet, our family consists of four adults. It is a relationship, though one without a simple term to define it. While we are not the least bit interested in securing any legal recognition akin to marriage for the relationship among the four of us, we have struggled to have that relationship recognized when we petitioned the courts for legal recognition of more than two parents in regard to our children. While the courts in our home state of Georgia were willing to grant parental rights to two people of the same sex, they were not willing to grant parental rights to more than two people—even though all four of us are involved in raising our sons. We consider ourselves parents, have made personal and professional decisions that have put our children’s interest first, and are named by our children as their parents. Sounds like a family to me. And yet, since marriage presumes two in the context of children, this means that parenting presumes two as well.
These kinds of variations (variations that play out not only in our family but in countless families, gay or straight) unsettle the tidy assumptions that underlie our conceptions of normative couples and normative families. Those prospects are playing out in various parts of the world in surprising, unpredictable ways. For example, France offers legal recognition for lesbian and gay couples or for straight couples who prefer not to marry by means of a “Civil Pact of Solidarity” (“Pacte civil de solidarité” or PaCS for Francophone readers). Under the law that established these PaCS, lesbian and gay couples were specifically forbidden from public adoptions and from access to reproductive technologies that would allow them to become parents. The rationale: to become a coherent, productive French citizen, a child needs the influence of a father and a mother in her or his psychological development.
Out of the Mouths of Babes
In Europe such assumptions were based in part on cultural theories derived from structural anthropology and psychoanalysis. Neither Lévi-Strauss nor Lacan (French structuralists invoked in these debates in France) would likely be invoked in state legislatures or courts in the United States. Instead, quite often the kind of rhetoric mobilized in the American context arises from religion, most often Christianity. Such rhetoric can be quite venomous (“God hates fags”), or it can be expressed more subtly with the kind of theological anthropology that claims full humanity is only realized in the complementarity of the male and female. And yet, as I said above, however, it is not the only rhetoric. The testimony of young people (young people very much like my sons) is also part of these debates.
In the case of my sons, their own lives speak both to gay families and life in Christian communities. Three of their parents are seminary graduates. One parent is ordained and a full-time minister; I am a licensed minister and have served on the faculty of a seminary; all of us have taken our sons to worship in Christian communities. What would their testimony be (either legal or religious) in response to the kind of religious rhetoric that gets thrown around? I am not sure. Maybe they would reinterpret the baptismal covenants that call us first to be children of God, and that commit an entire community (and not merely the idealized mother and father) to the spiritual nurture of the children in its midst. Maybe they would reference Jesus’ sharp reminder of how God must come before family—even a picture-perfect family of one father and one mother—if one wants to follow him. Maybe they would bear witness to the inadequacy of a theological claim that full humanity is realized only the coupling of the man and the woman together in the simple display of their own full humanity that came to be without such coupling.
I do not know what they would say. But as they grow up and become speaking subjects with their own voice, our sons—and countless other young men and women from other queer families—will provide such testimony in their own words. I will be interested to hear what they have to say.
We could see the effect of this kind of culture to the children of this generation. Seems that people were giving them an idea on this kind of custom which is really harmful to them in near future. If VH1 actually starts a show all about Snooki, or Nicole Polizzi, it's evidence that they must need payday loans or something. Seriously! They HAVE to be out of money if giving a dating show to someone from the Jersey Shore. MTV has already sunk far enough, and now VH1 is completely in the tank. I remember not that long ago, they used to have great shows like Behind the Music, Pop Up Video, and things like that – and now, they can't get anything on that's worth a darn. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
I agree with you. You are at work to work and what happens outside of work should stay there. Bringing your personal life to work can have some nasty repercussions (ex: rumors starting .
Joliese tan
As young queer people raised in queer families and communities, we reject the liberal gay agenda that gives top priority to the fight for marriage equality. The queer families and communities we are proud to have been raised in are nothing like the ones transformed by marriage equality. This agenda fractures our communities, pits us against natural allies, supports unequal power structures, obscures urgent queer concerns, abandons struggle for mutual sustainability inside queer communities and disregards our awesomely fabulous queer history.
Children of queers have a serious stake in this. The photographs circulated after San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom’s 2004 decision to marry gay couples at City Hall show men exchanging rings with young children strapped to their chests and toddlers holding their moms’ hands as city officials lead them through vows. As Newsom runs for governor these images of children and their newly married gay parents travel with him, supposedly expressing how deeply Newsom cares about families: keeping them together, ensuring their safety, meeting their needs. These photos, however, obscure very real aspects of his political record that have torn families apart: his disregard for affordable housing, his attacks on welfare, his support for increased policing and incarceration that separate parents from children and his new practice of deporting minors accused – not convicted – of crimes. As young people with queer parents we are not proud of the “family values” politic put forth by these images and the marriage equality campaign. We don’t want gay marriage activism conducted in our name – we realize that it’s hurting us, not helping us.
We think long-term monogamous partnerships are valid and beautiful ways of structuring and experiencing family, but we don’t see them as any more inherently valuable or legitimate than the many other family structures. We believe in each individual and family’s right to live their queer identity however they find meaningful or necessary, including when that means getting married. However, the consequences of the fight for legal inclusion in the marriage structure are terrifying. We’re seeing queer communities fractured as one model of family is being hailed and accepted as the norm, and we are seeing queer families and communities ignore and effectively work against groups who we see as natural allies, such as immigrant families, poor families, and families suffering from booming incarceration rates. We reject the idea that any relationship based on love should have to register with the state. Marriage is an institution used primarily to consolidate privilege, and we think real change will only come from getting rid of a system that continually doles out privilege to a few more, rather than trying to reform it. We know that most families, straight or gay, don’t fit in with the standards for marriage, and see many straight families being penalized for not conforming to the standard the government has set: single moms trying to get on welfare, extended family members trying to gain custody, friends kept from being each other’s legal representatives. We have far more in common with those straight families than we do with the kinds of gay families that would benefit from marriage. We are seeing a gay political agenda become single-issue to focus on marriage and leave behind many very serious issues such as social, economic, and racial justice.
read rest of statement here - http://queerkidssaynomarriage.wordpress.com/
I have a question: why do some LGBT people (usually in academic circles, I've found) feel the need to use the derogatory term "queer" to describe themselves and our community. I grew up hearing "queer" as an insult, used for bullying. So I still cringe whenever I hear "queer" as some sort of catch-all adjective to describe us.
I think that the theory is that the use of "queer" is some sort of "reclaiming." Still I know too many LGBT people who have also expressed dismay at the use of the word "queer" as the preferred catch-all term. Like myself, they also feel that using this word is like using the "n" word as some sort of "reclaimed" term for Black people -- it doesn't work.
I was active in the early Gay Liberation movements and I remember the sexism of the straight media when they used the term "Gay" to refer strictly to men, and they rendered Gay women invisible -- so many women then started to refer to themselves as "Lesbian" and then the inclusive term became "Gay/Lesbian." With the including of Bisexuals and Transgender people, the inclusive term evolved into a series of letter: "LGBT". I suppose that some people found all the letters to be awkward, so they started using the term "queer" as the new inclusive term.
So many Lesbian women I know interchange the terms "Gay" and "Lesbian" to refer to themselves. So instead of the insulting term "queer", I tend to go back to using "Gay" as the inclusive. Or sometimes "Gay/Trans" because some Transgender people end up identifying themselves as being in heterosexual relationships.
It's a dilemma. But somehow, I think that we should be able to solve it without reverting to terms that recall painful experiences.
I mean no disrespect but I used to wonder, and still do, at the social and psychological implications for children growing up in same-sex marriages!
The social implications will no doubt be negative for some time. Children of rich or famous gay/lesbian couples will fare well for society caters to the rich and famous, often overlooking things they'd criticize others for. However, I really worry for the children with same-sex parents on the lower socio-economic ladder, for they often have to fight for respect every inch of the way.
Psychologically I don't have the same concerns for I've noticed that gay and lesbian couples develop strong male/females roles - which apparently is an important aspect in the normal development of children.
Even still I wonder at the price some of the children will have to pay for I can guarantee you that not all are created equal in the eyes of a society that worships success!
Well, in this fallen world , filled with pain and suffering , its hard to many , many kinds of children to make it and navigate their place in society.
Latino kid, black kid adopted by white parents, a child of immigrants who struggles with English - these are just few examples of people I personally know. Life is hard and requires you to toughen up.
They will overcome! :) what other choice do they have?
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