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Contemporary Families

The course blog post for this entry seems to have some technical visibility issues when published that I cannot fix. This same post is in the Scholar Discussion Forum .
Highlights from Ch. 30 “LGBT Sexuality and Families at the Start of the Twenty-First Century,” Mignon R. Moore and Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer
Moore and Stambolis-Ruhstorfer review and summarize current research literature on LGBT families. Major research streams include research into the politics of defining family to include same-sex couples, population characteristics of same-sex parent families, and the legal and cultural challenges faced by parents and children in same-sex partner families. A few key findings they highlight include:
  • Continued public ambivalence in the United States toward the inclusion of same-sex couples in definitions of families
  • An increasing number of lesbian- and gay-parent families in the United States
  • Same-sex parenting as more common in the South, in working class families, and among
    racial minorities
  • Increased poverty rates for same-sex parent families, with poverty rates for children in
    lesbian and gay households twice those of children in heterosexual married couple
    households
  • A generational shift in lesbian and gay parenting toward “planned families” through
    donor insemination, surrogacy, and/or adoption
  • Continuing legal uncertainty around parenting rights for same-sex parents
  • Direct and indirect forms of stigmatization for same-sex parents and their children
  • Better outcomes for children living in areas that are more supportive of LGBT
    populations and that have antidiscrimination laws to protect sexual minority populations
The video below updates the current literature with a discussion of trans-parenting.
Here or on the Scholar Discussion Board please post a comment or question that arose for you in reading/viewing this content as it relates to gender/race/class communication issues.

If you are able to, please comment here. Otherwise, please place your comment in the appropriate Scholar Discussion board thread (it is available in the Course Content Forum). The deadline is 11:59 pm Sunday, April 12. Early next week I will either share a written post or YouTube summary of my notes if any responses still leave out important info we would have covered in person.

I ask that you please read through your classmates' comments here and on the forums and maybe even reply to a comment or two (on either format, up to you!) in the interest of keeping it interactive.

Comments

  1. LawsonApril 4, 2020 at 2:56 PM

    "Authenticity doesn't mean comfortable, it means managing and negotiating the discomfort of every day life." What a powerful quote from the TEDTalk speaker to capture the external and internal strife people face every day to live their most true selves. It poses as a reminder that if may not share the same identity, we are still called to "confront the assumptions and affirm the existence" of those that society proclaims are different than us; different in a way that "others" the identity markers that are lived out with a desire to lead an authentic life. It's unique and helpful to discover stories from individuals with such identity markers different from us in attempt to understand and "affirm their existence."

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousApril 9, 2020 at 7:46 PM

      I agree, the discussion about comfortability in the Ted Talk was moving because it represented societal perceptions of trans parents, and the internal perceptions of these parents. One thing that really stood out to me relating to comfortability was "Authenticity doesn't mean comfortability". There is always a choice to be made and for transparents that choice is often times illuminated and magnified through a lense of gender norms carried out by society. As we discussed in class, gender is a social construct that has been found to manifest in an explicit and implicit way. Society defines gender simply through the use of color, they associate green, blue, and red with boys and men, and pink, yellow, and purple with girls and women. This forces individuals who do not fit into these specific boxes to fall outside of the gender binary. It is second nature for people to choose option one in hopes of avoiding confrontation and uncomfortable questions. However, for transparents, them as well as their kids and partners will benefit so much more from choosing option two because it allows them the opportunity to respect themselves and validate themselves in a way that society refuses to.

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