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New release: On the way to normality? LGBTQ+ families and their struggle for recognition
On the way to normality? LGBTQ+ families and their struggle for recognition
LGBTQ+ families – lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer families – have become more visible ina recent years. In terms of legislation, ambivalent trends towards equality are also emerging in German-speaking countries: although recognition deficits for same-sex lifestyles are being reduced, for example with ‘marriage for all’ (2017) and the Self-Determination Act (SBGG) (2024), inequalities and discrimination persist and new forms of exclusion are emerging.
In the new book by Julia Teschlade, Mona Motakef and Christine Wimbauer, ‘ Auf dem Weg zur Normalität? LGBTQ+-Familien und ihr Kampf um Anerkennung’ (Towards Normality? LGBTQ+ Families and Their Struggle for Recognition), LGBTQ+ families themselves have their say. The underlying study ‘Ambivalent Recognition: Doing Reproduction and Doing Family Beyond the Heterosexual Nuclear Family’ was funded by the DFG (AZ MO 3194/2-1, PE 2612/2-1, WI 2142/7-1). It is based on 19 in-depth couple and family interviews as well as individual interviews and is written in the grounded theory research style.
How are desires to have children realised in LGBTQ+ families (doing reproduction)? What inequalities and (legal) hurdles do families encounter in their everyday lives? How do they deal with these hurdles and inequalities (doing family and doing normality)? Theoretically, our study is grounded in gender, inequality and recognition theory.
LGBTQ+ people have long been denied the opportunity to start families. The authors trace their often obstacle-strewn paths to parenthood and, based on a variety of legal inequalities for LGBTQ+ families, describe how these inequalities affect the everyday family life of two-mother, multi-parent and trans* families. But LGBTQ+ families are also affected by legal, institutional and intersubjective inequalities on a daily basis. They often find themselves faced with the task of asserting the ‘normality’ of their family. Teschlade, Motakef and Wimbauer do not view this normalisation as apolitical conformity, but rather as an existentially necessary response to experienced inequalities and discrimination. In doing so, they develop different strategies for how families (must) establish normality. Finally, they turn their attention to the unequal recognition of families. Following Butler and Honneth, they identify the dimensions in which recognition deficits exist. They then systematise the diverse struggles for recognition that families wage in the face of the recognition deficits they experience. Finally, they discuss whether subversive actions can give rise to new self-evident truths. The families surveyed also fall back on (heterosexual) family norms. In doing so, they simultaneously change the legal and social norms of what parenthood and family are and can be. Overall, it becomes clear that sexual orientation and gender identity are central determinants of social inequality and have a far-reaching influence on opportunities for action and life chances.
Contact:
Dr. Julia Teschlade, Humboldt University of Berlin, julia.teschladehu-berlinde
Prof. Dr. Mona Motakef, TU Dortmund, mona.motakeftu-dortmundde
Prof. Dr. Christine Wimbauer, Humboldt University of Berlin, christine.wimbauersowi.hu-berlinde