Queerly Familial: Canadian Histories of Queer Reproduction, Parenting, and Activism, 1968-2005

Abstract

Following the first federal Divorce Act in 1968, Canadian family law judges considered a parent’s sexuality relevant to divorce, child custody and child access determinations. In particular, judges were concerned about the potential impact queer parents might have on their children’s psychosexual development. As a result, queer parents who were deemed to be discreet were more likely to retain custody or access. Motivated by queer family law cases, social scientists responded to judges’ concerns, asking whether queer parents were in fact more likely to raise queer children without challenging the underlying heteronormativity of the question. A consensus quickly developed that there was no difference in the outcomes of children raised by lesbian mothers compared to those raised by heterosexual mothers. Print media subsequently translated these findings to a wider public. Media also reported on specific family law cases, although mainstream, right-wing, and alternative periodicals framed such discussions in dramatically different ways. Queer parenting activists in turn developed robust media strategies to influence public opinion and to respond to the heteronormativity of family law courtrooms. Queer parents and their allies organized initially in defence of custody rights before going on to fight for access to fertility clinics and sperm banks, and for the legal recognition of planned queer families. Through an examination of legal, medical, media, activist, and oral history sources, I put expert and experiential discourses in conversation with one another. I argue that, since the 1970s, normativity is the primary structure through which queer families have been understood. Whether through judges’ emphasis on discretion or the no-difference consensus among social scientists, experts compared queer parents to their heteronormative counterparts, and deemed it a success when they approximated normativity. Queer families have had to respond to this hegemonic discursive framing of queer family life even when they have explicitly rejected a politics of normativity. In the following chapters, I explore how the uneven, incomplete, and at times bitterly resisted normalization (and thus homogenization) of queer family experience has played out in specific contexts: in family law courtrooms, social scientific research, print media, and activist organizing.