"Here in this neighbourhood, we're like stereotype": Queer Parents and Family Transformations in San Francisco, 1980-2010
Referent/in: Jürgen Martschukat (Erfurt)Abstract:
For decades the U.S have seen an intense discourse on family values, tied to a loud lamentation about the decay of the nuclear family with breadwinning dad and homemaking mom. At the same time, a “gay.by-Boom” has hit America, meaning a rising number of gay and lesbian parents with children. Taking into account that the family is the central hinge between the individual and the body politic and a crucial gateway to access a society’s resources, queer families mean a substantial intervention into a socio-cultural order which used to be arranged around the normative ideal of straight nuclear families. The cultural and political conflict about queer families is intense, and thus it is the more striking that they often conform to the demands of a functional family: Two parents being involved in raising their children, often with an academic education, and providing financially solid circumstances in a loving and caring household. My paper will explore this configuration since the 1980s by zooming in on a queer family constellation in San Francisco and by scrutinizing how its members conceptualize and organize their lives, and thereby transform the allocation of resources in parts of late 20th and early 21st century America.
