Discussions post

1. After having read the chapters assigned for this week, think about the meanings of ‘gender’ and ‘sex.’ How do definitions guide (or even govern) our perception of something/someone? What would be the effect on society if there were more than two genders? In your view, is it possible to change definitions of people and groups of people? How?

2. This week’s discussion is based on the fictional story “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story.” This reading is available in your week 2 unit.

What do you think about the story? What are the societal structures that influence X’s gender development? Have these same structures played a role in your own gender development? Do you think X’s experience will one day become reality for future generations? What are the potentially positive and negative effects of such a neutral upbringing?

3. Before discussing this week’s topic, you need to familiarize yourself with some women’s and men’s movements. This will allow you to engage in a better-informed discussion. Please, check out these web sites and pay attention to the values, issues, and beliefs they promote.

NAOMI WOLF ON THIRD WAVE FEMINISM 

 (opens in a new window)

ECOFEMINISM 

http://eve.enviroweb.org

 or 

http://www.ecofem.org

NOW 

Homepage

GUERILLA GIRLS 

http://www.guerrillagirls.com

NOMAS 

Home Page

FREE MEN 

http://www.ncfm.org

PROMISE KEEPERS 

Home 2024

Which men’s movement do you find most consistent with your own values? Do you think men should work to restore traditional male prerogatives and social power, become more sensitive themselves, or change society? Which women’s movement do I agree with (if any)?

To what extent do you think we should work to ensure that women have equal rights and opportunities within existing systems (liberal feminism) or should work to change the systems to incorporate traditionally feminine values and concerns (cultural feminism)?

4. Have you observed instances of classifying women or men by stereotypes identified in this chapter on organizational communication? How are these stereotypes imposed on workers? How might workers resist being stereotyped?

Now that you understand distinctions among equal opportunity laws, affirmative action, goals, quotas, and diversity training, how do you evaluate each?

Look forward to your comments!

5. Watch children’s programming on Saturday morning. Are male characters more prominent than female characters? What differences, if any, do you see in the activities and appearances of male and female characters?6. Is bombing abortion clinics and killing medical professionals who provide abortion reproductive violence? If bombings and threats of them discourage medical professionals form performing abortion or if fear of harm discourages women from going to clinics, is that interference with their right to choose whether, when and with whom to reproduce?7. Watch prime-time coverage of sports on ESPN or another channel. Make a record of how much time is devoted to women’s and men’s sports and how often reporters comment on male and female athletes’ dress and appearance. Are the patterns you identify consistent with those discussed in this chapter?8. Reflect on the article posted in this week’s folder. How have same-sex families been portrayed in the media? Do you agree with the arguments presented in this study? Why or why not?  X: A Fabulous Child’s Story — by Lois Gould © 1972
Once upon a time, a baby named X was born. This baby was named X so that nobody
could tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Its parents could tell, of course, but they couldn’t
tell anybody else. They couldn’t even tell Baby X, at first.
You see, it was all part of a very important Secret Scientific Xperiment, known officially
as Project Baby X. The smartest scientists had set up this Xperiment at a cost of Xactly
23 billion dollars and 72 cents, which might seem like a lot for just one baby, even a very
important Xperimental baby. But when you remember the prices of things like strained
carrots and stuffed bunnies, and popcorn for the movies and booster shots for camp, let
alone 28 shiny quarters from the tooth fairy, you begin to see how it adds up.
Also, long before Baby X was born, all those scientists had to be paid to work out the
details of the Xperiment, and to write the Official Instruction Manual for Baby X’s
parents and, most important of all, to find the right set of parents to bring up Baby X.
These parents had to be selected very carefully. Thousands of volunteers had to take
thousands of tests and answer thousands of tricky questions. Almost everybody failed
because, it turned out, almost everybody really wanted either a baby boy or a baby girl,
and not Baby X at all. Also, almost everybody was afraid that a Baby X would be a lot
more trouble than a boy or a girl. (They were probably right, the scientists admitted, but
Baby X needed parents who wouldn’t mind the Xtra trouble.)
There were families with grandparents named Milton and Agatha, who didn’t see why a
baby couldn’t be named Milton or Agatha instead of X, even if it was an X. There were
families with aunts who insisted on knitting tiny dresses and uncles who insisted on
sending tiny baseball mitts. Worst of all, there were families that already had other
children who couldn’t be trusted to keep the secret. Certainly not if they knew the secret
was worth 23 billion dollars and 72 cents — and all you had to do was take one little peek
at Baby X in the bathtub to know if it was a boy or a girl.
But, finally, the scientists found the Joneses, who really wanted to raise an X more than
any other kind of baby — no matter how much trouble it would be. Ms. and Mr. Jones had
to promise they would take equal turns caring for X, and feeding it, and singing it
lullabies. And they had to promise never to hire any baby-sitters. The government
scientists knew perfectly well that a baby-sitter would probably peek at X in the bathtub,
too.
The day the Joneses brought their baby home, lots of friends and relatives came over to
see it. None of them knew about the secret Xperiment, though. So the first thing they
asked was what kind of a baby X was. When the Joneses smiled and said, “It’s an X!”
nobody knew what to say. They couldn’t say, “Look at her cute little dimples!” And they
couldn’t say, “Look at his husky little biceps!” And they couldn’t even say just plain
“kitchy-coo.” In fact, they all thought the Joneses were playing some kind of rude joke.
But, of course, the Joneses were not joking. “It’s an X” was absolutely all they would say.
And that made the friends and relatives very angry. The relatives all felt embarrassed
about having an X in the family. “People will think there’s something wrong with it!”
some of them whispered. “There is something wrong with it!” others whispered back.
“Nonsense!” the Joneses told them all cheerfully. “What could possibly be wrong with
this perfectly adorable X?”
Nobody could answer that, except Baby X, who had just finished its bottle. Baby X’s
answer was a loud, satisfied burp.
Clearly, nothing at all was wrong. Nevertheless, none of the relatives felt comfortable
about buying a present for a Baby X. The cousins who sent the baby a tiny football
helmet would not come and visit any more. And the neighbors who sent a pink-flowered
romper suit pulled their shades down when the Joneses passed their house.
The Official Instruction Manual had warned the new parents that this would happen, so
they didn’t fret about it. Besides, they were too busy with Baby X and the hundreds of
different Xercises for treating it properly.
Ms. And Mr. Jones had to ve Xtra careful about how they played with little X. They
knew that if they kept bouncing it up in the air and saying how strong and active it was,
they’d be treating it more like a boy than an X. But if all they did was cuddle it and kiss it
and tell it how sweet and dainty it was, they’d be treating it more like a girl than an X.
On page 1,654 of the Official Instruction Manual, the scientists prescribed: “plenty of
bouncing and plenty of cuddling, both. X ought to be strong and sweet and active. Forget
about dainty altogether.”
Meanwhile, the Joneses were worrying about other problems. Toys, for instance. And
clothes. On his first shopping trip, Mr. Jones told the store clerk, “I need some clothes
and toys for my new baby.” The clerk smiles and said, “Well, now, is it a boy or a girl?”
“It’s an X,” Mr. Jones said, smiling back. But the clerk got all red in the face and said
huffily, “In that case, I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir.” So Mr. Jones wandered helplessly
up and down the aisles trying to find what X needed. But everything in the store was
piled up in sections marked “Boys” or “Girls.” There were “Boys’ Pajamas” and “Girls’
Underwear” and “Boys’ Fire Engines” and “Girls’ Housekeeping Sets.” Mr. Jones
consulted page 2,326 of the Official Instruction Manual. “Buy plenty of everything!” it
said firmly.
So they bought plenty of sturdy blue pajamas in the Boys’ Department and cheerful
flowered underwear in the Girls’ Department. And they bought all kinds of toys. A boy
doll that made pee-pee and cried, “Pa-Pa.” And a girl doll that talked in three languages
and said, “I am the Pres-I-dent of Gen-er-al Mo-tors.” They also bought a storybook
about a brave princess who rescued a handsome prince from his ivory tower, and another
one about a sister and brother who grew up to be a baseball star and a ballet star, and you
had to guess which was which.
The head scientists of Project Baby X checked all their purchases and told them to keep
up the good work. They also reminded the Joneses to see page 4,629 of the Manual,
where it said, “Never make Baby X feel embarrassed or ashamed about what it wants to
play with. And if X gets dirty climbing rocks, never say ‘Nice little Xes don’t get dirty
climbing rocks.’ ”
Likewise, it said, “If X falls down and cries, never say ‘Brave little Xes don’t cry.’
Because, of course, nice little Xes do get dirty, and brave little Xes do cry. No matter
how dirty X gets, or how hard it cries, don’t worry. It’s all part of the Xperiment.”
Whenever the Joneses pushed Baby X’s stroller in the park, smiling strangers would
come over and coo: “Is that a boy or a girl?” The Joneses would smile back and say, “It’s
an X.” The strangers would stop smiling then, and often snarl something nasty – as if the
Joneses had snarled at them.
By the time X grew big enough to play with other children, the Joneses’ troubles had
grown bigger, too. Once a little girl grabbed X’s shovel in the sandbox, and zonked X on
the head with it. “Now, now, Tracy,” the little girl’s mother began to scold, “little girls
mustn’t hit little -” and she turned to ask X, “Are you a little boy or a little girl, dear?”
Mr. Jones, who was sitting near the sandbox, held his breath and crossed his fingers.
X smiled politely at the lady, even though X’s head had never been zonked so hard in its
life. “I’m a little X,” X replied.
“You’re a what?” the lady exclaimed angrily. “You’re a little b-r-a-t, you mean!”
“But little girls mustn’t hit little Xes, either!” said X, retrieving the shovel with another
polite smile. “What good does hitting do, anyway?”
X’s father, who was still holding his breathe, finally let it out, uncrossed his fingers, and
grinned back at X.
And at their next secret Project Baby X meeting, the scientist grinned, too. Baby X was
doing fine.
But then ir was time for X ro start school. The Joneses were really worried about this,
because school was even more full of rules fro boys and girls, and there were no rules for
Xes. The teacher would tell boys to form one line, and girls to form another line. There
would be boys’ games and girls’ games, and boys’ secrets and girls’ secrets. The school
library would have a list of recommended books for girls, and a different list of
recommended books for boys. There would even be a bathroom marked BOYS and
another one marked GIRLS. Pretty soon boys and girls would hardly talk to each other.
What would happen to poor little X?
The Joneses spent weeks consulting their Instruction Manual (there were 249½ pages of
advice under “First Day of School”), and attending urgent special conferences with the
smart scientists of Project Baby X.
The scientists had to make sure that X’s mother had taught X how to throw and catch a
ball properly, and that X’s father had been sure to teach X what to serve at a doll’s tea
party. X gad to know how to shoot marbles and how to jump rope and, most of all, what
to say when the Other Children asked whether X was a Boy or a Girl.
Finally, X was ready. The Joneses helped X button on a nice new pair of red-and-white
checked overalls, and sharpened six pencils for X’s nice new pencil box, and marked X’s
name clearly on all the books in its nice new bookbag. X brushed its teeth and combed its
hair, which just about covered its ears, and remembered to put a napkin in its lunch box.
The Joneses had asked X’s teacher if the class could line up alphabetically, instead of
forming separate lines for boys and girls. And they had asked if X could use the
principal’s bathroom, because it wasn’t marked anything except BATHROOM. X’s
teacher promised to take care of all those problems. But nobody could help X with the
biggest problem of all – Other Children.
Nobody in X’s class had ever known an X before. What would they think? How would X
make friends?
You couldn’t tell what X was by studying its clothes – overalls don’t even button right-toleft, like girls’ clothes, or left-to-right, like boys’ clothes. And you couldn’t guess whether
X had a girl’s short haircut or a boy’s long haircut. And it was very hard to tell by the
games X liked to play. Either X played ball very well for a girl, or else X played house
very well for a boy.
Some of the children tried to find out by asking X tricky questions, like “Who’s your
favoritesports star?” That was easy. X had two favorite sports stars: a girl jockey named
Robyn Smith and a boy archery champion named Robin Hood. Then they asked, “What’s
your favorite TV program?” And that was even easier. X’s favorite TV program was
“Lassie,” which stars a girl dog played by a boy dog.
When X said that its favorite toy was a doll, everyone decided that X must be a girl. But
then X said the doll was really a robot, and that X had computerized it and that it was
programmed to bake fudge brownies and the clean up in the kitchen. After X told them
that, the other children gave up guessing what X was. All they knew was they’d sure like
to see X’s doll.
After school, X wanted to play with the other children. “How about shooting some
baskets in the gym?” X asked the girls. But all they did was make faces and giggle behind
X’s back.
“How about weaving some baskets in the arts and crafts room?” X asked the boys. But
they all made faces and giggled behind X’s back, too.
That night, Ms. And Mr. Jones asked X how things had gone at school. X told them sadly
that the lessons were okay, but otherwise school was a terrible place for an X. It seemed
as if Other Children would never want an X for a friend.
Once more, the Joneses reached for their Instruction Manual. Under “Other Children.”
they found the following message: “What did you Xpect? Other Children have to obey
all the silly boy-girl rules, because their parents taught them to. Lucky X – you don’t have
to stick to the rules at all! All you have to do is be yourself. P.S. We’re not saying it’ll be
easy.”
X liked being itself But X cried a lot that night, partly because it felt afraid. So X’s father
held X tight, and cuddled it, and couldn’t help crying a little, too. And X’s mother cheered
them both up by reading an Xciting story about an enchanted prince called Sleeping
Handsome, who woke up when Princess Charming kissed him.
The next morning, they all felt much better, and little X went back to school with a brave
smile and a clean pair of red-and-white checked overalls.
There was a seven-letter-word spelling bee in class that day. And a seven-lap boys’ relay
race in the gym. And a seven-layer-cake baking contest in the girls’ kitchen corner. X
won the spelling bee. X also won the relay race. And X almost won the baking contest,
except it forgot to light the oven. Which only proves that nobody’s perfect.
One of the Other Children noticed something else, too. He said: “Winning or losing
doesn’t seem to count to X. X seems to have fun being good at boys’ skills and girls’
skills.”
“Come to think of it,” said another one of the Other Children, “maybe X is having twice
as much fun as we are!”
So after school that day, the girl who beat X at the baking contest gave X a big slice of
her prizewinning cake. And the boy X beat in the relay race asked X to race him home.
From then on, some really funny things began to happen. Susie, who sat next to X in
class, suddenly refused to wear pink dresses to school any more. She insisted on wearing
red-and-white checked overalls-just like X’s. Overalls, she told her parents, were much
better for climbing monkey bars.
Then Jim, the class football nut, started wheeling his little sister’s doll carriage around the
football field. He’d put on his entire football uniform, except for the helmet. Then he’d
put the helmet in the carriage, lovingly tucked under an old set of shoulder pads. Then
he’d start jogging around the field, pushing the carriage and singing “Rockabye Baby” to
his football helmet. He told his family that X did the same thing, so it must be okay. After
all, X was now the team’s star quarterback.
Susie’s parents were horrified by her behavior, and Jim’s parents were worried sick about
his. But the worst came when the twins, Joe and Peggy, decided to share everything with
each other. Peggy used Joe’s hockey skates, and his microscope, and took half his
newspaper route. Joe used Peggy’s needlepoint and her cookbooks, and took two of her
three baby-sitting jobs. Peggy started to run the lawn mower, and Joe started running the
vacuum cleaner.
Their parents weren’t one bit pleased with Peggy’s wonderful biology experiments, or
with Joe’s terrific needlepoint pillows. They didn’t care that Peggy mowed the lawn
better, and that Joe vacuumed the carpet better. In fact, they were furious. It’s all that little
X’s fault, they agreed. Just because X doesn’t know what it is, or what it’s supposed to be,
it wants to get everybody else mixed up, too!
Peggy and Joe were forbidden to play with X any more. So was Susie, and then Jim, and
then all the Other Children. But it was too late; the Other Children stayed mixed up and
happy and free, and refused to go back to the way they’d been before X.
Finally, Joe and Peggy’s parents decided to call an emergency meeting of the school’s
Parent’s Association, to discuss “The X Problem.” They sent a report to the principal
stating that X was a “disruptive influence.” They demanded immediate action. The
Joneses, they said, should be forced to tell whether X was a boy or a girl. And then X
should be forced to behave like whichever it was. If the Joneses refused to tell, the
Parents’ Association said, then X must take an Xamination. The school psychiatrist must
Xamine it physically and mentally, and issue a full report. If X’s test showed it was a boy,
it would have to obey all the boys’ rules. If it proved to be a girl, X would have to obey
all the girls’ rules.
And if X turned out to be some kind of mixed-up misfit, then X should be Xpelled from
the school. Immediately!
The principal was very upset. Disruptive influence? Mixed-up misfit? But X was an
Xcellent student. All the teachers said it was a delight to have X in their classes. X was
president of the student council. X had won first prize in the talent show, and second
prize in the art show, and honorable mention in the science fair, and six athletic events on
field day, including the potato race.
Nevertheless, insisted the Parents’ Association, X is a Problem Child. X is the Biggest
Problem Child we have ever seen!
So the principal reluctantly notified X’s parents that numerous complaints about X’s
behavior had come to the school’s attention. And that after the psychiatrist’s Xamination,
the school would decide what to do about X.
The Joneses reported this at once to the scientists, who referred them to page 85,759 of
the Instruction Manual. “Sooner or later,” it said, “X will have to be Xamined by a
psychiatrist. This may be the only way any of us will know for sure whether X is mixed
up-or whether everyone else is.”
The night before X was to be Xamined, the Joneses tried not to let X see how worried
they were. “What if-?” Mr. Jones would say. And Ms. Jones would reply, “No use
worrying.” Then a few minutes later, Ms. Jones would say, “What if-?” and Mr. Jones
would reply, “No use worrying.”
X just smiled at them both, and hugged them hard and didn’t say much of anything. X
was thinking, What if-? And then X thought: No use worrying.
At Xactly 9 o’clock the next day, X reported to the school psychiatrist’s office. The
principal, along with a committee from the Parents’ Association, X’s teacher, X’s
classmates, and Ms. and Mr. Jones, waited in the hall outside. Nobody knew the details of
the tests X was to be given, but everybody knew they’d be very hard, and that they’d
reveal Xactly what everyone wanted to know about X, but were afraid to ask.
It was terribly quiet in the hall. Almost spooky. Once in a while, they would hear a
strange noise inside the room. There were buzzes. And a beep or two. And several bells.
An occasional light would flash under the door. The Joneses thought it was a white light,
but the principal thought it was blue. Two or three children swore it was either yellow or
green. And the Parents’ Committee missed it completely.
Through it all, you could hear the psychiatrist’s low voice, asking hundreds of questions,
and X’s higher voice, answering hundreds of answers.
The whole thing took so long that everyone knew it must be the most complete
Xamination anyone had ever had to take. Poor X, the Joneses thought. Serves X right, the
Parents’ Committee thought. I wouldn’t like to be in X’s overalls right now, the children
thought.
At last, the door opened. Everyone crowded around to hear the results. X didn’t look any
different; in fact, X was smiling. But the psychiatrist looked terrible. He looked as if he
was crying! “What happened?” everyone began shouting. Had X done something
disgraceful? “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised!” muttered Peggy and Joe 5 parents. “Did X
flunk the whole test?” cried Susie’s parents. “Or just the most important part?” yelled
Jim’s parents.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Mr. Jones.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Ms. Jones.
“Sssh,” ssshed the principal. “The psychiatrist is trying to speak.”
Wiping his eyes and clearing his throat, the psychiatrist began, in a hoarse whisper. “In
my opinion,” he whispered — you could tell he must be very upset –“in my opinion,
young X here-”
“Yes? Yes?” shouted a parent impatiently.
“Sssh!” ssshed the principal.
“Young Sssh here, I mean young X,” said the doctor, frowning, is Just about-”
“Just about what? Let’s have it!” shouted another parent.
“…… just about the least mixed-up child I’ve ever Xamined!” said the psychiatrist.
“Yay for X!” yelled one of the children. And then the others began yelling, too. Clapping
and cheering and jumping up and down.
“SSSH!” SSShed the principal, but nobody did.
The Parents’ Committee was angry and bewildered. How could X have passed the whole
Xamination? Didn’t’ X have an identity problem? Wasn’t X mixed up at all? Wasn’t X
any kind of a misfit? How could it not be, when it didn’t even know what it was? And
why was the psychiatrist crying?
Actually, he had stopped crying and was smiling politely through his tears. “Don’t you
see?” he said. “I’m crying because it’s wonderful! X has absolutely no identity problem!
X isn’t one bit mixed up! As for being a misfit — ridiculous! X knows perfectly well what
it is! Don’t you, X?” The doctor winked. X winked back.
“But what is X?” shrieked Peggy and Joe’s parents. “We still want to know what it is!”
“Ah, yes,” said the doctor, winking again. “Well, don’t worry. You’ll all know one of
these days. And you won’t need me to tell you.”
“What? What does he mean?” some of the parents grumbled suspiciously.
Susie and Peggy and Joe all answered at once. “He means that by the time X’s sex
matters, it won’t be a secret any more!”
With that, the doctor began to push through the crowd toward X’s parents. “How do you
do,” he said, somewhat stiffly. And then he reached out to hug them both. “If I ever have
an X of my own,” he whispered, “I sure hope you’ll lend me your instruction manual.”
Needless to say, the Joneses were very happy. The Project Baby X scientists were rather
pleased, too. So were Susie, Jim, Peggy, Joe and all the Other Children. The Parents’
Association wasn’t, but they had promised to accept the psychiatrist’s report, and not
make any more trouble. They even invited Ms. and Mr. Jones to become honorary
members, which they did.
Later that day, all X’s friends put on their red-and-white checked overalls and went over
to see X. They found X in the back yard, playing with a very tiny baby that none of them
had ever seen before. The baby was wearing very tiny red-and-white checked overalls.
“How do you like our new baby?” X asked the Other Children proudly.
“It’s got cute dimples,” said Jim.
“It’s got husky biceps, too,” said Susie.
“What kind of baby is it?” asked Joe and Peggy.
X frowned at them. “Can’t you tell?” Then X broke into a big, mischievous grin. “It’s a
Y!”
[http://www.trans-man.org/baby_x.html]
Critical Studies in Media Communication
ISSN: 1529-5036 (Print) 1479-5809 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcsm20
Straightening Out (the Politics of) Same-Sex
Parenting: Representing Gay Families in US Print
News Stories and Photographs
Jamie Landau
To cite this article: Jamie Landau (2009) Straightening Out (the Politics of) Same-Sex Parenting:
Representing Gay Families in US Print News Stories and Photographs, Critical Studies in Media
Communication, 26:1, 80-100, DOI: 10.1080/15295030802684018
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15295030802684018
Published online: 25 Feb 2009.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 2378
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Citing articles: 23 View citing articles
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https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rcsm20
Critical Studies in Media Communication
Vol. 26, No. 1, March 2009, pp. 80100
Straightening Out (the Politics of)
Same-Sex Parenting: Representing
Gay Families in US Print News Stories
and Photographs
Jamie Landau
This essay argues for the hegemonic function of verbal and visual mass mediated
representations of gay families and identifies particular rhetorical strategies of those
representations. Specifically, a quantitative increase in visibility of same-sex parents and
their children in mainstream U.S. news stories and photographs published from 2004
through 2005 does not translate to unmitigated progress. Rather, homophobic,
(hetero)sexist, and heteronormative constructions are repeated, overall putting forth
the site, and the literal sight, of a heterosexual child as a synecdoche and social test for
gay familial life. This study fills a gap in research on representations of homosexuality in
mass media and has implications for the gay and lesbian movement in today’s current
socio-political climate.
Keywords: Homosexuality; Gays and Lesbians; Heteronormativity; Mass Media; Visual
Rhetoric; Hegemony
The family is both fault line and detonation device, both the place where a resistant
culture throws down the gauntlet and the explosive moment of catalytic change.*
Susanna Walters (2001, p. 211)
The family is the most active site of sexuality.*Michel Foucault (1978/1990,
p. 109)
In recent years, verbal and visual images of gay and lesbian familial relationships have
had an increasing presence in mainstream mass media. Major current events like
updated US Census information on gay-headed households, as well as new laws
Jamie Landau is a Ph.D. candidate. Correspondence to: Dept. of Speech Communication, 110 Terrell Hall,
Athens, GA 30602, USA. Email: jlandau@uga.edu. She wishes to thank Bonnie J. Dow, under whose direction
this essay began as part of a Master’s thesis. She also appreciates feedback from Celeste M. Condit and Roger
Stahl.
ISSN 1529-5036 (print)/ISSN 1479-5809 (online) # 2009 National Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/15295030802684018
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81
legalizing and illegalizing gay familial rights, make up a large part of this mediated
and societal milieu. For instance, according to the Gay & Lesbian Atlas that compiled
the latest 2000 US Census data involving gays and lesbians, there are now more than
160,000 families with two gay parents and roughly a quarter of a million children
(Gates & Ost, 2004). Part of this population growth is even being called the ‘‘Gayby
Boom’’ (Garner, 2005, p. 5).
Yet as gay and lesbian parents populate this country, their liberties, with regard to
marriage and adoption, are simultaneously in flux. Recent key legislation on gay
familial rights includes President George W. Bush’s call on February 24, 2004 for a US
Constitutional Amendment protecting marriage between ‘‘a man and a woman.’’ In
August of 2005, the California Supreme Court’s ruling on three separate cases
established California as the first state in the country to grant full parenthood to
same-sex partners despite the absence of legal adoption or a biological connection. By
the end of 2005, 27 states had voted to amend their constitutions to define marriage
as a union of one man and one woman, while steps to pass laws to ban gays and
lesbians from adopting children were underway around the country.
Countless communication scholars argue that visibility in mass media is an
important goal of the gay and lesbian movement because some recognizable
representational form of homosexuality is necessary for political power and equality
of gays and lesbians and fundamental to developing their identities (Butler, 1990;
Fejes & Petrich, 1993; Gross, 2001; Kielwasser & Wolf, 1992; Morris & Sloop, 2006;
Walters, 2001). Portrayals of gays and lesbians in mainstream news discourse are
significant since news stories and photojournalism play a role in constructing (gay)
politics in contemporary American civic life (Alwood, 1996; Hariman & Lucaites,
2007). As media scholar Edward Alwood writes:
The news media have long been one of the public’s few sources of information
about homosexuals, given the closeted existence that most have been forced to live
to escape social stigma. For much of American society, what people see and hear in
the news is what they accept as reality. (1996, p. 6)
A bulk of research studies the ways in which gays and lesbians are represented by
various media (e.g., Alwood, 1996; Battles & Hilton-Morrow, 2002; Brookey, 2001;
Dow, 2001; Fejes & Petrich, 1993; Gamson, 1998; Gross, 2001; Kielwasser & Wolf,
1992; Shugart, 2003; Tropiano, 2002; Walters, 2001). However, academic attention to
depictions of gay and lesbian families is scant. Critical analyses of how the visual and
the verbal work together to represent homosexuality are also lacking. It is crucial to
ask, then, how gay and lesbian parents are rendered visible in contemporary US print
news discourse, and what understandings of same-sex parenting and homo/
heterosexuality in general are constructed by these verbal and visual images of gays
and lesbians as parents? This essay explores those questions by examining articles and
photographs treating issues of same-sex parenting that appear in major US
newspapers and newsmagazines during a recent 2-year period of intense public
attention to the status of gay and lesbian familial relationships.1 I argue that a
quantitative increase in visibility of gay and lesbian families in recent major US print
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news does not translate to unmitigated progress. Rather, what appear are rhetorically
disciplined distinctions regarding what will and will not count as recognizable
children from gay-headed households and their same-sex parents. Challenges to
dominant ideologies discursively emerge, but these resistances, I suggest, are tenuous.
Thus, this essay reveals the hegemonic function of mixed mass mediated representations of gay and lesbian parents and identifies particular verbal and visual rhetorical
strategies of those representations.
In the remainder of this essay I delineate the ways in which the texts and
photographic images portray children of gay and lesbian parents because the press
reports are dominated by depictions of them rather than of their parents. I find that
this concentration on the children highlights them in four main fashions: they confess
or ‘‘come out’’ about their ‘‘secret’’ of having same-sex parents, they are social
scientific experiments, they are compulsively heterosexual, and, lastly, they perform
stereotypical male and female gender. I point out the regulatory and resistive
components to these representations, arguing that they are often disciplined to be
homophobic, heterosexist, and heteronormative even as moments of subversion can
be seen. Overall, I suggest that these portrayals coalesce to put forth the site, and the
literal sight, of a heterosexual child as a synecdoche and social test for gay familial life.
According to US print news, then, same-sex parenting is acceptable only if it
generates properly masculine and feminine straight children.2 This essay closes with
implications of this study for the gay and lesbian movement and for future media
research on gay and lesbian families.
Symbolic Annihilation to Assimilation of Homosexuality in Mass Media
From feminist to gay and lesbian to queer scholars, research on representations of
homo/heterosexuality has proliferated in the academy in the past decade and a half.
Overall, this literature centers around the (in)visibility of gays and lesbians and the
politics produced through representation, arguing that not only is homosexuality
often overlooked, but when it is portrayed, it takes narrow homophobic, heterosexist,
and heteronormative forms.
Larry Gross (1991) pioneers this work, using the term ‘‘symbolic annihilation’’ to
refer to the inequalities of mediated representations of minorities such as gays. Gross
claims that when gays do attain visibility, such representations still reflect the
mainstream ‘‘biases and interests of those elites who define the public agenda, and
these elites are (mostly) White, (mostly) middle-aged, (mostly) male, (mostly)
middle and upper middle classes, and entirely heterosexual’’ (p. 21). Likewise,
Kielwasser and Wolf (1992) find that television shows rarely acknowledge gay and
lesbian youth, or if they do, they frame being gay as, for instance, a ‘‘phantasm’’ or
sort of an antireality for understanding heterosexuality, as a phase devoid of larger
cultural context, and as a problem of the American family (pp. 259262). In Fejes &
Petrich’s (1993) comprehensive review of how both the US entertainment and news
media deal with homosexual characters and issues up to the early 1990s, they
similarly point out that portrayals of homosexuality began as ‘‘comic devices’’ or ‘‘at
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best as unhappiness, sickness, or marginality, and at worse perversion and evil to be
destroyed’’ (pp. 398402). From the early 1970s to 1993, Fejes & Petrich suggest
media ended blatant negative portrayals of gays and lesbians and showcased
sympathetic stories about homosexuality. That said, among other things, these
representations were usually dramatic, often only featured male gays and not lesbians,
and commonly defined homosexuality as a ‘‘lifestyle’’ that lacked politics (pp. 400
404). Alwood (1996) also suggests there were similar ‘‘prejudiced’’ depictions of gays
in mainstream and alternative print and broadcast news throughout US history,
resulting in ‘‘straight news.’’
Studies in the past 10 years analyze the increasing, but still disciplined, public
representations of gays and lesbians in mainstream mass media. In Gross’s (2001)
latest book about the historical role of varied media, he concludes that gays ascended
to categories of voting bloc and market niche, all the while assimilating their group’s
distinctions in order to blend into the mainstream (p. xvi). Equally, Suzanna Walters
(2001) writes in a chapter she devotes to gays and families that depictions of samesex parents, while becoming visible as open gay families and no longer outwardly
bashed, are still problematically portrayed as either heterosexual clones or exotic
threats (p. 212). Bonnie Dow (2001), Battles and Hilton-Morrow (2002) and Helene
Shugart (2003, 2005) show that representations of homosexuality in television
entertainment shows such as Will & Grace and Ellen, and in media coverage of gay
celebrities such as lesbian parent Rosie O’Donnell, still strongly reinforce heterosexism and heteronormativity. Examples range from how gay characters are rarely
shown in their own communities (Dow, 2001) to same-sex parents being depicted as
misfits suited only to nurture other misfits, subsequently situating gay and lesbian
parents and their adopted children outside heteronormative parenthood (Shugart,
2005, pp. 6975).
The literature reviewed has enlarged the study of gays and lesbians in mass media.
Illuminated are patterns of representing homosexuality, ranging from the absence of
gays and lesbians to stereotypes of them as sick and perverted to homosexuality
depicted as similar to heterosexuality. Also evident are gaps in the research. Only a
couple of scholars are starting to look at gay and lesbian families (Gamson, 1998;
Shugart, 2005; Walters, 2001). Furthermore, almost all of these works are approached
from a heavily textual orientation and rarely included critical visual analysis or
looked at how images and texts work together. Given these limitations in literature
and the growing population, publicizing, and politics of gay and lesbian families
today, I argue that it is vital to interrogate another burgeoning public communication
forum of representing gays and lesbians: verbal and visual images of same-sex
parenting in recent mainstream US print news stories and photographs.
Critically Approaching Verbal and Visual News Discourse of Gender and Sexuality
Studying notions of homo/heterosexuality in mass mediated public discourse is an
interdisciplinary endeavor. For this essay I draw from contemporary critical/cultural,
media, gender/queer, and rhetorical theories. I pay close attention to ideological and
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hegemonic relations and their intersections with issues of visibility, heteronormativity, and regulation, since these latter three concepts are fundamental to the politics of
representing homosexuality in mainstream mass media.
Scholars assert that mass media is one principal site for understanding the
workings of ideology and hegemony in the contemporary world3 (e.g., Cawelti, 1985;
Condit, 1994; Gitlin, 1980; Gross, 2001; Schudson, 1987). Research specifically
suggests that mediated news discourse is important for shaping public ideologies
(e.g., Alwood, 1996; Fiske, 1988). What’s more, taking seriously the ‘‘pictorial turn’’ in
contemporary communication assumes that photographic images, as they work in
conjunction with verbal texts, reflect the sociopolitics of today’s culture (e.g.,
Finnegan, 2003; Mitchell, 1994). Coupling these critical perspectives of media with
gender/queer theory therefore suggests that the mainstream printed press, in verbal
and visual form, functions hegemonically to reveal and construct dynamic power
relationships and their sexual politics in current American society.
Michel Foucault’s (1978/1990) critical discourse theory influences this line of
thought. Foucault documents how sexuality is a discursive construct that takes
culturally and historically specific forms, creating a society of normalization that is
not really a mechanism of exclusion but rather the operation of a network of specific
knowledges and powers. Therefore public discourse is both an instrument of power
and an effect, or as Foucault describes, a ‘‘hindrance, a stumbling block,’’ but also ‘‘a
point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy’’ (p. 101).
Feminist/gender theorist Judith Butler (e.g., 1990/1999, 1993, 2004) extends
Foucault to posit the gendered body as performative, repeating gendered norms over
time to produce the appearance or idea of a gender. Butler theorizes that these acts of
gender are sustained through reiterated corporeal signs and, important for this
project, discursive means, which reaffirm and renaturalize regulatory fictions that
serve particular disciplinary ends, most notably compulsory heterosexuality (1990/
1999, p. 172). ‘‘Gender trouble,’’ such as a drag parody, can have transformative
possibilities since it reveals the imitative structure of gender itself (p. 175). But, as
Butler (1993) reflects later, gender construction is always a process of materialization
that stabilizes over time to ‘‘produce boundaries of bodily life where abjected or
delegitimated bodies fail to count as ‘bodies.’ . . . [while] bodies which, in materializing the norm, qualify as bodies that matter’’ (pp. 1516).
A host of other gender and queer scholars conjecture about today’s institution of
heteronormativity, its ideology of heterosexism, and how both are reconstructed and
renormalized through repeated gestures and public discourses (e.g., Fausto-Sterling,
2000; Fuss, 1991; Halberstam, 1998; Haraway, 1995; Sedgwick, 1990; Warner, 1993;
Wittig, 1992). As Monique Wittig (1992, pp. 4043) suggests, ‘‘ . . . to live in society is
to live in heterosexuality. . . . it has sneaked into dialectical thought (or thought of
differences) as its main category.’’ In looking at a range of ‘‘biological’’ body parts and
behaviors of gender and sexuality, as well as public and scientific discussions about
them, Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000) similarly concludes that they are constructions of
a society of (hetero)normalization. Donna Haraway (1995), likewise, refers to the
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reconstitution of heterosexuality as the ‘‘natural’’ universal, calling it ‘‘the Sacred
Image of the Same’’ (p. 365).
This essay is also guided by a ‘‘critical rhetoric’’ approach. In 1989, rhetorical
scholar Raymie McKerrow posited ‘‘critical rhetoric,’’ a Foucaultian examination of
discourses of power ideologies that views them as being mobilized to construct and
sustain certain cultural practices. McKerrow reasons that all public argument is
knowledge and power (instead of an essence or truth) that has material functions ‘‘to
keep people ‘in their place’ as that status is defined and determined by the interest of
the dominant/dominated in maintaining its social role’’ (p. 129). Critical rhetorical
criticism thus reveals how rhetoric constructs, restricts, and resists ideologies.
‘‘Straight’’ Children Set Us Straight About Same-Sex Parenting
In this case study, visibility of same-sex parenting primarily takes the form of images
of the children of gays and lesbians. Consequently, I argue we mostly come to know
same-sex parenting today through the mediated regulations on what it means to be a
child raised in a gay-headed household. Ranging from reporting commentary and
social scientific research pertaining to children to personal interviews with them, the
verbal text of the articles center heavily on children from gay-headed households
rather than on their parents. A visual focus on the children also dominates the
photographs that are printed with a little less than half of the stories. The children are
always the focal point of the cameras, they have the most complex movement in the
shots, and/or they are the center of attention of anyone else pictured with them. For
instance, in the lead full-page shot to an October 2004 Newsweek story, 12-year-old
Doreen Stermer is pictured face forward and standing up with the wind blowing in
her hair. Meanwhile, Doreen’s lesbian parents sit still on the sand beneath and beside
her, staring up at their daughter (Johnson, Piore & Dorfman, 2004).
This growing mediated visibility of the children as children of gays and lesbians is
new and promising for acknowledging their presence, and by association the status of
their same-sex parents, in contemporary US culture. These representations are
particularly ground-breaking when considering mass media historically has rarely
shown the familial community of gay people. However, while this strong focus on
children challenges traditional notions of homosexuality, it simultaneously works to
rearticulate homophobic, heterosexist, and heteronormative identities of children of
gays and lesbians and their same-sex parents. By centering the stories on the children,
same-sex parenting is framed as if it is exclusively relevant for its impact on
relationships with children. Children, then, become the yardstick by which gays, as
parents, are evaluated. Although children always make up a large part of what it
means to be a gay (or a straight) parent, children are by no means the only
components to parenting nor gayness, a multifaceted practice and identity that can
involve a range of interactions with other parents and the gay community at large.
That is, while child rearing defines a large part of parenting, in this case the particular
discursive focal points about the children simultaneously marginalize homosexuality.
For instance, gay parents themselves are frequently overlooked in the articles as
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primary sources in lieu of narratives about, and from, their children (the
overwhelming majority of whom are specifically noted to be heterosexual and
properly feminine and masculine, two disciplinary narratives that I will discuss indepth). Also, the ways the group photographs of the children and their parents are
cropped and captioned visibly cut out or at the very least sideline the adults, such as
one May 2004 US News & World Report picture where the head of a lesbian parent is
missing while the lower half of her body and the full body of her daughter on the
floor is included (Gilgoff, 2004). Same-sex parents are generally positioned at the
margins by this focus of the narratives and camera on their children. I thus posit that
these representations are homophobic by pushing gayness to the sidelines in silence.
This narrow homophobic frame further codes heterosexism since only one of the
articles features a self-identified homosexual child of gay parents (Dominus, 2004)
while more than half of the children interviewed declare their heterosexuality,
sometimes quite aggressively. Any explicit visual distinctions of a child’s homosexuality, such as, for instance, being pictured with a same-sex partner or
photographed in a distinctively gay youth context, are also strikingly absent from
every photographic image. I conclude that this particular focal angle can even be read
as a focus on straights, another repressive heterosexist representational form. Dow
(2001) and Walters (2001) likewise criticize mainstream media for frequently using
gays as catalysts for the growth of straights. By situating heterosexual children front
and center to the meaning of what makes a gay family, this concentration also
reiterates heterosexist norms of legitimating gay parenting for the sake of rearing
straights. Thus, as an addendum to what Walters says (2001, p. 219), here it takes
‘‘straight’’4 children to set us straight about same-sex parenting. The next sections
explicate four main discursive themes that combine to construct this point of view on
gay families.
The Children’s (Gay Parent) Secrets and Coming Out
An initially liberating but ultimately regulating central storyline features the
children’s ‘‘big secret’’ of and sometimes ‘‘coming out’’ about having gay parents.
From staying silent to lying to speaking out, children of lesbians and gays are
repeatedly at length written about and interviewed about whether and how they
explain, or literally ‘‘come out’’ about, ‘‘their secret’’ (e.g., Gilgoff, 2004; Jacobs, 2004;
Johnson, Piore, & Dorfman, 2004; Turnbull, 2004). The photographs featuring the
children alone and with their parents, coupled with nearby bold headlines and
adjoining captions that always in some way report that they have ‘‘gay’’ or ‘‘same-sex’’
parents, further align their identities with this process of coming out (Figure 1).
When children are depicted as keeping secret the homosexuality of their parents,
either through explicit editorial comments, such as a lead anecdote in Newsweek that
said ‘‘Cedar Park was certainly not a place, [Kyle Michaels] felt certain, where you
talked about your mom’s being a lesbian (Johnson et al., 2004), or indirectly through
the children’s refusal to publish their names (Jacobs, 2004), having same-sex parents
and being gay are positioned as legitimately things to be ashamed of and shunned, a
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87
Figure 1. Copyright#[2004] The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission.
blatant form of homophobia. In relation, some same-sex parents and their children
refused to permit reproduction of the photographs taken of them. For example, to
publish this essay in Critical Studies in Media Communication, I made efforts to
secure permission to reprint several of the photographs referenced in my analysis.
However, when I contacted the agent for one photographer who took a picture of two
lesbian mothers and their daughter for an October 18, 2004 Newsweek article, I was
told that the photographer had signed a contract with the gay family that prohibited
any additional reprinting of the picture of sharing of their contact information.
Although this regulation is understandable for privacy concerns, it also contradicts
the very visible ‘‘coming out’’ of this family in one of the country’s largest
newsmagazines and the accompanying photo caption from the daughter that said
‘‘When my friends come over, I don’t hide anything.’’ On the other hand, most of the
articles follow these oppressive scenarios with text about empowering stories of
children ‘‘coming out’’ about their families. In addition, the mass publishing of
photographs of these children is an extremely open and public avowal of same-sex
parenting. However, such an emancipating confessional ritual of ‘‘coming out’’ has
also historically been mitigated and depoliticized in past mediated representations of
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gays (Dow, 2001; Foucault, 1978/1990; Shugart, 2005). A similar legitimating but
regulating pattern occurs in the news reports and adjoining pictures in this study.
For instance, the liberation of sharing the secret of having same-sex parents is often
mentioned via reporting commentary and personal testimonies. In a March 2004
Boston Globe article, a lesbian mother is interviewed as saying ‘‘It was very affirming
for [her 11-year-old daughter, Deanna]’’ to host a sleepover where Deanna’s friends
found out about her parents for the first time (Jacobs, 2004). Furthermore, the
children are also generally smiling or showing other positive emotions of happiness
and contentment in photographs. These affirmative verbal and visual portrayals paint
optimistic pictures of ‘‘coming out’’ about being a child raised by gays and lesbians.
Nevertheless, these representations of coming out are ambivalent. Specifically, the
libratory force of coming out narratives and photographs are mitigated by several
homophobic rhetorical patterns: the coming outs are arguably positive according to
the inclusion of sources from opposing opinions, they regularly happen in ‘‘safe’’ and
temporary therapeutic-type spaces, and the headlines and captions for a lot of the
photos link these happy gay families to controversy. All of this underlies the
affirmations and their progay politics, keeping children of gays and lesbians, and their
parents, still at least partially closeted.
First, for example, the verbal text on the prior silence and coming out is almost
always organized in an argument then counterargument structure, which lessens the
potency of the liberation since it gives credibility to two sides of the story. Second, the
stories regularly write about the coming outs as something that is difficult to do, and,
done only periodically and in private therapy-like environments, like at gay-related
events. This language can be seen in a May 2004 article in US News & World Report
that profiled a college freshman, A. J. Costa, who kept his mother’s relationship with a
live-in partner secret while he was in grade school, though before leaving for college
he ‘‘came out’’ about them at ‘‘(Gay) Family Week’’ in Provincetown, Mass. (Gilgoff,
2004). This instance and countless others depict the children’s coming outs as onetime confessional occasions in the private company of gay-related communities. Plus,
crucially, they depict coming out as their personal problem instead of as an effect of a
larger societal issue. Although these acts somewhat, as Gross (2001) argues about the
progressive politics of coming out about homosexuality, ‘‘shed the self-hatred,’’ it is
still telling that none of these coming outs are framed as longer, recurring events, nor
are they positioned in everyday public settings beyond their personal, ‘‘safe’’ (gay)
lives.
Even the apparently empowering mass published photographs of ‘‘coming out’’
children of gays and lesbians get repressed when read in contrast with these
argumentative, episodic, and therapeutic verbal narratives about their ‘‘secrets’’ and
‘‘coming out’’ which surround and mitigate them. Such as, big bold headlines and
captions often express overt negativity about gay-headed households, thus regulating
the visuals. Evidence of this is a September 2005 Atlanta Journal-Constitution ‘‘Ban on
gay parenting’’ large headline and subhead, ‘‘Some Georgia lawmakers may push a
plan next year to shield children from what they call an ‘unnatural lifestyle’’’ that sit
above a photograph of African American lesbian Barbara Gibson happily reading to
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her adopted son Zachary, who is also smiling and laughing (Schneider, 2005).
Additionally, the headline and caption to a March 2004 shot in USA Today narrows
the positive picture of a child playing with a toy train with his family to oppressive
sociopolitics of gay parenting, by declaring ‘‘Looking straight at gay parents: Facts
about the kids are few, but controversy divides culture’’ (Peterson, 2004). In short, the
secret that is being repressed by these confessions is no longer homosexuality, but
rather homophobia and heterosexism, since the logic needed to make sense of these is
a fear of gays and lesbians. Dow (2001) concludes and criticizes this individualized
‘‘token’’ illustration of coming out when she studies mass media’s handling of Ellen
DeGeneres’ coming out: ‘‘it is not sexuality that is being repressed in television, but
rather the politics [emphasis in original] of sexuality’’ (p. 135).
Children as New Social Scientific Experiments
Scientific discourse about hetero/homosexuality is not a new trend, nor is its power
to regulate (Brookey, 2001; Fausto-Sterling, 2000; Foucault, 1978/1990; Haraway,
1995; Wilcox, 2003). Likewise, the print news reports in this study utilize
conventional rhetorics of science and medicine to discipline children of gay and
lesbian parents, even as their lives literally trouble common sense logics of sexuality
that emphasize male with female procreation. In particular, the articles always explain
the existence of these children by including the (medical) history of and terminology
for their conception. For instance, they explicate private reproductive processes and
family-related events, ranging from in vitro fertilization to surrogacy to adoption to
divorce. Although how these children come into being is exceptional, the extra and
frequently mythical emphasis put on their origins situates them outside the realm of
‘‘regularly (heterosexually, biologically) created’’ children and, relatedly, portrays
them as new social scientific experiments. One example is a March 2004 story in the
New York Times that begins with a detailed description of medical reproduction,
albeit a fable-like one:
The case might be called Uterus V. Ovum. E and K were a lesbian couple in Marion
County, Calif., who wanted children. K provided the eggs, E the womb, and a
fertility clinic supplied the sperm and the technical help. (Belluck & Liptak, 2004)
While children are represented as biotechnological experimentation in this instance,
most of the experimentation discourse differs by centering on the social. Quotations
by experts exemplify this repetition of the mythical, social-scientific theme, such as
when the president of the Massachusetts Family Institute says in a July 2004 Boston
Herald piece, ‘‘From the moment [a child of gay parents] comes into the world he is
marked as being part of some kind of new social order’’ (Ross, 2004). Anecdotes that
involve divorces also depict the children as foreigners in (heterosexual, heterosexist)
society. A July 2004 story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune features Abigail Garner’s
account of her parent’s divorce, and the story notes that the divorce put Garner in ‘‘a
situation that thousands of children find themselves in every year’’ yet it was still
‘‘unusual’’ because ‘‘her dad was gay’’ (Miranda, 2004). This portrayal of scientific
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alienation emanates from the few photographs of just the children, when they are
always pictured absent any youth or discernable social context. For instance, Ry, a
daughter of two lesbians, is literally shown under the scope of the camera lens since
she appears alone on the oversized front cover of an October 2004 issue of the New
York Times Magazine looking like a forlorn model standing in strong light against a
blank background (Figure 1). Repressive representations of children of gays and
lesbians as objectified, even bizarre, specimens for medical study are so strong that
the children and sometimes their parents often reflect on this metaphor when
describing their lives. As Tina Fakhrid-Deen, a 29-year-old child of gay parents, is
quoted in the Star Tribune story, ‘‘[children of gays feel like] we are some kind of zoo
people*something to be studied, not loved or embraced or thought of as humans’’
(Miranda, 2004).
In these examples, as in a majority of the articles, children of gays and lesbians are
discussed and depicted as if they are bio-products of mysterious new social scientific
experiments. They are portrayed as the result of abnormal reproductions because they
are emphasized as being born via untraditional heterosexual acts of procreation.
Historically, mass media depicted homosexuality as the ‘‘alien other’’ (Alwood, 1996;
Fejes & Petrich, 1993; Gross, 2001). In this case, children of gays, and by association
their gay and lesbian parents, are again alienated not only by the homophobic
discourse of medicinal marveling and othering, but also by the preference placed on
‘‘normal’’ direct heterosexual, biological relations. As Haraway (1996, p. 323)
observes, ‘‘biology discursively establishes and performs what will count as human
in powerful domains of knowledge and technique.’’ She suggests this is evident in the
common trope of heterosexual reproduction (p. 324). That trope and its heterosexist
and heteronormative ideologies that assume and privilege biological inception by
intercourse between a male and female are also reiterated in these texts. Walters
(2001) points out the risks of this reasoning, saying justification for discrimination of
gays and lesbians has often been based exactly on ‘‘the assumption that gay ‘lifestyles’
threaten the sanctity of the nuclear family by proposing and practicing a sexuality not
centered on reproduction’’ (p. 211). In sum, the articles favor mainstream
heterosexist, heteronormative, biological explanations of human sexuality and
reproduction. These constructions, deployed through textual and photographic
images, visibly ‘‘other’’ the range of origins of children of same-sex parents, thus
relegating them to an outer social-scientific space.
News media discourse regarding recent scientific research studies done on children
raised by gays and lesbians also constrains notions of same-sex parenting and
reiterates conventional logics of hetero/homosexuality. This occurs even as most of
the findings progressively tout that there is no difference between children of gays and
children of straights. It is noteworthy that research done about and only on children
in gay-headed households is highlighted in more than half of the articles (e.g.,
Adams, 2004; Johnson Piore & Dorfman, 2004; Peterson, 2004; Turnbull, 2004). That
is, the inclusion of this particular research again portrays children as the primary
concern of gay-headed households and sets them up as evaluative measurements of
their same-sex parents. Underlying this concentration is also a conventional reliance
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on science to explain (the sexuality of) these children and their gay parents,
specifically since the research cited looks at whether these children ‘‘fare any worse
than those raised in more traditional households’’ and at whether a gay parent’s
‘‘sexuality bore an influence on his or her child’’ (e.g., Kranish, 2005; Salamon, 2005).
Historically, discourses about sexuality privileged scientific studies and treated them
as ‘‘fact’’ no matter their soundness (Brookey, 2001; Foucault, 1978/1990; Wilcox,
2003). Likewise, almost every article notes the inconclusiveness of the research in this
area yet still includes the studies as credible evidence of what makes a gay family (e.g.,
Adams, 2004; Gilgoff, 2004; Kranish, 2005). This contentious scientific data also
legitimates children of gays and same-sex parenting as ‘‘controversial’’ subject matter
that requires social scientific examination. Accordingly, the progeny of same-sex
parents are portrayed like lab rats in a social experiment, testing the homophobic
hypothesis that gay and lesbian parents make gay children. These representations are
repressive in the sense that they depict gay-headed households as inherently fraught
with possible problems as well as they are contrasted to the ‘‘normalcy’’ of their
straight counterparts.
The Children’s Compulsory (Hetero)Sexuality
The ways print news media talk about and picture the physical behaviors of the
children further articulates their subjectivities and those of their parents into
traditional understandings of sexuality. The children’s behavior that is most
frequently discussed verbally in the texts is whether or not they are or will ‘‘grow
up to be’’ homosexual. In general, this topic is approached via frank personal
testimony from children and their same-sex parents or, as noted in the previous
section, in reporting on social scientific studies that seek answers to the parental
influence of homosexuality on children. This obsessive discursive concern with how
children of gay parents will reckon with their own sexuality, and in particular whether
they will be gay, weights the negative implications of homosexuality and gay
parenting, repeating heterosexism. It also reasserts heterosexuality as the ideal. As
Walters (2001) argues about this kind of discourse, ‘‘it implies a ‘natural’ desire to
raise children as heterosexual’’ (p. 219).
A typical example featuring the gay question is a March 2004 story in the Boston
Globe that includes an interview with two siblings who have lesbian mothers: ‘‘As for
the question many ask about children of same-sex parents*Will they be gay?*both
smile. ‘People think you will be gay, but I think it is just the opposite,’ said the girl.
‘For myself, I am very attracted to the opposite sex’’’ (Jacobs, 2004). In addition to
reestablishing the importance of a polar notion of hetero/homosexuality, here the
reporter and the child with a gay parent emit compulsory heterosexuality and
heterosexism: when homosexuality is implied it is then assertively denied by noting
the child’s reportedly ‘‘very’’ version of straightness. Likewise, 19-year-old Taylor
Heald makes the same argument when she is interviewed about her sexual orientation
for a March 2004 Chicago Sun-Times article: ‘‘Taylor Heald, who has a boyfriend . . .
[said] the fact that her mother is gay ‘didn’t influence me at all. If anything, it made
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me more open to everything . . . As a result, I’m even more sure of my answer’’
(O’Hara, 2004). Thus, as the heterosexist reasoning goes, homosexuality is not
preferred and gay parenting is only good for its role in repeating extreme
heterosexuality in children. Sloop (2000) similarly found that heterosexual desire is
drawn up in ‘‘aggressive terms’’ when discourse confronts situations of gender
trouble. As a result, he suggests that what the body did sexually was ‘‘utilized
rhetorically as evidence for the success or failure’’ of, in one case, sex reassignment
(p. 137). Likewise, I argue aggressive (hetero)sexuality is used rhetorically here as
evidence for the success of same-sex parenting in producing straights.
Working in tandem with this compulsive focus on the children’s (hetero)sexuality
is how only one of the articles includes a self-identified or referenced gay child of
same-sex parents. This relative invisibility of an adolescent homosexual raised by
same-sex parents symbolically annihilates that sexual identity. This kind of
representation (or lack of it) also negotiates what Walters (2001) identifies as a
common antigay hysteria that fears ‘‘gay ‘recruitment;’’’ ‘‘a mistaken belief that gay
and lesbian parents are more likely to produce gay children or foist their gay identity
upon their progeny’’ (p. 211). Furthermore, even when gayness of the child is
briefly highlighted in the one article, the homosexual youth falls victim to historically
mediated stereotypes of homosexuality and heteronormativity that suppress her
presence. Cade, the solitary 16-year-old lesbian raised by lesbians who is mentioned
in an October 2004 New York Times Magazine story, is put in the shadows of her older
heterosexual sister, Ry, since Ry overwhelmingly fills the pages of the feature story.
Quotations from the parents about the sexualities of their daughters further regulate
Cade to the outskirts and Ry to the center stage, such as when the mothers say they
‘‘found themselves avoiding the topic of Cade’s sexuality’’ but told Ry at age 16 to
‘‘just go have sex with [her boyfriend].’’ Also, when Ry herself talks about a
homosexual experience, it is framed in homophobic and heterosexist terms as merely
a phase, and again, as justification for her straightness: ‘‘As for her own sexuality, she’s
straight, which she said she knows with increasing certainty with each passing year.
‘Yeah, you know, I made out with a girl in high school,’ she said. ‘I get an A for effort’’’
(Dominus, 2004). In short, at least according to the verbal news reports, gay children
of same-sex parents practically do not exist. Or if they do, they are unjustly treated as
‘‘sort of an antireality used to navigate the ‘real’ concerns of heterosexual youth’’
(Kielwasser & Wolf, 1992, p. 360).
(Proper) Gender Performances of the Children
Although the newspapers and newsmagazines primarily deal with issues of sexuality,
the discursive and visual field is also fraught with repeating proper notions of the
children’s femininity and masculinity. Earlier critics note the intersections of sexuality
and gender in popular discourses and how they simultaneously work to reify
traditional norms of sexuality and gender (Brookey, 2001; Butler, 1990/1999; FaustoSterling, 2000; Halberstam, 1998; Shugart, 2003, 2005; Sloop, 2000, 2004). Likewise,
in these news reports, the transgression of gay parenting is also disciplined by
Straightening Out (the Politics of) Same-Sex Parenting
93
constraints on the textual and photographic portrayals of the children’s (hyper)gender performances that reiterate what it means to be a stereotypical ‘‘girl’’ or ‘‘boy.’’
The October 2004 story in the New York Times Magazine manifests this model even
as there is gender trouble. The reporter offers up the following descriptions for Ry: a
‘‘tough-girl,’’ ‘‘dressed in vintage femme fatale [emphasis in original] whose sense of
style is a ‘‘constructed form of femininity . . . girl in quotation marks,’’ (Dominus,
2004). Likewise, in the interview Ry says as a child she always ‘‘loved to dress up,’’ a
time when she was also ‘‘obsessed with pink.’’ Yet now Ry is inclined to ‘‘stacked heels
and deep red lipstick,’’ identifying, appearance-wise, with drag queens. Here and
elsewhere Ry is subjected by, and subjects herself to, discursive disciplining of her
iconic performed, almost drag-like, femininity. As the gendered reasoning goes, and
as both Ry and the reporter even reference, Ry is like the character Rizzo in the movie,
‘‘Grease’’*the stereotypical ‘‘pink-clad bad girl’’ (Dominus, 2004).
The pictures of Ry visually uphold this stereotypical gender play as well. The
magazine’s cover shot shows her with long hair, dressed in a low-cut button-down
dress shirt and short skirt, and noticeably wearing makeup and jewelry (Figure 1), a
conventionally feminine appearance that does not trouble idealized gender. The
power of this reiteration of ‘‘femininity’’ is so strong that it challenges the biglettered, controversial headline, ‘‘Got a Problem With My Mothers?’’ and its smaller
subversive tease, ‘‘Coming of age with same-sex parents.’’ Thus, even as portrayals of
Ry in some ways undermine traditional conceptions of gender, narratives about and
from Ry still fit common sense bipolar conceptions of femininity, as well as extremely
resignify them by emphasizing classically ‘‘feminine’’ attributes, like Ry’s love for
pink. Evans (1998) argues that gender performances like male drag in contemporary
popular film, though somewhat transgressive, often revive gender stereotypes such as
a return to the cult of true womanhood (p. 210).
Also crucial to this reiteration of proper performance of gender is Ry’s selfidentification as a heterosexual in contrast to the physical descriptions of her lesbian
sister, Cade. Put simply, heterosexual and lesbian identities get portrayed as closely
approximating heteronormative conventions of femininity and masculinity, a
negotiation Shugart (2003, 2005) also found in the gay male lead characters of
popular sitcoms and in discourse surrounding Rosie O’Donnell’s coming out. For
example, Cade is described as ‘‘wearing men’s suits and cutting her hair so short that
even her mothers protested’’ (Dominus, 2004). In sum, the (hetero)sexist logic
suggests, as Halberstam (1998) also identifies, that lesbians usually look what is
considered ‘‘masculine’’ and straight women usually look what is thought to be
‘‘feminine.’’ Consequently, the children’s (proper) gender and sexuality, as they come
under question due to their untraditional family situations, their constructed gender,
or their self-identified homosexuality, are stereotypically and severely restabilized by
the verbal and visual discourse.
Additional examples of this discursive theme include a September 2004 piece in the
San Francisco Chronicle that emphasizes how three-year-old Lucy, a daughter of two
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J. Landau
lesbians, also loves pink (Marech, 2004) and a June 2004 story in the Seattle Times
that leads off with the following iconic anecdote about two teen daughters being
raised by gay dads: ‘‘Whether it concerns matters of the heart or what dress to wear to
the senior prom. . . . From diapers to dating, the men have taught the girls about rites
of passage into womanhood’’ (Turnbull, 2004). Again, being a girl is literally equated
with loving pink, shopping, wearing dresses, and dating males, all stereotypical
‘‘feminine’’ behaviors and looks that uphold mainstream understandings of gender
and sexuality. Like the disciplinary pictures of Ry, the majority of the children of gays
and lesbians appear in photographs in ways that also align them with customary
logics of how females and males should look and act. The pictures of the youngest
girls show them wearing frilly, lacy, ‘‘girly’’ dresses, such as the leading two-pagespread shot printed in May 2004 in US News & World Report, where gay fathers
hold the hands of their daughter, who is in a ballet-type dress and carrying a purse
(Figure 2). Boys appearing in the visuals are also depicted donning typical ‘‘male’’
attire, like sports paraphernalia and professional men’s clothes. An October 2004
photo in Newsweek features gay fathers with two sons, one of whom wears a formal
plaid button-down dress shirt and slacks and the other of whom wears pants with a
jersey T-shirt that has a University logo on its front (Johnson, Piore & Dorfman,
2004). As the result of these illustrations and the verbal rhetoric discussing the
physical attributes of the children, alternatively gendered children from same-sex
parents are absent. In turn, gay parents are identified by the news as primarily raising
conventionally ‘‘straight’’-gendered young girls and boys. These logics about gender
and sexuality do little to revise what is commonly known as femininity, masculinity,
and heterosexuality. They also continue to position same-sex parenting as good
because, and only if, it produces traditional girls and boys.
Figure 2. #Patrick Witty.
Straightening Out (the Politics of) Same-Sex Parenting
95
Straightening Out (the Politics of) Same-Sex Parenting
The newspapers and newsmagazines analyzed here, as Gross (2001) acknowledges
about modern mainstream media in general, are indeed ‘‘shifting the terms of our
public conversation toward a greater acknowledgement of [sexual] diversity’’ (pp.
xvixvii). For some of the first times in the history of American public culture, gays
and lesbians are represented as having families. Notably these stories and photographs often depict the children happy with their same-sex parents. Furthermore,
while this analysis finds that media coverage dwells on concerns of the children, a
substantial amount of discourse from this case study also features same-sex parents
themselves and some contexts of their family life. Portrayals often illustrate same-sex
parents’ positive affection for their children and recurrently show gay families
residing successfully in suburban regions around the country. This is not only
affirming gays and lesbian families, but it is a far cry from seeing gay men as
pedophiles or restricting them to urban settings.
Yet this study also reveals that this explosion of visibility of same-sex parenting is
simultaneously a political paradox. Like Walters (2001) writes:
These times are [emphasis in original] earth-shattering and exciting but also deeply
confusing, often ambiguous, and paradoxical with a vengeance. . . . because the
increased visibility of marginalized groups often creates new restrictions and
recycles old stereotypes. (p. 10)
In particular, the main political paradox presented here is this: on the one hand,
children of gays and lesbians are different than other children in straight ‘‘normal’’
America because they are controversial social scientific experiments and either keep
or shed the (shameful) secret of having same-sex parents; while on the other hand,
they are the same as the children of straight ‘‘normal’’ America because they are
heterosexual and fit into proper gender binaries. What unites this paradox is a
commitment to heterosexist norms of what constitutes ‘‘normal’’ children. And it is
not just our logic about children of gays and lesbians that is disciplined by these
representations. Because these children are presented as the barometers for their
lesbian mothers and gay fathers, same-sex parenting is ultimately regulated by the
same discriminatory regulations placed on the children. In other words, what it
means to be a gay and lesbian parent is not only mitigated by what it means to be a
child of gays and lesbians, but same-sex parents also are evaluated by their ability to
reiterate heterosexist norms in their children. In short, the dangerous reasoning goes
that gay families may be okay given that the children grow up to be ‘‘straight’’*
appropriately feminine or masculine and, of course, heterosexual.
In conclusion, the increasing and new images of gays and lesbians as parents in
mainstream US print news media are proliferating and represent progress of a sort,
but they are not so novel or improved. Instead, these depictions of gay familial life are
like many of modern mass media’s paradoxical representations of homosexuality,
repeating homophobic, (hetero)sexist, and heteronormative sensibilities. According
to these representations, gay and lesbian parents and their children are even a lot like
families with straight parents and straight children. Gross (2001) argues that
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J. Landau
assimilation is one of the worst fates for minorities such as gays as they enter
mainstream America, both on and off screen:
The greatest American bargain offered to successive minorities continues to be:
assimilate, but on our terms. By all means, add your flavoring to the national stew,
but keep it subtle enough not to threaten the dominance of White middleclass. . . . hetero- normativity . . . and we reserve the right to demonize and
marginalize those who refuse to play by our rules. (p. 262)
I suggest, then, that the assimilating verbal and visual rhetoric about samesex parenting analyzed here can be damaging to gay and lesbian identities and
politics, and may even aid current conservative politics against gay rights. Morris
& Sloop (2006) recently call for a visual critical mass of man-on-man kissing
to repoliticize disciplining of same-sex desire in media and in real life. However,
the repeated sighting of a heterosexual child as a synecdoche and social test for gay
familial life identified in this essay might reverse the reported powers of
queer juggernauts and reinstate heteronormative notions of partnering and
procreating. Already in courtroom discussions that debated gay marriage, the
(hetero)sexuality of children was cited by the state and expert witnesses as a
requirement for being allowed to marry (e.g., Baehr vs. Miike, 1996). What is
more, it is vital to recognize that gay assimilation arguments work hand in hand
with rigid traditional ideologies about other minority groups like women, African
Americans, and lower-income populations. An analysis of the remaining discourse
from this case study that turns the lens toward the parents and the settings of their
familial lives reveals not only more homophobic, (hetero)sexist, and heteronormative constructions, but also racist and classist notions as well. For example,
same-sex parents are repeatedly shown performing patriarchal ‘‘stay-at-home
mother’’ and ‘‘hard-working father’’ parenting roles and they are time after time
mitigated by their sameness in middle-class suburban status, Whiteness, and
almost invisible ‘‘gay’’ political context.
This is not to say that progress is impossible. More public discourse where
homosexuality and having families is not mutually exclusive is important. But,
more diverse and permeable representations of gay and lesbian families are
preferable, particularly portrayals that do not make differences invisible by
highlighting sameness with conventional (straight, White, middle-class, suburban,
etc.) families. Such illustrations should, first of all, more often feature gay and
lesbian parents standing up and speaking for themselves instead of the spotlight
being put on their ‘‘straight’’ children. As gay liberationists argued back in 1970,
‘‘Liberation for gay people is to define for ourselves how and with whom we live,
instead of measuring our relationships by straight values’’ (Adam, 1995, p. 81).
Furthermore, verbal and visual images should repeatedly demonstrate and affirm an
array of sexualities, genders, and family living situations, such as profiling
households with openly gay children who have more than two same-sex parents
of mixed racial backgrounds and reside in various socioeconomic neighborhoods
across the country. Improvement is also when gay families continually appear in
Straightening Out (the Politics of) Same-Sex Parenting
97
mass mediated discourse for reasons other than their homosexuality, or at least
when their sexual orientation is not the main focus. In questioning ‘‘What’s up with
the Mainstreaming of Gay Parents?’’ feminist Margaret Price writes that the kinds of
parents she wants to see represented by media are ‘‘queer-parenting lives’’ that
‘‘don’t simply announce that queers can be parents; they queer the institution of
parenthood itself ’’ (p. 239). Here I similarly propose deconstructive accounts of
same-sex parenting.
Thus, scholars should interrogate the growing representations (and politics of)
gay and lesbian families. Additional critique needs to be done, from a diversity of
perspectives, on various verbal and visual mediated images of gay and lesbian
familial relationships. For instance, this study is a cursory case on how verbal texts
and visual images of homosexuality do hegemonic work together in mixed mass
media. Studies should also look at depictions in alternative outlets such as gay print,
television, film, and Internet media, as well as attend to embodied pro- and antigay
social activism. What’s more, ideological analyses should be joined by an array of
approaches, including media production, political economy, and audience studies.
Only together will this research help us better understand different ways of seeing
and knowing sexuality in contemporary US culture. Hopefully, these studies will also
shed light on a world possibly unscripted by conventionally straight sexualities,
genders, and families.
Notes
[1]
[2]
[3]
I analyze print news articles for verbal and visual rhetoric on same-sex parenting.
I retrieved these articles from the LexisNexis online research engine after typing in the
following search words (which could or could not appear as a phrase): ‘‘gay parenting,’’
‘‘gay parents,’’ ‘‘gay parent,’’ ‘‘gay mom,’’ ‘‘gay mother,’’ ‘‘gay dad,’’ ‘‘gay father,’’ ‘‘gay
families,’’ ‘‘gay family,’’ ‘‘homosexual parenting,’’ ‘‘homosexual parents,’’ ‘‘homosexual
parent,’’ ‘‘homosexual mom,’’ ‘‘homosexual mother,’’ ‘‘homosexual dad,’’ ‘‘homosexual
father,’’ ‘‘homosexual family,’’ ‘‘homosexual families,’’ ‘‘same-sex parenting,’’ ‘‘same-sex
parents,’’ ‘‘same-sex mom,’’ ‘‘same-sex mother,’’ ‘‘same-sex dad,’’ ‘‘same-sex father,’’ ‘‘samesex family,’’ and ‘‘same-sex families.’’ I then narrowed the results of this search by selecting
articles that were only published from 2004 to 2005 in US newspapers and newsmagazines
with the highest and most national circulation, such as the New York Times, the L.A. Times,
the Chicago Sun-Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Houston Chronicle, as well
as the New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, and US News & World Report. A total of
41 articles fit these specifications and are therefore analyzed for this study. Ten of the 41
total news articles analyzed include at least one photograph while 15 of the news articles
analyzed include between two and eight photographs. Thus, a total of 51 photographs are
also analyzed for this study.
For clarification, I am not suggesting in this essay that discourse is ever ‘‘real’’ or ‘‘true,’’ nor
that it distorts a ‘‘reality’’ out in the world. As McKerrow (1989) argues about critical
rhetoric, my reading is instead a gathering of discursive fragments. For a recent example of
studying representations of gender and sexuality in contemporary mainstream mass media
this way, see Sloop (2004).
I agree with many critical/cultural studies that define ideology as ‘‘a [power] structure of
beliefs, principles, and practices that define, organize, and interpret reality,’’ and when
98
[4]
J. Landau
systematically represented, ideology is regarded by members of a society as ‘‘the normal or
natural way things are’’ (e.g., Vande Berg, Wenner, & Gronbeck, 1998, pp. 237238, 292).
Hegemony is when dominant groups exercise control over lower groups by maintaining the
existing social order though polyvocal negotiation with and consent to the worldview of the
present hierarchy’s ‘‘normalcy’’ and ‘‘naturalness’’ (Condit, 1994; Vande Berg et al., 1998, pp.
292293).
I put the term ‘‘straight’’ in quotation marks to denote its multiple and interrelated
meanings: (1) the majority of children are explicitly noted by the texts to be heterosexual, (2)
the childrens’ genders are ‘‘straight’’ because for the most part the verbal and visual discourse
does not trouble proper understandings of femininity and masculinity, and, lastly, (3) the
children who are not overtly discussed and pictured as heterosexual but whom are also
constructed ‘‘straight’’ due the various heterosexist and heternormative assumptions
underlying the focal angles of their representations.
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