What Will They Call You? Rhetorically Listening to Lesbian Maternal Narratives

Abstract

This article examines maternal narratives by lesbian, nonbiological co-parents published in the last decade and explains problems of recognition, wherein claims of identity are challenged, for lesbian parents whose partners give birth. These women encounter a discursive gap since no default term exists for their familial role. Applying Burke's theory of identification and Ratcliffe's rhetorical listening model illuminates how legal and social problems of recognition disempower lesbian co-mothers. The author concludes that narratives written by lesbian co-parents function as socio-discursive ways of affirming motherhood outside heterosexist norms and signify one additional way scholars must continue to attend to meaningful silences.

Notes

¹ Lesbian co-parent is the chosen term for lesbians in committed relationship whose partners give birth to a child. This term is used because it is one of the few terms available that does not begin with a negation.

²This confusion in regards to naming, however, is not unique to lesbian and gay parents: diverse family compositions often present new linguistic challenges. For example, stepparents and grandparents also often ask, what will they call me? For heterosexual stepparents, there is the delicate nature of wanting to honor their relationship to their spouse and to their new stepchildren without seeming as if they intend to replace the other biological parent. In many families, the presence of at least two sets of grandparents (or grandparents and great-grandparents) necessitates the creation of unique names in order to distinguish individuals. However, in this social tradition of familial naming, lesbian co-parents are blazing new trails and in doing so are utilizing new rhetorical techniques worthy of critical analysis.

³The District of Columbia allows same-sex couples to apply for marriage licenses and register as domestic partnerships.

⁴Future research should also include accounts from birth mothers and other family members, but in order to maintain a manageable scope for this project I analyze only autobiographical narratives written by lesbian co-parents. This scope also allows us to listen to those directly excluded from their own perspective before adding in other voices and different perspectives.