Queer Athlete, Non-Biological Mothers: Competing, Marginalized, Identities

ABSTRACT

While athletes must be tough and dedicated to sport, many mothers feel pressured to commit to caregiving. A small but growing body of literature has examined how female athletes negotiate these seemingly conflicting roles of mother and athlete. However, the current literature has predominantly focused on heterosexual, cisgender, White women. In this paper, we examine the subject position of the queer athlete, non-biological mother by drawing on the literature on queer parenthood, motherhood in sport, and discourse analysis. Specifically, we use stories from mainstream media to understand ways that queer athlete, non-biological mothers simultaneously are re/produced within dominant discourses and expand our understanding of motherhood.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-mother
• lesbian
• pregnancy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We use the term motherhood to represent the relationship between an individual who identifies as a woman and their child. We recognize that not everyone who identifies as a woman uses the label mother nor every mother identifies as a woman.

2. Fathers as an additional source of childcare reinforces the often unequal, unspoken agreements of childcare within a patriarchal structure.

3. Williams also discussed the maternal health challenges she faced and made calls for improvements in the maternal care that Black American women receive (Haskell, 2018). Professional runner Allyson Felix (discussed below) has also begun advocating for improved maternal health care for Black women (Kilgore, 2019).

4. Bird has identified as gay.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.