Abstract:In this article we showed how the notion of heteronormative citizenship embedded in the Polish Constitution was (re)produced in the public sphere, and how heteronormativity as an ideal was slowly undermined by the emergence of new narratives on LGBT families. We did so by first conducting a critical reading of the Polish Constitution, public opinion polls, national censuses, and so forth. Then we presented the results of a discourse analysis on families of choice in Poland from crucial public debates of the la… Show more
“…For example, we asked what kind of relationship they considered a family, taken from the public opinion poll study (CBOS, 2013). 2 As seen in Figure 1, our respondents’ definition of family differs profoundly from that of the Polish majority and disrupts the heteronormative vision of the family dominant in public discourse (Mizielińska and Stasińska, 2017; Mizielińska et al., 2015). Figure 1.What relationship is a family?…”
Section: Familymentioning
confidence: 92%
“…According to diverse opinion polls, family is the most important value in life for 78 percent of Poles and a necessary condition of happiness for 85 percent of Poles (Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej [CBOS], 2013). Studies also show that Poles have very traditional views on family and they construct its notion on the assumed heterosexuality of its members (Mizielińska and Stasińska, 2017).…”
Research into queer intimacies and families has been largely conducted from and about the Western (specifically Anglo-American) context. It very often (re)presents a hegemonic, mono-normative paradigm and vision of intimacy and family life, and profoundly influences the scope and methods of such research in other localities. This article uses findings from a large-scale mixed methods study called Families of Choice in Poland which was designed to examine the diversity of intimate and familial practices of non-heterosexual lives. It highlights how geo-temporal conditions shape LGBTQ relational lives and, as such, unsettles the dominant Western knowledge on queer kinship.
“…For example, we asked what kind of relationship they considered a family, taken from the public opinion poll study (CBOS, 2013). 2 As seen in Figure 1, our respondents’ definition of family differs profoundly from that of the Polish majority and disrupts the heteronormative vision of the family dominant in public discourse (Mizielińska and Stasińska, 2017; Mizielińska et al., 2015). Figure 1.What relationship is a family?…”
Section: Familymentioning
confidence: 92%
“…According to diverse opinion polls, family is the most important value in life for 78 percent of Poles and a necessary condition of happiness for 85 percent of Poles (Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej [CBOS], 2013). Studies also show that Poles have very traditional views on family and they construct its notion on the assumed heterosexuality of its members (Mizielińska and Stasińska, 2017).…”
Research into queer intimacies and families has been largely conducted from and about the Western (specifically Anglo-American) context. It very often (re)presents a hegemonic, mono-normative paradigm and vision of intimacy and family life, and profoundly influences the scope and methods of such research in other localities. This article uses findings from a large-scale mixed methods study called Families of Choice in Poland which was designed to examine the diversity of intimate and familial practices of non-heterosexual lives. It highlights how geo-temporal conditions shape LGBTQ relational lives and, as such, unsettles the dominant Western knowledge on queer kinship.
“…The findings also highlighted themes of shame and embarrassment in the experiences of separated same-sex parents. Even within the LGBTI communities where we have seen a detraditionalization of kinship relationships and the rise of strong families of choice values (Mizielińska and Stasińska, 2017; Weeks et al, 2001; Weston, 1991), separated same-sex parents still experienced shame and embarrassment associated with a belief that their family practices troubled idealized understandings of the same-sex parented family. The pedestaling of parents’ relationships and families created added expectations and pressures and often led to parents feeling unable to acknowledge or reveal their ‘troubling’ separation to their communities.…”
Same-sex parented family research and academic literature has focused primarily on intact families and/or those created after a heterosexual divorce–their family models, methods of family creation and the fertility process, and the health and well-being of their children. Similarly, separation and divorce research and academic literature has focused primarily on opposite-sex parented families. To date, limited research has explored the experiences of same-sex parents who separated after having children within their relationship. This article reports on findings from a qualitative study of semi-structured in-depth interviews with 22 same-sex parents in Australia who had experienced parental separation and aims to contribute to a new phase of same-sex relationship and parenting research that explores divorce and separation. Participants were acutely aware that their separation and post-separation families troubled the social expectations and mores of the same-sex parented family by appearing to break unwritten rules, threatening to disrupt campaigns for social and political acceptance, and falling off an apparent pedestal that their families and relationships had been placed on. Separated same-sex parents were also concerned that their families would disrupt efforts to achieve social and political acceptance–and this created challenges with recruitment and interviewing techniques with male participants in particular. This article will demonstrate the pressure for same-sex parents to present an idyllic image of family. It will also discuss how, as a consequence of being seen as troubling, same-sex parental separation created experiences of isolation and invisibility for parents during and after their separation.
“…I will focus on the 1990s and early 2000s, as 2002 marked the beginning of a new stage in sexuality politics in Poland. The first public debate on same-sex partnership legislation (see for example Kochanowski, 2002; Milska-Wrzesińska, 2002), the first gay rights social campaign (2003), all accompanied by growing anxieties over the Polish 2004 EU accession, triggered a change in the public discourse on sexuality and gender which has already been examined (Gawlicz and Starnawski, 2004; Graff, 2006, 2010; Mizielińska, 2011; Mizielińska and Stasińska, 2017). In contrast, the 1990s and the turn of the 21st century remain understudied years, often regarded as a time before gay visibility and the politicization of sexuality—before the struggles started to resonate in the media.…”
The article studies the meanings of drag in the Polish media in the period 1989–2002. A textual analysis of mainstream as well as gay and lesbian media texts on drag queens was conducted to examine strategies that explained and legitimated drag in the context of the westernization of Polish culture, the socioeconomic changes of the 1990s, and the politics of respectability of the early Polish gay rights movement. The article shows that drag lacked the western political meanings that focused on gender performativity and gay rights; instead, it assumed connotations specific to the time and place. Drag queens turned out to embody the socioeconomic changes and widely shared class and geopolitical aspirations related to the 1990s westernization of Poland, but they also attested to the persisting distance between Poland and the imagined West. The article calls for critical attention when applying western theoretical concepts to the East.
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