“Always Thinking About Safety”: African American Lesbian Mothers’ Perceptions of Risk and Well‐being

Abstract

Although there is a growing body of knowledge focusing on lesbian families and their parenting experiences, African American lesbian mothers are often underrepresented in research. This qualitative exploratory study aims to understand the constructions and perspectives of African American lesbian mothers, from an urban East Coast area, on risk and well‐being. Fifteen in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted and analyzed at the end of 2016, coinciding with the presidential election yielding main themes that were significant for the participants pertaining to the mothers’ experiences and construction of the challenges and risks to well‐being. Main themes first focused on discrimination and insensitivity in everyday spaces; then moved into the effects of political climate on perceived safety and security, conditions and unintended consequences of the coming out process; and ended with strategies for reducing risk. Adoption of an intersectional framework to discuss our findings allowed us to explore the ways in which multiple identities engage to shape experiences and constructions of risk and well‐being among African American lesbian parents. The results suggest the importance of context (e.g., political, historical, gender‐related, racial) when working with LGBTQ+ families of color.

Queering family trees: Race, reproductive justice, and lesbian motherhood by Sandra Patton‐Imani

“…The coalitions working toward intersectional and queer reproductive justice cannot forget about the simultaneous impacts on those of differing identities, especially in the face of increasing discriminatory, White‐supremacist policies and rhetoric that flourished under the presidency of Donald Trump (Price, 2018; Radis & Nadan, 2021). In Radis and Nadan's (2021) study, African American lesbian mothers discussed concerns around the political climate, both in terms of societal attitudes and their rights as citizens. Not only could their governments deny them citizenship and legitimacy (based on their “choices”), but so could the individuals in the communities in which they lived.…”

“…Regardless of intersecting identities, these queer mothers face uncertainty and ambiguity in seeking citizenship and belonging while doing family. They also worry about being stripped of their rights (see Radis & Nadan, 2021). Patton‐Imani provides various timelines detailing same‐sex marriage and family law policies from 1970 to 2015.…”

“…Are their families still illegitimate? Some participants in Radis and Nadan's (2021) study on African American lesbian mothers' perceptions of safety in their family discussed the negative financial consequences of the legalization of same‐sex marriage. For some, the loss of benefits as a single person experiencing poverty or income insecurity would not outweigh the gained benefits of being legally married.…”

Exploring Black Women’s Pathways to Motherhood Within a Reproductive Justice Framework

“…In regards to the second tenet, we highlight Black women's decision-making process about mothering; including the choices they make around contraception and pregnancy termination. Finally, we consider how Black women's pathways to motherhood occur in relation to their proximal (e.g., neighborhoods) and distal contexts (e.g., racial and sociopolitical climate of the country), as well as their available networks of instrumental and personal support (Elliott et al, 2015; Radis & Nadan, 2021). To situate our study within the growing literature on health equity and reproductive justice, we provide a brief review of the legacy of structural misogynoir (i.e., the ways in which racism and sexism intersect to produce racialized gendered harm against Black women and girls; Bailey & Trudy, 2018) in relation to Black women’s reproductive capacity in the United States (U.S.).…”

An overview of coming out research: Introducing a three‐lens typology

“…Thus, many researchers adopted an intersectionality perspective to explore how the intersections of sexuality, gender, and other social categories of difference produce different coming out experiences, while considering various axes of oppression and privilege. The most dominant categories of difference considered in coming out studies in intersection with sexuality and gender (LGBTQ+) are: race and ethnicity (e.g., Adams‐Santos, 2020; Boe et al., 2018; Bowleg et al., 2008; Chazin & Klugman, 2014; Cisneros & Bracho, 2019; Fisher, 2003; Ford, 2017; Garvey et al., 2019; Gattamorta & Quidley‐Rodriguez, 2018; Keene et al., 2021; Leung, 2021; Logie et al., 2015; Mezey, 2008; Radis & Nadan, 2021; Thomsen, 2021; Uppal & Kelly, 2020; Wang, 2021), class (e.g., Barglowski et al., 2018; Lewis, 2012; Mezey, 2008), age (e.g., Lewis, 2012; Wilson et al., 2018), disabilities (e.g., Chazin & Klugman, 2014; Pieri, 2021), religion (e.g., Chazin & Klugman, 2014; Gold & Stewart, 2011; Shurts et al., 2020), professional identities (e.g., El Amoor, 2019; Ford, 2017), national identities (e.g., Bie & Tang, 2016), and polyamory (e.g., Gusmano, 2018).…”