How Non-Heteronormative Mothers Negotiate Meaning: Experiencing and Contextualizing “Invisibility”

Abstract

This article aims to shed light on how non-heteronormative mothers—whose child had been conceived via artificial insemination of one of them with the sperm of an anonymous donor— decode, experience, and make meaning of diverse (symbolic) dimensions of their social invisibility, as well as how their understandings of the category at hand have an impact on projecting and negotiating their roles as mothers (especially in case of those women who did not give birth to their children). Drawing on specific examples from the field, I analyze how—while acting within the context of anxiety exemplifying their non-existing legal status—non-heteronormative mothers construct the image of self against the backdrop of no ready-made role scripts available, as well as strive towards making oneself (socially) visible. The insights at hand are based on data collected during my six-year ethnographic study of planned non-heteronormative motherhood in Poland, where same-sex relationships are not legally recognized.

Do We Have the Right? How Polish Same-Sex Female Families Negotiate Turning Parenting Desires into Parenting Reality

“…LGBT community shaped their everyday life decisions, including leading some kind of a double life (also see: Mizielińska, Abramowicz, and Stasińska 2015). Her observations in that regard seem to be in line with the experiences of two-mother families in Poland, who often attempt to conceal the nature of their familial ties in front of certain people and in certain situations, for example, when acting within institutionalized or common public spaces (see, e.g., Wojciechowska 2014;2015;2020a;2020b;Mizielińska, Struzik, and Król 2017;Mizielińska and Stasińska 2020). According to the report on the "Attitude to People of Homosexual Orientation" (CBOS 2017:4):…”

“…Furthermore, the heteronormative culture-surfacing from social anxiety and discomfort related to how same-sex families challenge people's definition(s) of what can be framed as "traditional family" (Goldberg, Downing, and Richardson 2009)-is manifested in Polish law. As Wojciechowska (2014;2015;2020a;2020b) and Mizielińska, Struzik, and Król (2017) observe, it is at this level of their everyday acting where two-mother families experience their marginalization-invisibility-most severely.…”