On being acceptable: State sanction, race privilege and lesbian and gay parents

Abstract

'Positive' representations of lesbian and gay parents within the media continue to draw parallels between the experiences of heterosexual parents and those of lesbian and gay parents. Such comparisons are typically aimed at 'proving' that lesbian and gay parents are acceptable parents. There is, however, most often a failure to examine how race mediates representations of the category 'parent', the result being that references to 'parents' typically refer to white parents. The category parent is thus built upon a series of exclusions, ones with which white lesbian and gay parents may unwittingly be complicit. Through an examination of both a radio interview with the Australian Prime Minister John Howard and newspaper reports focusing on lesbian and gay parents, I explore how white heterosexual parenting becomes the norm from which white lesbian and gay parents are at times excluded, but to which those of us who identify as such parents may at times aspire. Examining the race privilege of white lesbian and gay parents, and developing an ethical framework through which to claim rights, may be one way of engaging with the problematic representation of lesbian and gay parents more broadly.