Are the Parents Alright? Examining "Parental Rights" of 2SLGBTQIA+ Children.


Andrew Chapados, University of Windsor

Canada guarantees the legal protection of rights for 2SLGBTQIA+ (Heritage Canada, 2022). However, advances guaranteeing the rights of marginalized groups do not guarantee a society welcomes or respects them. The 2SLGBTQIA+ community face ongoing threats, violence, and social exclusion. Hate crimes against people due to their sexual status are among the highest in Canada (Abramovich, 2012). Sexual minority individuals often face harm from family members, peer groups, state institutions, and faith communities. Heterosexual parents of 2SLGBTQIA+ children experience similar fears of rejection from society (Riggs et al., 2023). This can be helpfully understood through the concept of “symbolic violence” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) as a form of non-physical violence that is imposed on minority groups by a dominant one. Recent public discourse that discusses whether specific identities should be “allowed” to have rights by the dominant group has the effect of constructing populations that Foucault (2012) describes as “normal and abnormal”; one is accepted and the other is excluded or a target of domination. The case of the parent of an affirming parent of 2SLGBTQIA+ children is unique in that they are initially categorized as “normal” but they become an “abnormal” body once they perform the duty of parents, which accords with the dominant ideology of love. This paper analyzes and explains the experience of heterosexual parents who affirm their 2SLGBTQIA+ child. Through my own experience as the parent of a transgender youth and interviews with other parents, along with a discourse analysis examining authoritative discourse problematisations, I examine how issues surrounding sexual status are framed in public discourse and the impact it has on parents of sexual minorities, how parents experience social hostility directed at their children and themselves, examine and propose what post-queer belonging looks like for parents, and analyze the limits of “rights-based” approaches and legalism in light of recent public discourse on “parental rights” regarding the education system. Ridgeway (2009) theorizes that gender is a primary frame for organizing social life. People expect others to know how to act in society according to their gender categorization. The parent who affirms their child’s sexual minority status thus works against the assumed norm of society. The parent then experiences the possibility of their own social exclusion as well as fears of what their child will experience. This paper draws on Bourdieu’s theoretical concept of symbolic violence, Foucault’s theory of sexuality, aspects of Queer theory, and Ridgeway’s concept of gender-framing. I show how parents of 2SLGBTQIA+ move from being constructed as “normal bodies” to “abnormal” because they affirm their children and seek to provide them with a safe social space. The dominant ideology of the family in Western society normalizes parental love and protection of children. Parents of sexual minorities face pressure from society to do the opposite in order to remain “normal”. Ridgeway (2009) suggests however, that members of subgroups who share alternative beliefs about gender learn to negotiate social relations differently when they are together, thus creating new possibilities of “normal”. Parents who affirm their 2SLGBTQIA+ children learn to navigate social life, in light of the discourse on “parental rights”, establishing new norms as they work .

This paper will be presented at the following session: