An Exploration of the Influence of Lesbian Parents on Their Children’s Gender Conformity
Family and LGBTQ+ researchers have had an interest in lesbian parented families since the 1970s (Bozett, 1987; Chan et al., 1998; Golombok et al., 1983; Green, 1978; Kirkpatrick et al., 1981; Miller, 1979), including any impact on the children of these families. Common areas of research in this area included gender socialisation, psychological development and social adaptation (Berkowitz, 2009; Clarke, 2002; Clarke and Kitzinger, 2005). This literature review focusses on the existing research in this area, to explore the influence of lesbian parents on their children’s gender conformity (Berkowitz and Ryan, 2011; Bos and Sandfort 2010; Garwood and Lewis, 2019; Goldberg, 2010; Gonzalez and Lopez-Gavino, 2023). This research was analysed alongside relevant legislation and policy, which enabled a critical review of the existing themes in the literature. Findings from this critical analysis suggest that lesbian parents are able to resist heteronormative assumptions through challenging gender stereotypes (Goldberg, 2007), and that, whilst research pre-2007 suggested that lesbian parents raised gender conforming children (Anderssen et al., 2002; Kane, 2006), advancements in language and understanding in more recent studies have challenged this notion (Averett, 2016; Teo et al., 2022).
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations