Parenting and Parting in Lesbian and Gay Households

This book provides a social anthropological analysis of how same-sex couples navigate family founding, family disassembling and post-divorce parenting. Offering a collection of 20 personal accounts of lesbian and gay individuals describing how they partnered, became parents—through adoption, gamete donation, gestational surrogacy or co-parenthood—and eventually disassembled their families, the book explores how same-sex couples, in collaboration with relatives, friends, policymakers, and judges, form and transform their parenting while negotiating custody arrangements. Investigating how genetics, law and perpetuity emerge as the central pillars of post-separation same-sex parenting, chapters elucidate foundational issues that span a wide variety of families’ dynamics. The book will be of interest to researchers in gender studies, politics and gender, family studies, family law, and social policy as well as to interested lay readers.