Parenting without Protection: How Legal Status Ambiguity Affects Lesbian and Gay Parenthood

Abstract

Through the lens of lesbian and gay parenthood we ask how individuals who experience “legal status ambiguity”—that which emerges when legal fluctuations combine with divided attitudes, ignorance of the law, and autonomous institutional gatekeepers—exercise their legal rights and responsibilities. The results from thirty-one interviews with lesbian and gay parents in Oregon and their six adult children suggest that the state's fluctuating legal and social climates for lesbian and gay parenting between 1985 and 2013 presented significant challenges for two generations of same-sex parents. Although both cohorts created and utilized a range of legal and social mechanisms to assert their legal rights, they found these rights to be controlled as much by gatekeeper perspectives as by legal force. After the 2015Obergefellruling on marriage equality, lesbian and gay parenting status remains a site of ongoing legal and social contestation, providing insight into the risks and challenges of legal status ambiguity.