Dolores J. Maggiore - Lesbians & Child Custody: A Casebook

GARLAND GAY AND LESBIAN STUDIES (VOL. 8)

GARLAND REFERENCE LIBRARY OF THE HUMANITIES (VOL. 769)

General Editor: Wayne R. Dynes

First published 1992 Garland Publishing

Published 2021 by Routledge

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Copyright 1992 Dolores J. Maggiore

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lesbians and child custody : a casebook / edited by Dolores J. Maggiore.

p. cm. (Garland reference library of the humanities ; vol. 769.

Garland gay and Lesbian studies ; vol. 8)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-8153-0229-0 (acid-free paper)

1. Lesbian mothersUnited States. 2. Custody of childrenUnited

States. 3. Lesbian mothersLegal status, laws, etc.United States. I.

Maggiore, Dolores J., 1947. II. Series: Garland reference library of the

humanities ; vol. 769. III. Series: Garland reference library of the humanities.

Garland gay and Lesbian studies; vol. 8.

HQ75.53.L47 1992

346.73017dc20

[347.30617]

92-5398
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-8153-0229-2 (hbk)

In a half century our understanding of homosexual behavior has been transformed. During the 1940s psychiatric and medical approaches dominated the subject. When not simply characterized as social pathology, same-sex behavior still ranked as an aberration, something to be overcome. Hence the emphasis on therapy or cures. Even then, though, change was in the air. The two Kinsey Reports of 1948 and 1953 not only revealed that the incidence of homosexual activity was much greater than previously thought but, by adopting neutral, nonjudgmental terminology, suggested that it lay within the normal range of human experience. This implicit assumption found confirmation in the research of a psychologist, Dr. Evelyn Hooker, who showed that using a random sample chosen from the general populationinstead of the clinical sample routinely employed at that timethe performance of homosexual subjects on objective tests was indistinguishable from that of heterosexual ones. In retrospect, the most startling innovation was the founding of the homophile movement by Henry Hay and others in Los Angeles in 1950. Bedeviled by growing pains and the hostile climate engendered by the McCarthyite trend, the movement evolved slowly. In 1969, however, in a climate of social ferment conditioned by the Civil Rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, the homophile movement turned a comer, a development symbolized by the Stonewall Riots in New York City.

The ensuing decades saw not only a torrent of publicationsso many that bibliographers can scarcely keep up with thembut also a decisive shift in the center of gravity. Major works that could not be ignored now appeared under the authorship of open, proud gay men and lesbians. No longer was gay life described as a remote, exotic phenomenon, but directly by those who had actually experienced it and who had no hesitation in saying so. They yielded to we. In an effort to correct previous distortions, some of these writings erred on the side of advocacy. Today, however, thanks to the mingling of many voices, a balance is being struck that is moving rapidly toward consensus. Another shift was away from present-minded social science toward a new emphasis on cultural themes. Gay men and lesbians, it was increasingly recognized, had made immense contributions to the worlds of literature and drama, art and music, film and photography. Scholars could chart the role of the sexuality of many creative figures. Moreover, scrutiny of records from other culturesIslam, China, and Japan, as well as a host of tribal cultures known from the field work of ethnographerssignaled the need for an understanding of same-sex behavior as a worldwide phenomenon. The new climate of acceptance revitalized the older approaches of sociology and psychology. Even those in the natural sciences, which insofar as they had addressed the subject at all were hostile, reentered the arena with interesting though often still speculative contributions in the realms of sociobiology and constitutional biology.