Lesbian and Gay Parents

The increasing visibility and presence of families headed by lesbians and gay men poses critical challenges to dominant notions of family. Yet psychological research has for the most part missed this challenge by conceptualizing lesbian and gay headed families as marginal and comparing them in a normative way to the heterosexual, nuclear model. In this paper I propose instead a social constructionist, feminist approach to research and clinical practice-an approach that places lesbian and gay headed families at the center, rather than on the margins. This approach eschews a priori theories, breaks down the binary researcher/subject opposition, and focuses on multiple, sometimes conflicting, narrative strands. I argue that such an approach yields new perspectives on the nature of social change, the relationship between individuals and culture, and the meaning of family.