- So hi Abbie, thank you so much for
coming to Smith, I'm really excited
to hear your lecture tonight,
and to have this opportunity to talk with you now.
- Thank you.
- And I know your body of research really well,
but I'm wondering if you could tell everyone who
will be watching this interview a little bit about
your area of research and your interests,
and maybe even some of your major findings.
- So, generally speaking my research focuses on
understudied families and the way that
I've kind of conceptualized my body of
work is really looking at families that
have been either invisible or
under served, so I've done work on invisible,
sexual minority women, mainly bisexual women,
partnered with men.
I've done work now, recently,
on gender nonconforming of gender-queer
college students who tend to be
either sort of subsumed under transgendered
college students, or just ignored completely.
And then I've done quite a bit of
work on lesbian and gay parents,
specifically adoptive parents,
who up until ten years ago, which I'll talk about,
were really not the focus of any research at all.
So, I've been following that particular group,
the adoptive parents, for over ten years,
and in terms of major findings,
not surprising to me, we found that
family structure is really not
a key variable in determining family outcomes,
so lesbian parents families, gay parent families,
and heterosexual parents families have
far more in common than
they actually sort of look different,
so rather, family process variable are
more important in determining child and
family outcomes, so things like level of
education of the parents, parental depression,
how old the child was at the age of adoption,
that has a lot more implications for
how families are doing than whether they're
a gay parent family or lesbian parent family.
- One of the things that I was really interested in
as I was reading what you and
other folks have written is that
historically a lot of the research on
LGBTQ families was, what I think you talked about
as being defensive, in that,
it was really aimed at sort of making that case,
or it looked like it was aimed at
making that case that children in
LGBTQ families do as well or better than
children in heterosexual families,
and that now, the research all of
a sudden is starting to move beyond that
child-level outcome piece.
And I'm wondering sort of about
what you think about in terms of your own research
with regard to social justice and
the social justice mission and
how that impacts your work.
- Well the early work really was
very important, I will say, in terms of
just establishing that, sort of,
the finding that I just talked about,
that, in fact, family structure,
either whether your parents are
lesbian or gay or heterosexual is
not actually relevant to your ability to parent,
so sexual orientation should not be
considered a relevant indicator of parental ability.
And we really needed those studies,
because in the early 70s, there were
lesbian identified women who were
losing custody to their heterosexual ex-husbands,
and so, a group of scholars knew that
it was really importan start to do some
preliminary research to try to establish that,
in fact, being a lesbian mom does not necessarily,
is not a bad thing, and it's not gonna
have detrimental effects on a child.
So, we were able to establish that,
and now there's really room to kind of
move on past that very basic question of
"Does growing up in a lesbian parent family,
you know, scar you for life?"
We know that that's not true.
So now we can ask more interesting questions.
So in my work, of course it's social justice oriented,
in terms of how I frame my questions.
Obviously in terms of how I interpret my findings,
so I would never say, I don't think most
serious social scientists would ever say that
their work is "objective" in kind of
the literal sense, that we're all
bringing lens to our work.
And so certainly, I approach my work with
a particular set of interests, questions,
assumptions, and so, yeah,
I mean the questions that I ask,
I don't ask, you know,
"How are children in lesbian and
gay parents families different than
children in heterosexual parent families?"
You know, I ask about, sort of
something a little bit more broader and more nuanced,
what are the unique strengths that
these children show, for example.
I don't ask, you know,
"Are children of lesbian and gay parents
more likely to be teased?"
I sort of want to understand, you know,
under what conditions are
they more likely to experience teasing.
And interpreting a finding like,
maybe they are more likely to be teased,
I don't assume that that's,
"Well, it's clearly bad for children to
be raised in lesbian and gay parent families,"
I don't pin that problem on the parents,
I pin the problem on society.
So if we do find that children are
more likely to be teased,
that's a problem with homophobia,
that's not a problem with parents.
- So you're really thinking about
how those findings are going to be used,
in media or in other settings.
- Absolutely.
And at the same time, if I find that
children are more likely to be teased,
that's a finding, so I may not like it,
I mean, it may not be what I hope to find,
but it is what it is,
and so, it's up to me and the other people
working with me to try to understand that,
and put it in a context that can
inform, you know, social policy,
public policy, and so on.
- So you were talking about, sort of,
where the research has been,
and sort of now where it's moving.
What do you think are the really new and
exciting sort of frontiers of your family research?
- Um, well we've gotten to the point where
we think we're less afraid of
asking some interesting and sometimes tough questions,
I mean, for example, you know,
it's important to look at the sort of
aspects of family life that
are not as maybe pleasant, intimate partner violence,
for example, in lesbian or gay parent families,
how might that be experienced differently,
are the supports and resources needed for
parents in those situations adequate?
Or are they largely heteronormative?
What kinds of, what's the experience,
for example, of transgender kids with
lesbian or gay parents, right, that may be a small number,
but that's certainly a unique sort of context to
grow up as a transkid and likewise to
be a lesbian or gay parent, parenting a transchild.
So looking kind of within some of
the more complicated,
and sometimes difficult topics, I think,
is really, really important.
Likewise, there's been really an assumption of
monogamy in a lot of relationship research,
and so looking at polyamorous parent family,
you know, poly families, I think,
is sort of an important area,
and there a few scholars who have
done some work in that area.
- And I've noticed that your work is sort of,
moving also, you were talking about
the study that, it sounds like,
is already underway.
- [Abbie] Mhmm.
- About gender non-conforming college students.
I'm curious what other projects you're,
sort of, have in the works at this point.
- Yeah, that is an exciting study,
because it really came out of work with students,
so really, teaching and working with
those research assistants, a lot of
students who were trans or gender non-conforming,
and really talking to them made me realize
the ways in which, even at Clark University,
which is a very, I think,
queer and trans sensitive school in many ways,
there were still ways in which those
students were not being, I think,
adequately served, and so we started
running focus groups and I have some
more formal interview with students to
kind of inform the development of the survey,
which we're now launching.
So that's one project, and then,
another project is a study of
bisexual women partnered with men
who are pregnant, and having a child,
and so, that study really focuses on
the ways in which those women's identities and
sexualities are often invisibleized and
marginalized, most people when they go to
their primary care doc or para natal healthcare provider,
if they're with a male partner,
a woman with a male partner who's pregnant,
is assumed to be straight.
So all the women in our study are
women who've had sexual relationships with
women in the last five years,
so these are recent and sometimes salient for them.
But nobody's asking about them.
So, as they become parents,
we're interested in sort of,
have their lives become more heteronormative,
kind of more, it becomes maybe harder to
disclose a bisexual or non-heterosexual identity,
and looking kind of over time at
how they might look different than
their parents in terms of how they raise their children,
their parenting values, and so on.
- It sounds like some of that is
looking at external systems too,
like the healthcare system and
how it responds and interacts with those women.
- Yeah, I'm very interested in healthcare,
school rules, the legal system,
all of the big contexts that affect families' lives.
Um, so, speaking of big context that
affect family life, we're living in
a time where the policy context for
same sex families in particular is
dramatically changing, and also where
there's been really discriminatory legislation that
affects trans and gender non-conforming,
folks as well, or people who identify as
trans or gender non-conforming.
And I'm, curious what you think
the next frontiers for policy and
civil rights work in these areas are.
- I mean, I think a huge one is
employment non-discrimination, laws which seem to
have a very hard time taking,
really sort of moving forward.
Obviously, that affects everybody,
it affects LGBTQ employees, it affects their children,
it affects their families, if people can't
be certain that they're not going to
lose their job because of gender,
a gender transition for example,
or their sexual orientation.
So that's super important.
I tend to be very interested in
thinking about schools and children,
and so, this is obviously,
there's been barriers to this,
but sort of more formalized efforts to
ensure that children are taught about
all different kinds of family structures,
sexual diversity, gender diversity,
I think would go a really long way in
helping to minimize and kind of
take root the kind of homophobia that,
of course, starts to develop in children really young,
so, there's all kind of barriers to that,
but generally speaking, I think,
programs that really affect children could go a long way.
- Probably most of our folks who are
gonna be viewing this video are
practitioners who are out in the field,
and sort, for you, are there things about
your research you would want them to know if
they're thinking about practice,
particularly with children and families?
- I think it comes down to
not making assumptions about the people that
you're working with, something that
comes up a lot in our bisexual women study,
that, people often make assumptions about
who they are, what their history is,
or what kind of, even if somebody finds
out they're bisexual, oh, there's a host of
assumptions that go along with that.
So it's important for families and
children that practitioners are never making assumptions.
As an example, I have worked with
a lot of kids with LGBTQ parents,
and when a kid goes to therapy,
usually they're asked "So tell me about
your mom and your dad."
So for a kid with queer parents,
that's instantly a way in which
they're being marginalized.
So even just not making the assumption that
the people that you're working with
have two parents, have a mom and a dad,
who knows, that could be from
a very complicated family structure,
they could be part of a poly family structure,
they could have an active donor dad,
there are so many different situations that
could come up, so not making those assumptions,
letting children, letting families tell
you their stories, finding out what language they prefer,
what words they use, what names they use,
what pronouns, all that is,
letting people speak for themselves,
as opposed to making assumptions.
- So, I teach research at Smith,
and one of the things we talk about a lot is,
how researchers identities, or a researcher's lens,
might impact their work.
And I'm curious what your thoughts are
about that in terms of your own work,
and work in this field in general.
- Yeah, I think about it, as kind of akin to
kind of therapy, is that,
obviously you're not going to share all of
your identities with your clients,
so, you know, that doesn't mean that
you can't form a really good rapport and
a good relationship with research participants.
I think it's important to maybe capitalize on
the commonalities that you do share,
but not sort of make them the forefront,
if that makes sense.
So it can be really helpful, for example,
if I'm talking to the research participant,
and they're telling me a funny parenting anecdote,
that I could laugh and share something similar,
but at the same time, some of my graduate students
are not parents, and so,
that doesn't preclude them from
being able to also laugh and offer
something funny about maybe their own childhood,
or something that they've observed in
children that they know, or, you know, family members.
I think, of course, if you're researching
a population, that is different from you,
and perhaps marginalized, it's really important that
you establish your participants as the experts,
and you let them know that you're really there to
learn from them, so I sort of think of
myself as kind of the, like, microphone or the megaphone,
like, you're the expert, you're talking,
and I'm hopefully gonna make your voices louder,
and package them in some way that's
going to be meaningful and helpful.
But I'm the storyteller, like you're the people,
I'm sort of the person who's like,
I'm like the editor, you're the storyteller,
if that makes sense.
And so, really being curious,
and really asking questions,
and letting people be the experts of their own stories.
And if it's a population you're not knowledgeable about,
making sure you have insiders who can
read your research questions, you know,
do some focus groups, do some sort of
practice interviews with people who
are sort of members of the population that
you want to study, before I launched
my study of trans college students,
I had many college students complete the survey,
give me feedback, I had many trans scholars
look at the survey, give me feedback,
and I wanted to feel like I was
absolutely in a position to feel good and
comfortable putting this out into the world.
And I'm really happy that I did that,
because that hard work did pay off,
and we're getting feedback like
"Wow, this survey is so affirming,
I haven't felt misgendered or marginalized, or,"
and that makes me feel so good.
I mean, I would feel horrible if
I was somehow putting out a product that
was not sensitive in some way,
so I think just making sure that
you do due diligence to talk to
people who really do know, are insiders, if you're not.
- And, sort of on that note,
in terms of thinking about research advice,
you have doc students I know that
work with you, but also thinking about,
PHD students at Smith who might see this video
do have sort of, dissertation ideas or
things that you think that doctoral students could
be asking or answering that would be
helpful to the body of research.
- I mean, I think intersectionality is
sort of a very broad topic,
but it kind of covers, I think,
all of the really nuanced areas that I think
could be really fruitful to study, so,
looking at, you know, racial minority
lesbian and gay parents for example,
that's an area that has not been studied.
Looking at people who have
sexual orientations or identities that
are marginalized who also occupy
other marginalized identities such as,
people with invisible and visible disabilities,
so, there's actually not a great kind of
emergence of disability studies and
kind of, queer parenting studies.
So that would be, I think really, really fruitful as well.
So I think there's just a lot of,
there's a lot of depth and nuance and
kind of crossing of identities,
that has just not been explored at all.
- Thank you so much for your time today,
and for coming to Smith, I know that
the community's very excited to
hear the lecture tonight,
and we really appreciate your time.
- Thank you.