Book Event - Daniel Rivers -Radical Relations: The History of Lesbian Mothers, Gay Fathers, and their Children in the United States

Date
Wed May 27th 2015, 5:00 - 6:30pm
Event Sponsor
Clayman Institute for Gender Research
Location
Stanford University 424 Santa Teresa Street Levinthal Hall, School of Humanities 94305 Stanford, CA
Book Event - Daniel Rivers -Radical Relations: The History of Lesbian Mothers, Gay Fathers, and their Children in the United States

Please join us for a book event on May 27th for Professor Daniel Rivers on his book Radical Relations: The History of Lesbian Mothers, Gay Fathers, and their Children in the United States. Contrary to popular perception, lesbian and gay childrearing is not a novel phenomenon; lesbian mothers and gay fathers are visible in the historical record since at least the Second World War. Before the era of gay and lesbian liberation movements, these parents and their children were invisible in a culture that saw them as a categorical impossibility based on a definition of the family as always heterosexual. After the rise of widespread and highly visible gay and lesbian political movements following the Stonewall Riots of 1969, lesbian mothers and gay fathers came under increasing scrutiny and often had their parenting rights taken away by custody courts. As a result, lesbian mothers and gay fathers organized across the country, arguing for a new, non-heterosexual definition of the family. This lecture will chart this history through six decades, and show how it undergirds current political, legal, and cultural struggles over LGBT domestic, parental, and marital rights. 

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