Concealment, Selectivity and Pride: Stories and Practices of Lesbian-Parent Families in their Relationship with School

Abstract

This article emphasizes the experience of lesbian-parent families from the point of view of the strategies that mothers develop in their relationship with the school institution, considering the persistence of different forms of discrimination, both overt and subtle. Through a qualitative study carried out in the Metropolitan Region with a total of 20 self-identified lesbian women with school-age children, it was possible to gain access to different experiences of inclusion and exclusion in schools. As the results show, lesbian mothers develop strategies to make their identity visible at school, ranging from total concealment to proud presentation of themselves, which may vary over time and between the different institutions to which the couples have access. This definition of strategies, however, is not the result of purely individual initiative: it depends on the reading of a complex context in which the actors of the school community interact, as well as the expectations regarding the inclusion of their sons and daughters in the different establishments. It is the individualization of decisions that shows how the current policy of inclusion of sex-generic diversity still has margins of possible deepening.