Normalized family discourses interrupted, once married mother-lesbians

grantor: University of TorontoThis thesis explores the ways in which identity (trans)formations develop within/amongst/between familial relationships embedded in discourses of heteronormativity. I assert that identities, and the relationships we form as a result of how we identify, are influenced by historically, socially and politically specific constructions. As we "perform" our identities, we shape, shift and alter heteronormative discourses. In turn, our processes of identification are shaped by the complexities of those very discourses. I interviewed women who, earlier in their lives had children in heterosexual marriages. Later in their lives, as their identities shifted they have had intimate, sexual relationships with women. Their stories contain extremes of agony and joy as they negotiate their shifting identities in a heterosexist society. They have faced their fears of losing their children, living in poverty and being expelled from their communities as they reconfigure their lives to reflect their changing identities. Sometimes their fears were, thankfully, "only" imagined. Other times they were painfully realized. Their transition "from wedded wife to lesbian life"$\sp1$ put them in touch with identities they had previously resisted as a result of living within discourses of heteronormative ideologies. ftn$\sp1$I take this phrase from the title of a book by Deborah Abbott and Ellen Farmer (1995).M.A