Abstract

This dissertation investigates the everyday, lived worlds of a small number of American families headed by gay co-fathers in Los Angeles, California, and in Provincetown, Massachusetts, to understand how they sustain themselves as families in the absence of the rights, legal protections and institutional support systems typically afforded American families headed by opposite sex parents. Existing research on gay fathers has focused primarily on issues of gay identity development and disclosure among previously married men who became fathers within contexts of heterosexual unions. Few studies have documented the ordinary lives of openly gay male couples who have created families within the contexts of established domestic partnerships.

In an effort to document their lives as parents and as members of larger family and community networks, I conducted a series of face-to-face, semi-structured, person-centered interviews with individual fathers to capture first person accounts of personal experience, and I utilized video-ethnographic and discourse- and conversation analytic methods to analyze families' naturally occurring conversations and interactions at home, and within various communities. I also drew upon additional interviews and questionnaires administered as part of a larger study on the everyday lives of working families.

Research findings reveal that gay co-father families sustain themselves by (1) establishing and maintaining close ties with extended female kin, both biological as well as chosen; (2) establishing and nurturing relationships with neighbors, caregivers and school personnel in mainstream, home communities; (3) coalescing as a situated community among other gay co-father families, while on a vacation retreat for gay and lesbian families; (4) addressing challenges to their legitimacy as families and their efficacy as primary caregivers from their own families, as well as from members of the public.