The Gender Buffet

What is it about?

Parents, in general, tend to prefer gender-typical behavior in their children. Research has shown that in part, this is due to a fear of children developing/expressing a non-heterosexual orientation or identity later in life. This paper asks: do LGBTQ parents have this same fear, and preference? Based on interviews with LGBTQ parents in Massachusetts and Texas, this article shows that these parents use a strategy that I call "The Gender Buffet" to offer their children a variety of options for gendered toys, activities, and self-expression, in the hopes of not limiting their children to a strict binary gender identity or expression. Still, they do this within a social world that constrains them in many ways, and parents with differing levels of privilege experience this constraint differently.

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Why is it important?

This paper demonstrates that LGBTQ parents draw on their own experiences of being "queer" in a heteronormative world to creatively parent their children against the norm with respect to gender. The article coins the term "The Gender Buffet" as a way of understanding the way that parents try to offer children a variety of options for expressing themselves, rather than restricting their experience and expression of gender. This paper is especially important because it moves us away from the typical deficit narrative of LGBTQ parents by demonstrating the advantages these parents may have in creatively parenting their children.

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