July 2014
Queering Motherhood: Narrative
and Theoretical Perspectives
Edited by Margaret F. Gibson
Few words are as steeped in beliefs about gender, sexuality, and
social desirability as “motherhood”. Drawing on queer, postcolonial,
and feminist theory, historical sources, personal narratives, film
studies, and original empirical research, the authors in this book
offer queer re-tellings and re-examinations of reproduction, family,
politics, and community. The list of contributors includes emerging
writers as well as established scholars and activists such as Gary
Kinsman, Damien Riggs, Christa Craven, Cary Costello, Elizabeth
Peel, and Rachel Epstein.
Queering Motherhood: Narrative and Theoretical Perspectives
crosses international, theoretical, and disciplinary boundaries to address
provocative questions such as:
•How do institutions regulate queer conception, pregnancy, and
parenting?
•What do narratives of transgender parents reveal about dominant
child-rearing practices and everyday alternatives?
•Can queer theories help us understand and critique motherhood as
an institution, ideology, and political strategy?
•How do media and film representations re-inscribe or resist dominant
beliefs about reproduction and child-rearing?
•Has “queer respectability” limited our thinking about raising children
and creating community?
•What can experiences of intersex pregnancy reveal about medical
ideology?
•How do hierarchies of race, class, dis/ability, and nation shape
experiences of queer parenting?
•Do eroticism and desire belong within the theory, representation,
and practice of motherhood?
•Is ‘queerness’ found in families, individuals, relationships, histories,
theories, or somewhere else entirely?
In the process of “queering” motherhood, this collection asks us
to reconsider and redefine some of the most fundamental relationships,
institutions, and truths of social life.
Margaret F. Gibson is a social worker, researcher, and queer mother.
Her research interests include parenting, disability, sexuality, queer
and feminist theory, the history of medicine, and critical social work
practice. She is currently completing her doctorate in social work at
the University of Toronto. Margaret’s work has appeared in publications
including Culture, Health & Sexuality, The British Journal of
Social Work, Disability Studies, The Canadian Social Work Review,
The Journal of Women’s History, Clinical Social Work,
and Signs: A Journal of Women and Culture.
July 2014
250 pages $34.95
ISBN 978-1-927335-31-4
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