Locating lesbian parent families: Everyday negotiations of lesbian motherhood in Britain

Although there is some research on lesbian sexuality and space I contend that such analyses do not account for the ways in which lesbian parent families' actions and subjectivities are structured through the time-space nexus. The particularities of mothers' management of their maternal-sexual identities remain uncharted. In this article I interrogate how lesbian parent families negotiate everyday places, such as the street and schools and how they inhabit and produce space. I address their dis-location within academic studies, situating the home as critical in lesbian parents' consolidation of self. Home represents one of the few places where the sexual and maternal identities of lesbian parents may be reconciled. I suggest that the multiple identifications and subject positions of lesbian mothers and their families need to be acknowledged so that they may be included within the queer cartography of lesbian and gay space. The data cited in this article come from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 18 lesbian mothers and 13 of their children, who live across the Yorkshire region in the United Kingdom.