ABSTRACT
The conceptions and ways of family living of four lesbian women who have children were investigated. An open interview was used for data collection and its analysis was based on the critical phenomenological method. The results showed that: (a) strategies for access to parenting (adoption, co-parenting and previous heterosexual relationships) are diverse and they both represent the heterosexual binarity, and distort its nature; (b) family was characterized as an affective and protective space; and (c) the legalization of marriage was perceived as a way to ensure social and legal rights. The plurality and complexity of these families are highlighted, at the same time the impracticality to draw only one conception on families with homosexual parents is shown as well.
Keywords:
family; homosexual parents; lesbian; marriage; gender