In
Radical Relations, Daniel Winunwe Rivers offers a
previously untold story of the American family: the first history
of lesbian and gay parents and their children in the United States.
Beginning in the postwar era, a period marked by both intense
repression and dynamic change for lesbians and gay men, Rivers
argues that by forging new kinds of family and childrearing
relations, gay and lesbian parents have successfully challenged
legal and cultural definitions of family as heterosexual. These
efforts have paved the way for the contemporary focus on family and
domestic rights in lesbian and gay political movements.
Based on extensive archival research and 130 interviews conducted
nationwide,
Radical Relations includes the stories of
lesbian mothers and gay fathers in the 1950s, lesbian and gay
parental activist networks and custody battles, families struggling
with the AIDS epidemic, and children growing up in lesbian feminist
communities. Rivers also addresses changes in gay and lesbian
parenthood in the 1980s and 1990s brought about by increased
awareness of insemination technologies and changes in custody and
adoption law.