Exiles of Heteronormativity: Queer Reproduction and Female Same-Sex Families in Singapore

Nur 'Adlina Maulod, Purdue University

Abstract

In Singapore, same-sex desires and practices are treated as antithetical to the Family. This dissertation challenges the rhetorical monolith of the traditional family by documenting intimate stories of alternative reproduction from the experiences of female citizens who have been treated as exiles of heteronormative kinship. My ethnographic research delves into the rich narratives of fourteen Singaporean Malay and Chinese queer and cisgender women and five Malay masculine-identified female-bodied (butch) individuals who are presently co-parenting, planning to have children or have raised children with a same-sex partner. I explore how participants acquire children and construct forms of relatedness in a country where homosexuality has yet to be decriminalized and social reproductive policies heavily restrict citizens, especially women, from pursuing non-traditional paths to family, that the state defines as being legally married, and raising children in a stable family unit. I found three distinct patterns of alternative reproduction among my research participants: a) Heterogendered families of working-class masculine-identified Malay butch fathers who partner with feminine, and often, heterosexual-identified unwed or divorced mothers, b) Middle-class Chinese lesbian co-mothers who acquire motherhood through Assisted Reproduction Technologies (ART) and c) Malay and Chinese lesbian/bisexual women who are either raising or planning to raise biological children in single-mother households. Participants’ diverse routes to achieving parenthood suggest the significance of race, class as well as gendered sexual subjectivities in assembling particular “chosen” family forms. This dissertation intervenes in contemporary queer scholarship on lesbian-led households which tends to focus on sexuality as the primary mode of organizing non-normative family life. I demonstrate how same-sex families experience multiple and intersectional forms of reproductivemarginalization that is not only specific to sexuality. Their diverse social locations reveal complex practices of heteronormative power and social exclusions in Singapore. Participants’ intimate narratives of reproduction and same-sex family forms raise intriguing questions about structures of compulsory heterosexuality and maternity in Singapore. In this dissertation, I introduce the framework of ‘gendered reproductive habitus’ to examine individuals’ socialized dispositions pertaining to desiring, conceiving, birthing and caregiving of children. Participants, in taking into consideration the cultural and personal stakes of raising children with a same-sex partner, enact particular tacit or explicit alternative kinship strategies in becoming a mother/father while. I analyse the ways in which their gendered reproductive habitus reinforces stratified forms of reproduction, corresponding to intertwining inequalities of race, class, gender and sexuality. How do participants consolidate their same-sex family desires with the misalignment of gender and family norms? My research examines the elasticity of participants’ gendered reproductive habitus evidenced through the ways in which they re-traditionalize kinship structures despite varying strategies of conformity to or transformation of these norms. How same-sex partners and ‘blood’ relatives distribute domestic labor and manage finances highlight particular arrangements of family power. I explore how class and gender differentials between partners and their natal households are crucial to the production of domestic inequalities. Participants’ household practices and dynamics of family power further explicates the vulnerability of single-mother daughters and non-biological parents in non-legally recognized families. Are female-headed households, in the absence of male husbands, free from patriarchy and male privilege? Do participants’ non-normative practices of parenthood as lesbian mothers or female fathers disrupt the gender stability of male-father and female-mother to signify the end of ‘normal’ families? By connecting both structural and practical enactments of family and the household, my dissertation explores the manifest affect of discursive heteronormative power to intimate sensibilities of belonging. To what extent does gendered social policies and norms (re)produce vulnerabilities based on monolithic ideas of acceptable families and proper motherhood? I examine the material implications of queering heteronormativity by asking how research participants view their sense of self-worth as members of Singapore society. Through my emphasis on non-normative family diversity, this dissertation hopes to sharpen rights-based strategies for family inclusion and equal citizenship entitlements by recognizing all routes and desires for family as equally legitimate.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Blackwood, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Cultural anthropology|Asian Studies|LGBTQ studies|Individual & family studies|Gender studies

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