Why black lesbians marry — Cal State Fullerton researcher finds new answers
By WENDY FAWTHROP | Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: March 28, 2018 at 1:53 am | UPDATED: March 28, 2018 at 5:04 pm
When gay couples marry, many see it as striking a blow for equality and civil rights.
That’s largely a white, middle-class way of looking at it, says a Cal State Fullerton faculty member.
When black gay couples, especially women, marry, they see something different, said Siobhan Brooks, associate professor and co-chair of African American studies at Cal State Fullerton. She recently published a paper on how black lesbians view marriage.
“Unlike the white mainstream gay and lesbian marriage movement, which in addition to state benefits focuses on political visibility, black lesbian and bisexual women primarily view marriage as giving them community recognition as group members,” said Brooks. “Many black lesbians are fighting for racial community recognition, not state-sanctioned rights.”
Brooks’ study “Black on Black Love: Black Lesbian and Bisexual Women, Marriage, and Symbolic Meaning” was published in the winter issue of The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research.
Brooks became interested in the topic because she wasn’t hearing the voices of lesbians who married after the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in all the states. She thought it was important to explore the topic of marriage from a demographic that had historically been excluded from it, both as gay and as black.
“Prior to gay marriage many of us felt like our presence was tolerated in mainstream black spaces (i.e. churches, family settings, work), as long as it was not discussed,” Brooks said in an email. “Now we have language to talk about our relationships; when people talk about their spouses at work, we can also say that — it’s a cultural shift.”
What she found in her research and among black, gay people she knew was that marriage for them turned out not to be as much about gaining benefits on par with straight people — stressed by white activists — as about “being seen” within larger black social spaces: their family, their church and the greater black community.
In her previous research, Brooks has explored the intersections of sexuality, race, gender, class and mental health among LGBT, urban-identified black women. She received her doctorate in sociology from New School University and is the author of “Unequal Desires: Race and Erotic Capital in the Stripping Industry.”
For her most recent study, Brooks interviewed 10 black women — nine lesbian and one bisexual — in the Los Angeles/Orange County area, most raised by married parents.
She noticed three common themes:
By choosing a black woman as a partner, the women were reclaiming a black female identity they had been taught to devalue. Many acknowledged growing up with negative stereotypes of black women, especially those raised in predominantly white, middle-class neighborhoods.
As one woman told Brooks: “I was raised by strong black women. My grandmother was a nurse, at a time when not many women were. My mother was a teen when she had me, but I saw her working to support us. I see dating black women as an extension of strong black women.”
Being able to marry also brought the women more legitimacy within their religious communities, though they stressed that lingering homophobia in black churches still limited their sense of acceptance.
Said one woman who is engaged: “We are looking for LGBT churches to have our wedding; it would be great if they are black, but so far we have not found one. I want our union to be recognized in the eyes of my family, the way many of my relatives who are straight had their unions in a church. For us, our marriage means community acceptance.”
Finally, the women saw marriage as helping form stable relationships within their family and workplace.
One woman who had been married for a year said her marriage has granted her more respect from her coworkers: “When I say I am married, my coworkers take me more seriously, especially around discussions of gay and lesbian issues.”
The women viewed marriage as family and societal recognition of their relationships. Said one woman: As black people, we can no longer deny that LGBT people exist in our families, so gay marriage brings it out in the open. They are forced to acknowledge us, and our partners, even if they don’t agree with our marriage choices. This does not happen when LGBT people are only on television, because people still don’t think they are real.”
Brooks concludes that black lesbians’ choice of black women as marriage partners refutes stereotypes of black women as undesirable and supports notions of black racial pride. It also communicates that as lesbians they are still members of the larger black community. Connecting issues of race, class, gender and sexuality between the white mainstream LGBT movement and the race-based social movements of African Americans will make both movements stronger, Brooks writes.
“Black on Black Love: Black Lesbian and Bisexual Women, Marriage, and Symbolic Meaning” was published in the winter issue of The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research. “My hope is that the research opens up a dialogue to discuss the needs queer black women have as social issues (i.e. education, housing, decent employment),” Brooks said.
Brooks’ current research examines the family impact of hate crimes against LGBT black and Latino communities.
Siobhan Brooks, associate professor and co-chair of African American studies at Cal State Fullerton, recently published a paper on how black lesbians view marriage. (Photo courtesy of Cal State Fullerton)
https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/2...s-new-answers/