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The first two sections of this chapter summarize feminist and lesbian critiques of the family, marriage, and motherhood. The third section critiques lesbian‐feminist reasons for eschewing a political agenda that endorses family, marriage, and mothering. The fourth section traces the historical construction of lesbians and gays as outlaws to the family. In the concluding section, it is argued that making the family a political priority is not, as sometimes argued, a conservative move.

This introductory chapter lays the groundwork for future chapters by suggesting that feminist theorizing must make a methodological shift from thinking that heterosexism is just a by‐product of sexism, to thinking of lesbian and gay subordination as a separate axis of oppression that intersects with gender, race, and class axes of oppression. It also introduces the two central features of lesbian and gay subordination. The first of these is that the principal damaging effect of a heterosexist system is that it displaces lesbians and gays from both the public and private spheres of civil society so that they have no legitimated social location. The second is that the principal ideologies rationalizing lesbian and gay displacement are that there are only two natural and normal sexes/genders; that lesbian and gay sexuality is excessive, compulsive, and disconnected from romantic love; and that, for a variety of reasons, lesbians and gays are unfitted for marital and family life. The last part of the chapter makes general remarks on how the book fits into the essentialist–constructionist controversy.

This chapter focuses largely on lesbian feminist theorizing in the 1980s. It is argued that feminist theorizing on gender oppression has worked to conceal, rather then reveal, lesbian specificity. An attempt is made to determine what it is in feminist thinking that makes it difficult to see the lesbian in the feminist subject of woman, so that she is regarded as a ‘not‐woman’, and also as the quintessential form of feminist revolt against patriarchy because she refuses to be heterosexual. It is argued that this placement of resistance to patriarchy at the heart of what it means to be a lesbian is wrong.

This chapter focuses largely on lesbian feminist theorizing in the 1990s, and argues that although it was committed to articulating differences between women, it nevertheless failed to make room for fully lesbian feminist theorizing. The assumption is challenged that if only feminist thinking began from the right conception of ‘woman’, it would then be adequate to the task of theorizing lesbians.

It is argued that lesbian and gay subordination differs substantially in form from gender and racial oppression. In particular, it does not materialize in a disadvantaged place that would sharply reduce the access of lesbians and gay men as a group to basic social goods. Instead, lesbians and gays are systematically displaced to the outside of civil society so that they have no legitimized place, not even a disadvantaged one. The displacement occurs because of the requirement that all citizens adopt at least the appearance of a heterosexual identity as a condition of access to the public sphere. Various aspects of this displacement are addressed in detail.

The positive arguments for same‐sex marriage are discussed. The first argument links marriage rights to a normative ideal of long‐term, monogamous, sexually faithful intimacy, and defends marriage rights based on the value of that ideal. The second argument presses the connection between homophobia and sexism, stressing the way that securing same‐sex marriage rights might reduce sexism. The third argument links the denial of marriage rights to the cultural construction of gay men and lesbians as outsiders to the family, who are for that reason defective citizens. In pursuing this third line of argument, the US House and Senate arguments supporting the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996 are addressed.

Recent vocal and vociferous anti-transgender messages parallel historical attacks aimed at gay men and lesbians throughout the 20th century. Back then, many people described gay and lesbian people as pedophiles, sexual deviants, unnatural, or mentally ill. Both historically and today, opponents to transgender equality often call into question the legitimacy of transgender identity, dismissing transgender people as predatory, deviant, a threat to the natural order, or mentally ill. While there are parallels between public opinion toward gay men and lesbians then and transgender people today, this chapter discusses three significant differences: the nature and structure of public opinion, the role of media portrayals, and the impact of interpersonal contact with outgroups. The chapter addresses each in turn, describing how the past, present, and future of transgender rights differ from those of rights for gay men and lesbians.