Part One is the Links:

Societys conception of family is deeply entrenched in

heteronormativity. Society conceives of family as a married man and
a woman with straight children, anything else isnt worthy of
attention.
Hudak, Jacqueline, and Shawn V. Giammattei. "Doing family: Decentering
heteronormativity in marriage and family therapy." Critical Topics in
Family Therapy. Springer International Publishing, 2014. 105-115.
What would family therapy teaching and training look like if we were to deconstruct the core concept of family? In this essay, we begin that conversation by addressing the issue of heteronormativity and the profound impact it has upon the ways we think about and legitimize

The words marriage and family,

are central to some of the
most fiercely debated issues of our time
), there remains no definition of family in the public consciousness
that refers to same-sex couples with children .
In contrast to these
cultural shifts,
{we continue} to engage in heteronormative discourses
seen clearly,
by the frequency with which the language of marriage
couple and family is used
without naming heterosexuality
attention must be given to the importance of cultural discourses and
language as they shape and impact the conception of both reality and
legitimacy
This silence around heterosexuality maintains it as the default
position, a position of dominance and superiority
, the descriptive terms,
couple, or family refers to heterosexual couples or heterosexual families.
Then there are couples and families who have to be named gay or lesbian
because otherwise they are invisible. Within these heteronormative
discourses, heterosexuality and heterosexual forms of relating are considered
the norm.
relationships.

the nomenclature of our profession,

. Despite the increased visibility of gay men and lesbian women, and the increasingly younger ages at which youth come out (Savin-

Williams, 2005; Tanner & Lyness, 2003

In fact, in the not too distant past, the notions of lesbian mother, gay father or lesbian/gay family would have been

nonexistent and the constitutive terms seen as mutually exclusive. We are further challenged to incorporate the discourses of a younger generation that refuses to define itself within the binary construction of sexual identity and chooses instead to live out narratives of queerness,
heteroflexibility, ambisexuality (Morris, 2006; Savin-Williams, 2005). Current research (Diamond, 2008a, 2008b) compels us to incorporate the idea of sexual fluidity into our thinking about life trajectories.

our field continues

for example,

in theory, training, and conference plenaries

. As postmodern

theorists have posited,

(Bruner, 2002; Flax, 1990, Harding 1990; Lather, 1992; Hare-Mustin, 1994, 2004). What is silenced or left unsaid is of tremendous consequence. As Rachel Hare-Mustin (1994) stated, We do not only use language, it uses us. Language is recursive:

it provides the categories in which we think, (p. 22).

. For example

This maintains the illusion that only LGBT individuals have a sexual orientation and that it is unnecessary to examine the development of heterosexuality. As post-modern, feminist family therapists, we begin by situating ourselves in relation to this

work. I (Jacqueline), one of the authors, am a second generation, European-American, middle-class woman who has practiced and taught family therapy since the early 1990s, always with a focus on issues of gender, power, diversity and social justice. I was in a heterosexual marriage
for thirteen years and am the mother of two children. In my mid- forties, I divorced and became partnered with a woman, necessitating that I come out to my children, family, and community. I (Shawn), the other author, am a second generation Italian-American, upper middle-class
married man who has practiced family therapy since 2000. I have been teaching family therapy and specifically about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues in therapy since 2002. Similar to Jacquelines, my work always has a focus on gender, power, diversity, community, and
social justice. I have identified with the LGBT community since I was very young, but have spent many years trying to be normal and straight for my family. I have had long-term, significant relationships over the years with people of different genders. If pushed to choose a category,

heteronormativity
{is} the dominant
and pervasive belief that a viable family consists of a heterosexual mother
and a father raising heterosexual children together
each of us would identify as queer because that best represents the fluidity of our life trajectories and who we are today. We contend that

, defined as

(Gamson, 2000), is an organizing principle that shapes and constrains family therapy theory,

practice, research and training. Perlesz, Brown, Lindsay, McNair, deVaus and Pitts (2006) make the following distinction between it and heterosexism: We have defined heteronormativity as the uncritical adoption of heterosexuality as an established norm or standard. Heterosexism is
the system by which heterosexuality is assumed to be the only acceptable and viable life option and hence to be superior, more natural and dominant (p. 183). Aptly described by Oswald, Blume and Marks (2005) as a vast matrix of cultural beliefs, rules, rewards, privileges and

heteronormativity is buttressed by claims about what is considered

normal and healthy for individuals, couples, and families.
Heteronormativity sustains the dominant norm of heterosexuality by
rendering marginal any relational structure that falls outside of this norm.
Further, heteronormativity renders the diversity of human sexuality and
identities invisible
. This creates a
category of other in our culture, which is rendered invalid or pathologic
The heteronormative presumption, that everyone is heterosexual unless
proven otherwise, is best expressed by the concept of the closet, a
metaphor for keeping one's sexual orientation and/or gender or sexual
identity a secret
Heteronormativity entails a convergence of at least
three binary opposites: real males and real females versus gender
deviants, natural sexuality versus unnatural sexuality, and genuine
families versus pseudo families
All of the markers of
adulthood - dating, marriage, and parenting - are traditionally tied to
sanctions (p. 144),

. This invisibility is marked by the fact that there is limited language to describe sexual minority experience and identities within dominant discourses

al. What little

language there is often creates false binary systems that are inaccurate representations of the actual lived experiences of many individuals. Given this lack of language, we often are left with the antiquated and imprecise categories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT).

. Sedgwick (1990) called the closet the defining structure for gay oppression in this century, (p. 71). Kenji Yoshino (2006) described it beautifully: It was impossible to come out and be done with it, as each new person

erected a new closet around me, (p. 16-17). Gender, Sexuality and Family Intrinsic to heteronormative assumptions are ideas about correct or normal gender, sexuality, and family. Oswald, Blume and Marks (2005) point out that it is the combination of these three structural
components that constitute heteronormativity as a system of privilege. Oswald et al. state:

(p. 144). The construction of binary opposites creates the illusion of an actual boundary between various genders and identities and privileges one side over

the other. Gender, sexuality and family are intrinsically linked, and as Oswald et al. state: Doing sexuality and doing family properly are inseparable from doing gender properly(p. 144).

heterosexuality

. Adult competencies associated with heterosexuality are distributed on the basis of gender (Spaulding, 1999). Achieving mature adult status is most commonly measured by milestones that are linked to traditional heterosexual

gender roles and behaviors. The transformative use of gender as a verb is worth noting, as it was important in breaking down essentialist and binary assumptions about masculinity and femininity. Queer theorist Judith Butler (1990) introduced the notion of gender as an act or
performance rather than a quality intrinsic to ones inherent nature. In this paradigm, gender is what you do at particular times, rather than a universal of who you are. Historically it was believed that people were inherently male or female, gay or straight, and each of these was
dichotomously opposed to its counterpart (Fausto-Sterling, 2000). This essentialist narrative of gender and sexuality continues to be a powerful and privileged narrative in our culture (Fausto-Sterling, 2000; Laird, 2003)

And, living wage policies conform to the heteronormative structure,

implementation makes the link inescapable

Chris Grover, [Lancaster University], LivingWages and the MakingWork Pay

Strategy, Critical Social Policy 25:5, 2005.

the idea of need is problematic in living wages because of its close

association with the concept of the family wage . This issue is recognized in
sections of the living wage movement (Brenner, 2002), but has yet to be overcome. This means that living
wages are premised upon an androcentric view of wage structures: that a
male breadwinner should be able to earn the majority of income for his
spouse and dependent children. This is the case in living wages, because, as we have seen, there
is an expectation that there will be a full time worker in households. While
there is care in living wage literature not to assign this role to men, it is
difficult to see how the assumptions of living wages will break from the male
breadwinner model. What this means in practice is that living wages can only meet the needs
of workers and their families if they conform to the male breadwinner model.
Second,

Hence, the difficulties demonstrated in Table 1 with delivering higher than the making work pay strategy incomes to lone-mother-headed
households. If wages were related as closely to need as it is sometimes portrayed in arguments for living wages, those people with dependent
children, those working part time and those in families with only one earner would be paid a higher hourly wage compared to those families

words, those workers

who do not conform to the male breadwinner model have potentially the
most to gain financially from living wages, but under current proposals they
would actually gain the least.
without dependent children, those with full time earners and those with multiple earners. In other

Part Two is the Impacts

Two Implications
1. Heteronormativity glorifies destruction, sadism and indifference
to suffering. The global right wing has a bad case of road rage and
they will drive us into an abyss of imperial military competition,
armament escalation and first striking apocalypse. Its try or die,
either we destroy heteronormativity or it will destroy us.
Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. War is a Hate Crime. October 20th,
2009. <http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091026_war_is_a_hate_crime/>.
brutality of Matthew Shepards killers, who beat him to death for being gay,
is a product of a culture that glorifies violence and sadism
of a
militarized culture We have more police, prisons, inmates, spies, mercenaries,
weapons and troops than any other nation on Earth. Our military
is enormously popular
hyper-masculinity, blind
obedience and violence are an electric current that run through reality
television
where contestants endure pain while they betray and
manipulate those around them in a ruthless world of competition . Friendship
and compassion are banished hyper-masculinity is at the core of
pornography with its fusion of violence and eroticism, as well as its physical
and emotional degradation of women
Militarism crushes
moral autonomy and
difference. It isolates us from each other. It has its logical fruition in Abu
Ghraib, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with our lack of compassion
for our homeless, our poor, our mentally ill, our unemployed, our sick, and
yes, our gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual citizens.
a militarized culture attacks
all that is culturally defined as the feminine, including love, gentleness,
compassion and acceptance of difference. It sees any sexual ambiguity as a
threat to male hardness
continued support for our
permanent war economy, continued elevation of military values as the
highest good, sustains the perverted ethic, rigid social roles and emotional
numbness
. It is a moral cancer that ensures there will be more
Matthew Shepards. Fascism
is not so much a form of government or a
particular structuring of the economy
, but the creation of potent slogans
and symbols that form a kind of psychic economy which places sexuality in
the service of destruction core of all fascist propaganda is a battle against
everything that constitutes enjoyment and pleasure
spoke in sexualized language of
violence to justify the war in Iraq
What they needed to see
was American boys and girls going house to house
, and basically
saying
You dont think,
, we care about our
open society
Well, suck on this.
We hit Iraq because we could This is the kind of
twisted logic the killers of Matthew Shepard would understand.
indifference to the suffering of others
beyond the self-identified group made fascism and the Holocaust possible.
The

. It is the product

, which swallows half of the federal

budget,

as if it is not part of government. The military values of

and trash-talk programs

. This

. It is an expression of the corporate state where human beings are reduced to commodities and companies

have become proto-fascist enclaves devoted to maximizing profit.

the capacity for

Klaus Theweleit in his two volumes entitled Male

Fantasies, which draw on the bitter alienation of demobilized veterans in Germany following the end of World War I, argues that

and the clearly defined roles required by the militarized state. The

the

that Theweleit explored

, Theweleit argued,

or a system

. The

, Theweleit wrote. And our culture, while it disdains the name of

fascism, embraces its dark ethic. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, interviewed in 2003 by Charlie Rose,

this

, a moment preserved on YouTube (see video below):

, from Basra to Baghdad

, Which part of this sentence dont you understand? Friedman said.

? You think this bubble fantasy, were just gonna let it grow?

Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. Could have hit Pakistan.

you know

That, Charlie, was what this war was about. We could have hit
.

The philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote,

in words gay activists should have heeded, that exclusive preoccupation with personal concerns and

The

inability to identify with others was unquestionably the most important

psychological condition for
Auschwitz
in the midst of
civilized and innocent people
fellow traveling was
business
interest:
ones own advantage before all else
coldness of the societal monad
, was
the precondition,
The torturers know this, and
they put it to test ever anew.
the fact that something like

, Adorno wrote. What is called

one pursues

could have occurred

more or less

primarily

, and simply not to endanger oneself, does not talk too much. That is a

general law of the status quo. The silence under the terror was only its consequence. The

, the isolated competitor

as indifference to the fate of others, for the fact that only very few people reacted.

2. The family is a meat grinder of gender normativity that nothing

can escape. By re-entrenching the family structure masculinity and
femininity are reproduced throughout the entire social field. Hardt
and Negri write,
Michael Hardt, Professor of Literature at Duke and Antonio Negri,taught at
Universit de Vincennes with K all-stars Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida.
Commonwealth. 2009. p. 160-2.
The family is perhaps the primary institution in contemporary society for mobilizing the common. For many people, in fact, the family
is the principal if not exclusive site of collective social experience , cooperative labor
arrangements, caring, and intimacy. It stands on the foundation of the common but at the same time corrupts it by imposing a series of

the family is a machine of gender normativity

that constantly grinds down and crushes the common. The patriarchal
structure of family authority varies in different cultures but maintains its
general form; the gender division of labor within the family, though often critiqued, is
extraordinarily persistent; and the heteronormative model dictated by the family varies
remarkably little throughout the world. The family corrupts the common by imposing gender
hierarchies and enforcing gender norms, such that any attempt at alternative gender
practices or expressions of alternative sexual desires are unfailingly closed
down and punished. Second, the family functions in the social imaginary as the sole
paradigm for relationships of intimacy and solidarity, eclipsing and usurping all
other possible forms. Intergenerational relationships are inevitably cast in the parent-child model (such that teachers who
hierarchies, restrictions, exclusions, and distortions. First,

care, for example, should be like parents to their students), and samegeneration friendships are posed as sibling relationships (with a band of

All alternative kinship structures, whether based on sexual

relationships or not, are either prohibited or corralled back under the rule of
the family. The exclusive nature of the family model, which carries with it
inevitably all of its internal hierarchies, gender norms, and heteronormativity,
is evidence of not only a pathetic lack o f social imagination to grasp other forms of intimacy and solidarity but also a lack
of freedom to create and experiment with alternative social relationships and
nonfamily kin ship structures.35Third, although the family pretends to extend desires and interests beyond
the individual toward the community, it unleashes some of the most extreme forms of narcissism and
individualism. It is remarkable, i n fact, how strongly people believe that acting in the interests of their family is a kind of altruism
brothers and sorority sisters).

when it is really the blindest egotism. When school decisions pose the good of their child against that of others or the community as a whole,
for example, many parents launch the most

ferociously

antisocial arguments under a halo of virtue, doing all that is necessary in the

Political
discourse that justifies interest in the future through a logic of family
continuityhow many times have you heard that some public policy is necessary for the good of your children?reduces
the common to a kind of projected individualism via one's progeny and betrays an extraordinary
name of their child, often with the strange narcissism o f seeing the child as an extension or reproduction of themselves.

incapacity to conceive the future in broader social terms.36 Finally, the family corrupts the common by serving as a core institution for the
accumulation and transfer of private property. The accumulation of private property would be interrupted each generation i f not for the legal

Down with the family!not, of course, in order for us to

become isolated individuals but instead to realize the equal and free
participation in the common that the family promises and constantly denies
and corrupts.
form of inheritance based on the family.

Part Three is the Alternative

Reject the aff to challenge heteronormative family structures and
vote neg to endorse a queering of the family, Smith 10
Smith, Andrea. 2010. Dismantling Hierarchy, Queering Society. Tikkun 25(4): 60 [Andrea Smith is the author of Native
Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances (Duke, 2008). She also teaches at UC
Riverside.]

Queer politics calls us to

address
the way our society is fundamentally based on
a gender binary system that presumes heterosexuality as a social
norm
go beyond a simple toleration for gay and lesbian communities to

how heteropatriarchy structures white supremacy,

capitalism, and settler colonialism. By heteropatriarchy, I mean

male dominancea

dominance inherently built on

. To examine how heteropatriarchy is the building block of U.S. empire, we can turn to the writings of the Christian Right. For example, Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson makes a connection

between homosexuality and the nation-state in his analysis of the war on terror, claiming that one of the causes of terrorism is same-sex marriage: Marriage is the traditional building block of human society,
intended both to unite couples and bring children into the world ... There is a natural moral order for the family ... The family, led by a married mother and father, is the best available structure for both child-rearing
and cultural health. Marriage is not a private institution designed solely for the individual gratification of its participants. If we fail to enact a Federal Marriage Amendment, we can expect not just more family
breakdown, but also more criminals behind bars and more chaos in our streets. It's like handing moral weapons of mass destruction to those who would use America's depravity to recruit more snipers, more
highjackers, and more suicide bombers. When radical Islamists see American women abusing Muslim men, as they did in the Abu Ghraib prison, and when they see news coverage of same-sex couples being
"married" in U.S. towns, we make our kind of freedom abhorrentthe kind they see as a blot on Allah's creation. [We must preserve traditional marriage in order to] protect the United States from those who would
use our depravity to destroy us. The implicit assumption in this analysis is that the traditional heterosexual family is the building block of empire. Colson is linking the well-being of U.S. empire to the well-being of
the heteropatriarchal family. Heteropatriarchy is the logic that makes social hierarchy seem natural. Just as the patriarchs rule the family, the elites of the nation-state rule their citizens. For instance, prior to
colonization many Native communities were not only nonpatriarchal, they were not socially hierarchical, generally speaking. Consequently, when colonists first came to this land they saw the necessity of instilling
patriarchy in Native communities because they realized that indigenous peoples would not accept colonial domination if their own indigenous societies were not structured on the basis of social hierarchy. Patriarchy
in turn rests on a gender-binary system; hence it is not a coincidence that colonizers also targeted indigenous peoples who did not fit within this binary model. Many Native communities had multiple genderssome
Native scholars are now even arguing that their communities may not have been gendered at all prior to colonizationalthough gender systems among Native communities varied. Gender violence is a primary tool
of colonialism and white supremacy. Colonizers did not just kill off indigenous peoples in this landNative massacres were also accompanied by sexual mutilation and rape. The goal of colonialism is not just to kill
colonized peoplesit's also to destroy their sense of being people. It is through sexual violence that a colonizing group attempts to render a colonized people as inherently rapable, their lands inherently invadable,
and their resources inherently extractable. A queer analytic highlights the fact that colonialism operates through patriarchy. Another reality that a queer activist approach reveals is that even social justice groups

Queer politics has expanded our understanding of identity

politics by not presuming fixed categories of people, but rather looking at
how these identity categories can normalize who is acceptable and who is
unacceptable, even within social justice movements. It has also
demonstrated that many peoples can become "queered" in our societythat
is, regardless of sexual/gender identity, they can become marked as
inherently perverse and hence unworthy of social concern
often rely on a politics of normalization.

(such as sex workers, prisoners, "terrorists," etc.). We

often organize around those peoples who seem most "normal" or acceptable to the mainstream. Or we engage in an identity politics that is based on a vision of racial, cultural, or political purity that sidelines all

Because we have not challenged our society's sexist

hierarchy
we have deeply internalized the
notion that social hierarchy is natural and inevitable, thus undermining our
ability to create movements for social change that do not replicate the
structures of domination that we seek to eradicate
Any liberation
struggle that does not challenge heteronormativity cannot substantially
challenge
supremacy
those who deviate from the revolutionary "norm."

(which, as I have explained, fundamentally privileges maleness and presumes heterosexuality),

. Whether it is the neocolonial middle managers of the nonprofit industrial

complex or the revolutionary vanguard elite, the assumption is that patriarchs of any gender are required to manage and police the revolutionary family.

colonialism or white

. Rather, as political scientist Cathy Cohen contends, such struggles will maintain colonialism based on a politics of secondary

marginalization in which the most elite members of these groups will further their aspirations on the backs of those most marginalized within the community. Fortunately, many indigenous and racial justice
movements are beginning to see that addressing heteropatriarchy is essential to dismantling settler colonialism and white supremacy. The Native Youth Sexual Health Network, led by Jessica Yee, integrates queer
analysis, indigenous feminism, and decolonization into its organizing praxis. Incite!, a national activist group led by radical feminists of color, similarly addresses the linkages between gender violence,
heteropatriarchy, and state violence. And queer-of-color organizations such as the Audre Lorde Project have rejected centrist political approaches that demand accommodation from the state; rather, they seek to
"queer" the state itself. This queer interrogation of the "normal" is also present in more conservative communities. I see one such thread in evangelical circlesthe emergent movement (or perhaps more broadly,
the new evangelical movement). By describing the emergent movement as a queering of evangelicalism, I don't necessarily mean that it offers an open critique of homophobia (although some emergent church
leaders such as Brian McClaren have spoken out against homophobia). Rather, I see this movement as challenging of normalizing logics within evangelicalism. This movement has sought to challenge the meaning
of evangelicalism as being based on doctrinal correctness, and instead to imagine it a more open-ended ongoing theological conversation. Certainly the Obama presidential campaign has inspired many evangelicals
even though they may hold conservative positions on homosexuality or abortionto call for a politics that is more open-ended and engaged with larger social justice struggles. Perhaps because of this trend,
evangelical leader John Stackhouse recently complained that the biggest change in evangelicalism is "the collapse of the Christian consensus against homosexual marriage." Unfortunately, many leftist organizers
tend to dismiss or ignore these openings within evangelicalism, but at their own peril. Social transformation happens only through sustained dialogue with people across social, cultural, and political divides. As I

queer politics offers both a politics and a method for furthering

social transformation. It is a politics that addresses how heteropatriarchy
serves to naturalize all other social hierarchies
. It is a
critique of the "normal"
and {it} engages in openended, flexible, and ever-changing strategies for liberation.
have shown here, I believe

, such as white supremacy and settler colonialism

organizes around a

(in society as a whole or in social movements)

also

method that

Part Four is the Role of the Judge

The words we use to represent ourselves and our ideals matter, they
shape the way that they are viewed and implemented. Good
discourse is a pre-requisite to any good policy.
(Laura Shepard, Lecturer in International Relations and International Law, Women,
armed conflict and language Gender, violence and discourse, March 2010,
http://journals.cambridge.org, RL)
In our personal lives, we know that language matters, that words are constitutive of reality.
There are words that have been excised from our vocabularies, deemed too
damaging to use. There are forbidden words that children whisper with guilty glee. There are words we use daily
that would be meaningless to our grandparents. Moreover, the cadence and content of our communications vary by

In our
personal lives, we admit that words have power, and in Formal politics we do the
same. It is not such a stretch to admit the same in our Professional lives. I am not claiming that all
context; words that are suitable for the boardroom may not be appropriate for the bedroom or the bar.

analysis must be discourse-theoretical must take language seriously to be policy-relevant, for that would clearly be

post-structural theories of language have much to

offer policy makers and practitioners, and arguing that in order to understand
how best to implement policy we first need to understand how a policy
means, not just what it means. That is, we must understand a policy before we
can implement it. This article argues that we need to engage critically with how that
understanding is mediated through and facilitated by our ideas about the
world we live in. If we are to avoid unconsciously reproducing the different
forms of oppression and exclusion that different forms of policy seek to
overcome, we need to take seriously Jacques Derridas suggestion that il ny a pas de hors-texte.5
nonsense. I am, however, claiming that

Thus the role of the judge is to evaluate the round at a discursive

level.