What I Wish
More People Knew About Queer Parenthood
by Taneasha White
While many would say fertility treatments are worth the expense, not everyone can put that much money on a credit card.
As a Black, queer woman, I know I'll face a number of barriers to becoming a mom that will likely affect my mental health and well-being — from financial stress and discrimination to the potential lack of social support.
The road to queer parenting isn't easy, but a support system can help you prioritize your mental health as you navigate the barriers.
for gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and preterm birth.
But as a Black woman, my high risk situation is far from unique.
Black folks who give birth are 4 times more likely than our
white counterparts to have birth complications that may lead
to severe medical intervention or death.
Queer parenting: Challenges and roadblocks
Abbie Goldberg, PhD, a psychology professor and director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Clark University in Massachusetts, explains that common challenges of queer family expansion include:
- financial resources and cost
- institutionalized heterosexism and cissexism
- lack of accessible LGBTQ+ services and supports
Common challenges
Due to biological barriers, around 40% of queer folks seek alternative ways to become parents, and many face stigma and discrimination in the process.
For instance, research from 2014 shows that inaccessibility and institutional biases are embedded within adoption agencies and fertility centers.
Motherhood can mean many things to different people, depending on who you ask.
For queer folks, not only can motherhood look different, but the journey to get there is often full of legal, logistical, and biological obstacles.
Taneasha White (she/her), a graduate of English and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, is a Black, Queer lover of words, inquisition, and community, and has used her role within both literary and organizational spaces to make room for folks who are often cast aside, silenced, or overlooked. In addition to mental health, her other writing, editing, and sensitivity consulting work covered varied topics related to the intersections of Blackness, fatness, & Queerness, activism, and reproductive justice. Taneasha is excited to continue this work of amplifying marginalized voices, centering intersectionality, and destigmatizing mental health.
I live with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which means there are hurdles that may make it difficult for me to get pregnant. In addition, my partner is a transmasculine person, which means we’d have to consider a sperm donor.
PCOS causes irregular menstrual cycles, which complicates
the pregnancy planning process.
According to a 2014 study, the combination of PCOS and
high levels of testosterone may lead to an increased risk
According to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, at least 30% of foster youth identify as LGBTQ, highlighting a need
for queer parents.
or food insecurity, and twice as likely to endure houselessness shows being able to adopt is a privilege.
Although grant opportunities for prospective parents exist, eligibility is limited, as it usually requires an official infertility diagnosis.
In some cases, adoption may also favor cisheteronormativity —
a system that centers on heterosexuality and supports male and female assignments at birth as the only two gender options.
Many folks are trying to be helpful when they suggest adoption, but it's not exactly an accessible solution.
Adoption fees through an agency can run you $40,000 or more. Using an attorney without an agency is cheaper, but on average can cost $15,000 with the potential to reach a total of $40,000.
In the United States, the median household income is just above $67,000 — adding children to your family via adoption is a bit of a luxury.
The widening gap between upper and lower economic classes plus the fact that LGBTQ+ folks are more likely to navigate job
‘Why don't you just adopt?’
For anyone seeking alternatives, a baby can come
with a hefty price tag with no guarantee of success.
The high cost of conception
Obert’s first time getting pregnant took 5 rounds of
intrauterine insemination (IUI) — a process where the sperm is inserted directly into the uterus. According to Obert, her IUI journey cost her a total of about $15,000.
As of 2020, only 14 states require employers to cover fertility treatments in their insurance. Not all of these states include in vitro fertilization (IVF) in their policies — another costly procedure where an egg is extracted, fertilized with sperm, and then implanted in the uterus.
Many insurance policies require an official infertility diagnosis. An infertility diagnosis poses a barrier for folks who may be gender nonconforming or those with different sexual identities because it ignores the fact that cismen or penis-having partners may not be involved in the conception process at all.
When tallying up the potential cost of conception, I felt like I was writing the script for one of those Mastercard commercials:
- "One vial of donor sperm: At least $500"
- "One round of IUI: $1,500"
- "Ultrasound monitoring: $200 per month"
- "Typical IVF cycle: $13,000"
- "Conceiving and raising a happy and healthy child: Priceless"
While many would say fertility treatments are worth the expense, not everyone can put that much money on a credit card.
Laura Obert, PhD, a psychologist, LGBTQ coach, and mother of three, told me the high cost of her fertility treatment cycles added another layer of pressure.
Fertility treatments
Eventually I recognized that other people's lack of understanding isn't mine to hold.
"My kids know acceptance, love, and inclusion and have been blessed with some truly amazing people in their lives."
Obert encourages queer parents-to-be to curate the environment they want for their children. She says she’s lucky
to have her friend group, which includes other queer folks with children, to help her navigate life as a gay mom.
“When you find your village, build on it and strengthen it,"
Obert says. "Then let them remind you of how awesome and capable you are of seeing your goal of expanding your family come to fruition."
The importance of community
The role of social support has proven vital for mental wellness in varied circumstances, especially during COVID-19.
Still, the barriers to becoming a queer parent — outside of the high costs involved — often include a lack of support from friends, family, and even society.
But a lack of support doesn’t have to mean you have to raise your children all on your own.
McLeod says the support of her inner circle of LGBTQ+ friends has had a positive impact on her mental wellness.
“I've learned that creating safe spaces for myself and my children is invaluable to our overall happiness and mental well-being," McLeod says.
Eeka McLeod, an asexual and biromantic single mom and
TikTok content creator, has experienced challenges with the foster care system. After fostering 18 children and adopting 3, she's navigated her fair share of social barriers as a queer parent.
McLeod spoke to the isolation that came with single-
parenting — not everyone has understood her sexuality,
and some have questioned whether she’d ever have
“real” children.
Fostering or fostering-to-adopt is another avenue to parenthood, even if it's a temporary one.
According to iFoster, the foster care system houses an estimated 424,000 kids. Children in the system range from infancy to 21 years old, with the average age being 6.5 years old.
According to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, at least 30% of foster youth identify as LGBTQ, highlighting a need for queer parents.
As someone who's always been interested in fostering a little one, I know the fostering process can come with its own set of complications for queer folks.
Is fostering an option?
When gay marriage became legalized in 2015, there was no longer a need for parental-claim paperwork for same-sex couples who wanted to have children.
But Goldberg notes that not all legal challenges have completely dissolved.
“Laws have become more favorable — for example, the lifting of gay adoption bans — but many agencies, services, and supports continue to discriminate against LGBTQ people,” Goldberg says.
"Often, the discrimination is more subtle or vague, such as LGBTQ people being unsure why they are not being contacted about prospective children to adopt.”
Obert’s first child was conceived in 2014, before the legalization of same-sex marriage.
She recalls the added pressure this posed for her and her spouse at the time, as additional legal documentation was needed to ensure they would both have legal parental claims.
The additional steps made Obert feel as if she had to prove that she was deserving of a child — something that straight couples don't usually have to do.
“It made it feel more daunting, scary, far more complicated, and seriously less personal than if my partner at the time and I would have just been allowed to have a child and claim our parental rights to the child we create like anyone else who contributes to the child-making process,” Obert says.
Legal barriers
couples but also for single parents, prospective birthing
parents over the age of 35, or folks like me who live with health complications.
While my PCOS diagnosis doesn’t mean that childbearing is impossible, my chronic pain means that carrying a child is too risky at this time.
My sexuality and chronic conditions, plus the many health insurance policies and grant eligibility forms I've reviewed,
have often made me feel unworthy of receiving financial help
to get pregnant.
The obstacles that queer folks face along their journey to becoming parents can take a toll on their mental health.
In addition to stigma and other barriers, the entire adoption or foster process can be anxiety-inducing — and fertility treatments can be stressful.
Folks without a support system during an IVF cycle are more likely to have depression. Research from 2005 shows that postpartum depression (PPD) is also more common in parents undergoing IVF. And according to a pilot study from 2015, queer women are more likely to develop PPD.
The mental health effects, combined with the high costs of treatments, may feel overwhelming at times — not only for queer
Mental health effects
I've been told on many occasions not to lose hope when it comes to having children.
"This translates into higher levels of preparedness for pursuing parenthood and then parenthood itself,” Goldberg says.
Obert adds that children who are born to queer folks are some of the most loved and most wanted children.
“The creation of each of my three children was extremely and exclusively purposeful and voluntary,” Obert says, adding that she makes a point to discuss all the varied ways that a family
can be.
“The main difference I see between myself and straight cisgender parents is my natural inclination toward using inclusive language and teaching my children to do the same.”
There's no evidence to support the homophobic belief that queer parents lead to queer children. What's more likely is that queer parents will accept and nurture a child’s authenticity.
“As a queer person you learn that there are many ways to be in the world and that you are good regardless of what others may think," says Kerith J. Conron, ScD, MPH, a social and psychiatric epidemiologist and research director at the Williams Institute at the UCLA.
"As a parent, I'm able to stand up for my child and to push back against pressure about who my child should be, how they should be, and how to parent them. I don’t need to please other people.”
According to Goldberg, LGBTQ people have to be highly purposeful and intentional in their pursuit of parenthood.
Benefits of queer parenting
"I could always see the disconnect there for them and it still makes me sad. They’re missing out on knowing three beautiful souls."
Shortly after I came out as queer to my own family, I was hoping they'd see why this part of my identity is important to acknowledge and accept. The lack of empathy and negativity
I received initially was heavy for me to carry and affected my mental health.
I felt like I was alone. I imagined my future with the several children I’ve always wanted and envisioned doing it all on my own, dodging questions from the littles about why they don’t know my side of the family.
But eventually, I recognized that other people’s lack of understanding isn’t mine to hold.
A harsh reality for many folks within the LGBTQ+ community
is the lack of external support due to ongoing discrimination
or biases.
McLeod shares that as a content creator, she deals with a lot of online-based hate, judgment, and criticism. “Most of the time I ignore it," she says. "People are always going to dislike things they don’t understand. Humans are trained only to see life through their own experiences and perspectives."
Obert shared how some shamed her for bringing children into the world as a gay woman because of the “increased difficulty” their lives would ultimately harbor, while McLeod spoke to the distance between her and her family for similar reasons.
“My family were never really accepting of my children and played no role in any of the time I spent fostering or since I’ve adopted my children," Mcleod says.
Barriers to support
They decided on another school that welcomed them with open arms and was warm and affirming toward their family.
“My kids have since come home from school with multiple artistic creations or classroom projects about family, happy to share stories about how they don’t have a dad but they have two moms," Obert says.
"The kids have all been surrounded by love and encouragement for who they are and who is in their family.”
For my folks and others, bumpy family dynamics around queer acceptance are often connected to religion.
Obert and her ex-wife raised their children with Catholic influence. She says there were barriers to her little ones being baptized, including being made to take a separate class from the cisgender heterosexual parents to limit “confusion.”
When she and her children’s mother began their search for Catholic schools, they were discouraged from participating as parent volunteers by a school principal who didn’t want to be seen “promoting that kind of lifestyle within the school.”
The role of religion
Children being brought into loving and safe homes should be the highest priority. This requires better accessibility for fertility services and acknowledging and addressing the gender identity and sexuality disparities within adoption agencies.
If you’re navigating family expansion and you're feeling discouraged, your feelings are common and completely warranted. But there’s still room for a good ending, even if it’s full of lessons learned.
“It gets better — even when it doesn’t feel like it," McLeod says.
The long and complicated road to becoming a queer parent can have a severe impact on your mental health and well-being, which may also affect your ability to parent with empathy.
I’ve been told on many occasions not to lose hope when it comes to having children.
My desire to give birth is still present, and it’s possible the future could include medical advancements and improvements to insurance processes that would make conception a safer possibility for me. In the meantime, I'll continue to explore the varied ways in which my partner and I could become parents.
Remember, there’s no ideal way to expand your family — it's a completely personal decision that has no wrong answer. But for us queer folks, there's likely more red tape to navigate in the quest for caring for a child.
So, what now?
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Morgan Mandriota
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An infertility diagnosis poses a barrier for folks who may be gender nonconforming or those with different sexual identities because it ignores the fact that cismen or penis-having partners may not be involved in the conception process at all.
It's no secret that having a baby costs a lot of money — especially when your only choice is to explore alternative options.