“Being queer when you’re a parent or a parent-to-be brings with it a whole host of conundrums that heterosexual parenting gurus couldn’t even begin to fathom”
BY LOTTE JEFFS AND STU OAKLEY, IMAGE BY HOLLY FALCONER
We have a news flash for you. Ninety per cent of queer parenting is simply parenting. We’re not unfurling Pride flags as we try and change our screaming baby’s dirty nappy in the disabled loo at a restaurant, nor are we discussing gender binaries while trying to extract a toddler from a bouncy castle, and we are certainly not thinking about the heteronormative injustice of crippling fertility costs for lesbians while desperately trying to download the latest episode of Hey Duggee for a small person on the verge of an Elton-sized tantrum. No, in these everyday moments we are so focused on keeping our kids safe and happy that we’d probably not even notice if RuPaul was standing next to us, serving serious side-eye.
So, what is it like to be a queer parent in 2024? Being queer when you’re a parent or a parent-to-be brings with it a whole host of conundrums that heterosexual parenting gurus couldn’t even begin to fathom. And while it’s true that raising kids is a great democratiser and we might be able to find something in common with “School Gates Suze”, it’s this other layer of being a minority and dealing with everything that entails, which means we need to seek comfort and reassurance from a community of LGBTQIA people with children.
Whether you’re just starting to think that you’d like to welcome children into your life, are knee-deep in nappies or have waved your firstborn off to university already, this journey takes bravery, resilience, and a good sense of humour, and being on it at any stage deserves, we think, a standing ovation. But maybe that’s just because we’re still annoyed that we don’t get a Well Done sticker at the end of every day.
In terms of our journeys to parenthood, I’ll go first (Lotte, hello!). My wife, Jenny, and I decided that we wanted to start trying for a baby shortly after we got married (tragically hetero, I know). It’s something we had talked about throughout our six-year courtship (please allow me to imagine I’m in a Jane Austen novel for a moment longer). I had always known I wanted to have children, and it took some years for Jenny to get to the same page as me. I was patient and relentlessly positive about it and each conversation we had (normally after a bottle of Malbec at a nice restaurant) brought us a step closer to making the decision to go for it.
Our first instinct was to use one of our dashing Darcy-like male friends as our donor. We never asked anyone outright, but over the course of a few years, during which we made it known it was something we were thinking about, three different men very seriously offered to donate their sperm so that we could start a family. We had long, earnest conversations with each of these potential suitors (okay, now I’m in Mamma Mia!) and they each got as far as getting their motility checked before deciding it wasn’t something they were ready for, particularly as we were asking that they wouldn’t be involved in the child’s life. I am so grateful to these friends, not just for offering to help us create the family we wanted but for realising that it wasn’t right for them and being honest with us.
The process made Jenny and I realise that an anonymous donor was the right route for us to take, so we set about reading the countless profiles on sperm bank websites in search of The One. We were very, very lucky and Jenny became pregnant after one round of IUI (intrauterine insemination – more on this process in depth in our book – The Queer Parent: Everything You Need To Know From Gay To Ze). Flash forward three years and I decided, after much soul searching, that I’d like to try and carry too, and it hasn’t been as easy. After three rounds of IVF (in vitro fertilisation), I’ve decided to call an end to my adventures in trying to conceive. But what this means is that I can offer the unique insight of my experience as the “other” mother and also as someone who has been on a long and winding fertility rollercoaster of their own.
For the book, it’s been so mind-opening to speak to people outside of my little bubble of the same-sex female experience of motherhood. Stu and I have met trans dads, people who foster disabled kids, single parents through adoption, parents through surrogacy and so many other kinds of parents or carers. Speaking to all these people has made us feel connected to a powerful community.
And now over to Stu (hello!)
I’m an adoptive cis gay dad to not one, not two, but three little people (please send help!). Even though my eldest is now eight, my husband and I have only been parents for five years, so, like Lotte, I’m also very new to this parenting malarkey and I am constantly learning and being inspired by other queer parents.
I am married to John and we’ve been together for almost 17 years, which is surely classed as a diamond anniversary in gay couple years? I share our adoption story in the first chapter of the book, so I won’t delve into all the detail here. But I will say that I always wanted to be a dad. It wasn’t until I met John, at the tender age of 21, that I really gave any thought to the potential challenges involved in when and how we become parents. That part had never really crossed my mind. Like most people I’ve spoken to since, there didn’t seem to be any clear info or a one-stop place for info, which is why I was so excited at the prospect of writing this book.
Once we had done a little research, John and I decided surrogacy was not the path for us. Neither of us had the overwhelming desire to have our genes passed on and knowing that we couldn’t create a child that was part him and part me just made it a moot point from the get-go. Therefore, for John and I, adoption was always the way.
I work in film publicity and believe me the work vs parenting balance has been a very real struggle at times, but being able to divvy up the emotional and physical division of labour as queer parents feels a lot more practical for us than our hetero friends. The joys of living outside the gender norms!
So that’s us, but honestly, we think one of the most important things about being a queer parent in 2024 is about learning from each other and getting to know fellow LGBTQIA parents with lived experiences that is not the same as ours. That can be Black queer parents, trans parents, bisexual and queer disabled parents who offer us all a view that all of us will benefit from understanding more about. In our book, we have spoken to so many parents who have gone down completely different paths to create their families.
As an example of how far we’ve come, when we first started talking about all things queer parenting between us, we’d make mistakes. Stu kept referring to Lotte as a surrogate and was in a right old muddle about how IVF and IUI worked and what Lotte’s role was as an “other” mother. Lotte, meanwhile, wasn’t even sure if gay people were allowed to adopt and had all sorts of preconceived ideas about adopted children. She thought it was only people who couldn’t have children of their “own” who would adopt and, even then, they’d see it as a last resort. How wrong we both were!
It took trust to admit the gaps in our knowledge and create a safe space where no question was a stupid question, and nothing was off limits between us. Now I, Lotte, know all about adoption panels and therapeutic parenting, and I, Stu, know about egg collections and embryo transfers. And we are both better people and parents for broadening our perspective in this way. In a world where there is so much negative rhetoric towards our queerness, we feel it’s vitally important to understand each other.
For this reason, we hope those who read our book don’t just turn to the chapters that apply to them but that they delve into the worlds of queer parents who are nothing like them and that we all learn from each other in this way. The gay community can be very cliquey – you only need to sashay down Old Compton or Canal Street to see that, but as our forebears who fought for the rights that we now enjoy proved, coming together as a community that welcomes people of all genders, races and abilities is how change happens.
And there is still a lot of change needed for queer parents to be treated equally to heterosexual parents – from the limiting binaries of mother and father demanded by birth certificates to the eye-watering costs of IVF for some queer couples and the outdated laws surrounding surrogacy and intended parenthood.
We are relatively lucky in the UK compared to other places around the world where gay people cannot marry, adopt, or have children of their own. Even as close as Italy our rights as queer parents are being stripped away. So, this is for anyone who has been trying and trying to get pregnant, who has experienced miscarriage or loss, who has fostered, adopted, found a surrogate or a donor to help them along their journey, who is separated, widowed and yes, for the happily child free, for the guide parents, aunts, uncles, friends. Don’t let anyone tell you that your family is less valid than anyone else’s. Being a queer parent in 2024 is about being inclusive, empathetic, understanding and willing to explode and make new the very foundations of a nuclear family.
The Queer Parent by Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley is out now in paperback (Bluebird, £10.99).
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