I have a few clients who identify as queer or lesbian, who also have kids. I myself have a kid. I have queer friends who have kids. I love that people from the queer community have children. But being queer and having a kid isn’t an easy task. Besides the obvious obstacle of actually making or adopting a child, there are a whole lot of additional obstacles queer people encounter, many of which we do not even realize we will encounter until we’re already smack-dab in the middle of it.

Last night I was working with a client who recently found out she is pregnant. We were discussing that while this is incredibly exciting news, it has challenged her relationship in so many ways already. First off, her partner, who tends to take the more “masculine” role in their relationship, will be staying home to raise their child. Immediately this challenges their roles within their relationship. Additionally, my client is, visually speaking as well as self-identifying, the more “masculine” of the two.

We discussed a lack of maternity clothes options for butch women. And how even within the queer community there is a presumption that the “femme” (which is a presumption in and of itself that every lesbian relationship inherently has a “butch” and a “femme”—also not true!) will be the one to carry. And if the butch carries, people want to know what is wrong with the femme—could she not carry? Is it medical?

Furthermore, it should be known that even within the small amount of informative material out there available to queer parents, it is still femme-dominant. It presumes that the femmes are carrying—more oppression by the oppressed. Why aren’t queer people writing for all queer people? Why are there still presumed roles within relationships? It’s bad enough that most parenting sites discuss the carrying women and the ways in which dads-to-be or husbands can support them. I expect this from a hetero-normative world, but not from my queer peers.

Butch women are still women—they still have female organs and potentially a desire to bare a child (their desire is, most likely, no more or no less than any other female on this planet). Sexuality does not dictate a desire to have children. If anything, I’d imagine LGBTQ have children at such a smaller rate than their hetero counterparts for no other reason than accessibility and cost.

…And if I may offer a quick tangent…for a lesbian couple to get pregnant, there are several options: they can either ask a male they know for their sperm (which has it’s own potential consequences, both emotional and legal) and figure it out from there, or they can buy sperm from a sperm bank. This, inherently, comes with it’s own risks. That being said, sperm are expensive. So are storing them. And people don’t always get pregnant on the first take…so if you have found a donor (not a “dad”, refer to my previous blog!) you like, you will want to buy several vials of sperm. Also, should you desire in the future to have more children, it’s likely you will want to have the same donor, so you will need to at least double the amount of sperm you purchase (and pay every month to store). This equation already adds up to several thousand dollars. And guess what? Insurance doesn’t cover a penny of it. Why? Because it is “elective”. Because you are gay, and gay people are electing to have children, but it isn’t medically necessary.

Or, another option is to use the egg from one partner and implant it into the carrying partner. This is a really cool option for those parents who want to feel like they are both equally involved in the process. But this process alone will set you back almost $27,000 dollars, excluding the sperm. Again, no insurance coverage here!

While these aforementioned approaches surely aren’t the only options, they tend to be the most popular. But, I digress…

Queers have found that even within the queer community choosing to have a child often makes you “more like straight people”. LGBTQ friends often struggle to adjust to life with a queer friend who has a baby. The (stereotypically queer, but often accurate, I have found) lifestyle of going out all the time and drinking all the time no longer fits, and they struggle to adjust. Often new parents stop getting invited out by their friends altogether because they no longer fit in with them or have the same freedom to pursue “fun”. This creates a riff in friendships, and can often make queer people second-guess their new identity as parents. Additionally, because there are so few queer parents (relatively speaking), new queer parents might find themselves meeting more hetero parents (at play groups and daycare and such), befriending those individuals, and slowly losing their queer lifestyle and identity altogether. They are now the lesbian parents who hang out with a group of straight mommies and daddies. I cant speak for everyone, but a big part of my queer identity is my queer friends and being surrounded by people who are like me. To lose that, or even think about losing that, feels like losing a limb.

And people give advice. Boy, do they love giving advice. This, no doubt, exists every bit as much in the straight world. But the difference, I imagine, is that for queer parents who get advice there is a reaction that comes up for us, albeit often subconscious–especially if those that are doing the advising haven’t been around much, have never offered advice, except for when it comes to parenting, all of a sudden they’re involved and interested. If they are giving me advice, do they not think I know? Or do they not trust me to know what I’m doing? (My client made a funny comment about the recent advice she’s received. She chuckled, “the truth is, for the people who have been giving me advice? I don’t want my kids to turn out like theirs! Their kids are assholes! Should I tell them that?)

Lastly, at least for now, is the struggle queer people face if they have children and are single. They constantly have to defend and explain to new potential partners the “circumstances” surround why and how they have a child…were they in a heterosexual relationship before? Are there missed opportunities to even date because people presume they are straight (she must be straight, she has a child!). I have one client who has experienced her child as an obstacle to meeting someone for this very reason. She was afraid her child would be considered baggage, and she would constantly struggle about when to disclose that she was a mother, knowing it would bring up all sorts of (potential) issues for the person whom she was trying to impress.

While this blog certainly doesn’t begin to cover all of the obstacles that queer individuals face (and I realize I didn’t even bring up the obstacles two dads face, as I am writing this through the lens of my own and my clients’ experience), I hope it has helped to shed some light onto what I have deemed “queerenting”.

Stay tuned for more, I’m sure as I continue on my own lesbian-parenting journey and experience things I haven’t even thought to include in this blog there will be more to come. For now, I’m going to head home to my own beautiful baby and hope that for today I am done facing any queer-person or queer-parent obstacles.