New research explores gay mens' and lesbians' feelings about possible parenthood

A new study by Reproduction SRI member Dr Robert Pralat sheds light on how younger gay men and lesbians see the possibility of becoming parents, and suggests that we can think of feelings about parenthood in terms of a 'reproductive orientation', analogous to a sexual orientation. Dr Pralat, a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc), carried out interviews with gay men and lesbians in their 20s and early 30s, to find out more about their views about parenthood, their conversations about parenthood with family and friends, and their feelings about different routes to parenthood (such as adoption, donor conception and surrogacy).

The interviewees frequently cited a lack of role models, both in their immediate circles and in public life, as a source of ambivalent feelings about parenthood. Despite this, there was high awareness of the possibility of parenthood because the topic of queer parenthood was common in TV dramas and in the media. The interviewees also expressed uncertainty about their life trajectories - as one participant put it, not knowing what is ‘meant to happen over the course of my life’. Dr Pralat points out that some of this uncertainty stems from changing social norms among sexual minorities: younger people perceive that they have more options available to them - even while shifting cultural expectations mean that neither having children nor remaining childfree is normative for lesbians and gay men. He suggests that 'expressing one’s parenting desire, or lack thereof, is a kind of ‘coming out’ through which feelings about parenthood are made explicit' - a 'reproductive orientation' that is distinct from sexual orientation.

Reference
Robert Pralat, ‘Sexual identities and reproductive orientations: Coming out as wanting (or not wanting) to have children’, Sexualities (online first, 11 June 2020). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460720926967.