The earliest documented use of the term “gayby boom” was in a 1990 Newsweek article. For LGBTQ History Month, let’s take a look back at the article and how things have (or haven’t) changed for queer families since then.
In “The Future of Gay America” (March 12, 1990), a Newsweek cover story (not freely available online) authors Eloise Salholz, Tony Clifton, et al. were not looking primarily at queer families, but rather at the entire sweep of gay and lesbian visibility and activism. I’m going to focus here on the family parts. I also say “gay and lesbian” deliberately, for (as was common at the time) there was unfortunately no mention of bi or trans people in the article. The authors wrote:
The No. 1 item on the political agenda remains AIDS. But gay leaders have also begun fighting for a slate of family rights including social security, medical benefits, inheritance. child custody and even gay marriage. For a growing number of homosexual men and women, such family concerns are a day-to-day reality: a new generation of gay parents has produced the first-ever “gayby boom.”
The use of quotation marks implies that Newsweek didn’t coin the term “gayby boom,” but was quoting something already in use. Nevertheless, at least one etymology site (WordSpy, created by author Paul McFedries), believes this to be its earliest documented appearance. (If you know otherwise, please contact me.)
The article went on to state, “Arguably, the most extraordinary development is the gay community’s new political clout,” with “50 openly gay elected officials around the country, compared with fewer than half a dozen in 1980.” (Today, there are well over 1,000.) It discussed the ongoing fight to address AIDS and the debate within the community about how much time to devote to that versus other issues of civil rights. This led to a discussion of the argument between separatists and assimilationists as to whether gays should live a “countercultural lifestyle” or “assimilate into the dominant straight culture.” Marriage, it asserted, while “unlikely for the foreseeable future,” would be the “ultimate act of assimilation.” Even as marriage equality was being debated in theory, however:
Many are already living the settled-down life of their “breeder” peers. That includes children–either through adoption, artificial insemination or arrangements between lesbians and gay “uncles.” There are an estimated 3 million to 5 million lesbian and gay parents who have had children in the context of a heterosexual relationship. But in the San Francisco area alone, at least 1,000 children have been born to gay or lesbian couples in the last five years. A number of organizations have sprung up to meet their social needs. San Francisco boasts the Lesbian and Gay Parenting Group, storytelling hours for tots at gay bookstores and Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, a largely gay synagogue with a Hebrew School for members’ children.
The authors state that, “According to the parents, the concerns of gay families are both unique and quite routine.” We then get a short profile of two gay adoptive dads, one of whom is referred to archaically as the other’s “lover.” The article observed of the couple, “While many American parents try to limit the time their kids spend in front of the tube, White says ‘we make sure Elliott watches enough TV so he can relate to the world.'” This feels a little like pointing out odd behaviors of animals in the zoo (“Look at the quirky gay parents letting their kid watch TV!”), but perhaps reflects a desire of these particular gay parents to help their kids fit into a world not quite ready to accept them.
“While acceptance of such families has grown, the arrangement can lead to some difficult moments,” the article continued. It referenced a family where a gay man was helping raise his (non-legal) husband’s kids from a previous marriage, saying, “When the teacher of 6-year-old Jacob Rios asked him who the man in the front of the classroom was. he answered: ‘That’s my dad’s husband.'” Why that was a “difficult moment” the authors didn’t explain—but perhaps the idea (not unique to this article) that it is “difficult” to explain gay (and other LGBTQ) families to kids has contributed to the fears that have led to the “don’t say gay (or LGBTQ)” laws and book bans we are still seeing today. We have not yet rid ourselves of all the biases from earlier eras.
The authors also noted that psychologists had studied children with gay and lesbian parents “with somewhat surprising results”: “homosexual parents” had no adverse effects on their kids. Shocker, I know. They did find one psychiatrist who said we needed to wait until the children entered adolescence before concluding this definitively (thus ignoring the children raised by queer parents before then, largely after the parents left heterosexual relationships). Today, of course, dozens of studies have confirmed that kids of all ages (including adolescents and young adults) with gay or lesbian parents do just as well as any others.
Overall, it is a positive article, though very much of its time. It underscores that marriage and parenting are not coterminous and the history of LGBTQ families did not begin with marriage equality. (I’ll add that marriage still does not guarantee full parental rights.)Â And the debate between separatists and assimilationists continues, even as many more LGBTQ people are living in mainstream communities, starting families, and joining the PTA. I suspect that debate will never completely vanish, but I think there’s room for both under the big queer umbrella. Also, family and kids don’t always have to mean assimilation. Michelle Tea’s recent memoir Knocking Myself Up: A Memoir of My (In)Fertility makes this clear, as she shows us why she is “drawn to the less traditional, queer, and community-centric mode of making a family.” Paige Schilt’s memoir Queer Rock Love (2015) also proves that it is possible to be both a parent and queer in the radical and alternative sense of the word. At the same time, many of us are settling down and blending in with the communities around us. It’s all good.
The initial gayby boom may have passed, but its echoes persist. As many as 6 million American children and adults (some grown) now have an LGBTQ parent, and between 2 million and 3.7 million children under age 18 have one, according to the latest analyses from UCLA’s Williams Institute. Of these, 191,000 children are being raised by two same-sex parents, meaning that the majority are being raised by single LGBTQ parents or by different-sex couples where one or both parents are bisexual or transgender. As many as 3.8 million LGBTQ millennials are now considering starting or expanding their families, according to a 2019 study from Family Equality.
LGBTQ families didn’t start with the gayby boom, of course. We have a much longer history. The gayby boom marked a turning point, however, in the number of LGBTQ people intentionally starting families as out LGBTQ people and/or within LGBTQ relationships (as opposed to within different-sex, non-queer relationships), and in the increased public awareness of our families. To learn more about some of the queer families of the era, I recommend the 1985 film Choosing Children, the first documentary to look at lesbians who became parents after coming out. Here’s my 2010 interview with director Debra Chasnoff.
The gayby boom was a phase of our history we should all celebrate, even as we look towards creating an even better future for our families.