Adults conceived through donor insemination (DI) who have lesbian parents are generally satisfied with the amount of contact they have with their donors, whether or not they know them, according to the latest results from the longest-running study of lesbian families.
The Study
The National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) has focused on the same group of subjects since 1986, when the researchers began interviewing the inseminating or pregnant parents. (They looked solely at DI families in order to limit the number of variables.) They have interviewed them again in seven waves, several years apart, and also directly questioned the children starting at 10 years of age. Of the original 84 families, 76 are still participating, an impressive 90% retention rate.
The latest paper from the NLLFS, “Sperm donor relations among adult offspring conceived via insemination by lesbian parents,” authored by Audrey S. Koh, Esther D. Rothblum, Henny M.W. Bos, Nicola Carone, and Nanette K. Gartrell in the Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology (July 2023), explores when, why, and how the offspring, now 30 to 33 years old, contact their sperm donors, and how they feel about them and their relationship. The team looked at similar questions in their 2020 paper, when the offspring were 25.
These offspring “were among the first generation of DI children from lesbian-parent families,” the paper notes. While donor types are typically divided into “anonymous,” “open-identity” (who agree to be known when the child turns 18), and “known (since childhood),” the authors note that “these categories are neither static nor reflect the lived experiences of donors and offspring. With advances in DNA testing and registries, donor anonymity is no longer guaranteed.” Despite these changes, however, there is little information on DI offspring and donors that includes adult offspring of queer parents (or as the study calls them, gender and sexuality diverse parents (GSDPs)).
The 75 NLLFS offsprings’ relationships with their donors were thus analyzed by various donor types, including anonymous donors who remain unknown; anonymous donors whom offspring have identified through DI registries; open-identity donors who are still unknown; open-identity donors who have been contacted since the offspring turned18; and donors known since childhood.
The Findings
Most of the 35 offspring with still-unknown donors “felt comfortable not knowing their donors,” the researchers found. The paper suggests several reasons for this, noting, “Age-appropriate, early discussions about their DI origins have been associated with children’s positive integration of this information and accepting family cohesion without donor contact.” Other factors include:
- Conversations between queer parents and their children about their legal concerns as a queer family and the reasons for choosing a specific donor type;
- Socializing with other DI families who used anonymous or identity-release donors, which helped develop “feelings of completeness with their similar family and donor situation”;
- When offspring and families completely incorporate the nonbiological parent, which could decrease interest in donor contact.
The authors importantly observe, however, that offspring “may have motivations and desires for donor contact regardless of their satisfaction with their family of origin.”
Of the offspring with open-identity donors, eight contacted them between ages 18 and 25; only one more did so after age 25. Yet a new category also emerged: anonymous donors contacted through DI registries. Seven offspring met their donors this way (9.3% of all offspring or 43.8% of all of those who contacted their donors after age 18).
Nearly all those who contacted their donors after age 18 did so because they wanted to find out what he is like. Other frequent reasons were “to understand their family history, find out more about his family, understand why he donated sperm, and gain a better understanding of themselves.” After contact, they generally felt their expectations had been fulfilled. Notably, too, none considered their donor a father. None reported negative relations with their donor; about half got along well and half were neutral. Over half had an ongoing relationship, usually via e-mail.
An additional 24 offspring had known their donors since childhood.
For offspring of all donor types, the study found, “Regardless of whether they had met their donor, on average, the satisfaction with the level of donor contact was relatively high,” with a mean of 4.04 on a scale from 1 = very dissatisfied, to 5 = very satisfied. Most were neutral about wanting more contact in the future, and the researchers suggest that, “Cohesive family bonds nurtured from an early age may lead some offspring to feel complete with their family identity even without donor contact.”
The researchers caution that this study was still “small and nonrepresentative,” with “mostly white, and highly educated individuals, not representative of the entire population of DI offspring.” This is because the study started “when most GSD people were too closeted or resource-challenged to allow for a large recruitment—much less a population-based study.”
Nevertheless, it offers an important look at “a first-generation cohort of adult DI offspring of lesbian parents and their relationships with their donors,” with a diversity of donor types. Its high retention rate over nearly four decades also means “the findings are not skewed by over-representation of offspring who were already content or dissatisfied with their donors or donor type.”
The Implications
With DI increasingly used by both queer and non-queer parents around the world, the researchers say, these findings can be useful to those considering donor conception and to their offspring, as well as to medical and mental health professionals working with them.
Additionally, as many government entities are considering donor-identity release legislation, these findings can help inform policies “on whether, how, and to what degree affected parties optimally make contact.”
On a practical level for parents, the authors also observe that their data across the 36 years of the NLLFS suggests that “early and open discussions of DI origins contribute to offspring’s donor-satisfaction” and this “supports the practice of transparency within all types of families using gamete donations.” That’s advice we should all take to heart.
Resources and More
- For young children: The picture books from my Database of LGBTQ Family Books tagged “Sperm donor” and “Assisted reproduction.”
- For middle-grade readers: Roads to Family: All the Ways We Come to Be, but please read my review at the link for one major error.
- For older youth and adults: COLAGE’s “Donor Conceived: A Guide for People Who Have LGBTQ+ Parents and Were Born via Donor Conception and/or Surrogacy.”
- For adults: LGBTQ Family Building: A Guide for Prospective Parents and Your Future Family: The Essential Guide to Assisted Reproduction offer useful advice on talking with kids about the topic, but again, see my reviews for some errors and shortcomings in each. Random Families: Genetic Strangers, Sperm Donor Siblings, and the Creation of New Kin is a more academic but still very readable book about donor kin networks in both queer and non-queer families.
Want more on the NLLFS? I’ve interviewed Principal Researcher Nanette Gartrell, M.D. twice, once in 2008 when the offspring were teens, and once in 2018 when they were 25. I’ve also written many more posts about previous NLLFS findings. One of my favorites is about a 2019 paper on what the NLLFS parents said were the best and most challenging parts of 25 years of parenthood.
