LGBTQ Parenting Roundup
Summer may sometimes feel like a slow time of year, but there’s still a lot happening in LGBTQ parenting news!
Assisted Reproduction
IVF Is 41 Today! Happy Birthday Louise Brown!
Today marks the 41st birthday of Louise Brown, the world’s first baby born after in vitro fertilization (IVF). My spouse and I also used IVF to have our son, now one of more than eight million other people created through the procedure, so here’s a big happy birthday to Louise Brown and gratitude for the progress she represents.
J.P. Morgan and Others Boost Fertility Benefits for LGBTQ Employees
Financial giant J.P. Morgan has announced it will soon offer expanded fertility benefits aimed at helping LGBTQ employees start or grow their families. Let’s take the opportunity, then, to look at what they and other companies are doing—or should be.
New York Bill Would Protect All Children Born Through Assisted Reproduction and Legalize Surrogacy
New York State, where the Stonewall Riots accelerated the LGBTQ rights movement, is in many ways one of the most LGBTQ-friendly states around. Yet the state’s laws do not yet effectively protect families created through assisted reproductive technologies. That could change very soon.
Reproductive Rights Are Queer Rights
The recent move by Alabama that criminalizes abortions from the moment of conception brings troubling concerns in many areas, including assisted reproduction, even for those who want to gestate a child.
Fertility Expert and Lesbian Mom Pens New Book on Assisted Reproduction
When my spouse and I first tried to start our family 17 years ago, we searched vainly for a book on assisted reproduction that was both authoritative and inclusive. There were queer parenting books, to be sure, but they covered such a range of topics that details of the actual babymaking processes and procedures were somewhat scanty. There were more detailed guides, but they omitted families like ours. A new book by a fertility expert—who also happens to be a lesbian mom herself—is just the book we would have hoped to have.
Watch Now: Two-Mom Couple Featured in Documentary on IVF
Sarah and Yessie Williams, spouses from Brooklyn, New York, are featured in a new documentary airing today about four different couples and their journeys to create families through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Watch it here!
The Costs of Starting a Queer Family
The always wonderful Nancy podcast from WNYC has just run a series on Queer Money Matters, about “the straight economy and how queer people navigate it.” Listen here to their episode on “Babies and Bills,” about the costs of starting a family when queer.
Up to 3.8 Million LGBTQ Millennials Considering Expanding Their Families
Sixty-three percent of LGBTQ millennials—up to 3.8 million people—are considering becoming first-time parents or adding more children to their families, according to a new report from Family Equality Council.
7 Tips for Starting the Journey to Parenthood
A new year may motivate many of us to ponder new endeavors. For some, this may mean taking the first steps towards parenthood—so I wanted to revisit some of the tips I found most useful as my spouse and I began our own journey. This is not a guide on how to create a family (there are too many options to explore in a column of this length), but rather some suggestions for what you may want to do first in order to start weighing those options.