Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley, hosts of the U.K.-based LGBTQ parenting podcasts From Gay to Ze and (formerly) Some Families, have distilled their wisdom and that of their guests, friends, and other experts into an informative and fun guide for the adventure that is queer parenting. They begin by asserting, “Ninety per cent of queer parenting is simply parenting”—and I couldn’t agree more. This book is for the rest of it.
Jeffs is an author, journalist, and editor who had a daughter via IUI (intrauterine insemination) with her wife in 2017, and also tried to get pregnant via IVF herself. Oakley is a film publicist and writer who adopted two children with his husband in 2018 and another in 2019. They are generous in sharing stories from their own lives throughout the book, but also weave in plenty of stories from others across the LGBTQ spectrum as well as their children.
This is not primarily a how-to guide for starting a queer family, although it touches on that; instead, it looks broadly at being a queer parent and some of the particular experiences and challenges we may have. Notably, too, Jeffs and Oakley say they hope that people of differing LGBTQ identities will learn from each other by reading this book and that even non-LGBTQ friends and relatives of queer parents (or parents-to-be) may use it to better understand what their loved ones may be going through.
In the same entertaining tone they use in their podcast, the authors cover topics like co-parenting; talking about one’s family with one’s kids and others; coming out after parenthood; being a non-biological parent; sharing (or not) donor information with friends and family; interacting with schools; gender assumptions around parenting roles; grappling with hard times; dividing emotional and practical labour; solo parenting; pressure and perfectionism; the impact of race on adoption and donors; dealing with prejudice and building resilience; handling intrusive questions; vacationing as a queer family; divorce, separation, and stepparents; and more. Each chapter ends with several open-ended questions to ask oneself (or one’s partner) about the topic covered.
There’s also information on parenting as a transgender or nonbinary person, from preserving one’s fertility before transition to transitioning after kids, choosing parental names, and more. I also give them kudos for including voices of bi parents in different-sex couples, often overlooked in discussions of queer parenting.
And yes, they cover fostering, adoption, assisted reproduction, and surrogacy—not only how to start down those paths, but also what to expect along the road. They don’t include as much detail as some other LGBTQ parenting guides that are more exclusively focused on family creation, but that’s fine. They’re not trying to be a complete guide to any of those methods, but to offer a helpful overview of what each may entail, in the context of a broader look at queer parenting.
The legal and financial information here is geared towards readers in the U.K., but much of the rest should be of use and interest to readers in the U.S. (and elsewhere), too, though you will need to translate a few terms (e.g., nappy/diaper). (Also, their assertion that Gareth Peters’ 2021 My Daddies was the first LGBTQ-inclusive family book from a major publisher is only correct for the U.K., not the U.S., where Penguin published Uncle Bobby’s Wedding in 2008, and many more followed from major publishers even before 2021.)
I recommend listening to at least one episode of the From Gay to Ze podcast (wherever podcasts are found) before you read the book, not only because you may want to listen on an ongoing basis, but because you can then have their voices in your head as you read it. They’re the chatty friends you want to hang with when you have questions, need to vent, or just want to hear stories about this difficult, rewarding, irreplaceable journey.
Highly recommended.
