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Rinnakkaistallenteet Filosofinen tiedekunta
2021
'I didn't Even Realize I Agreed to Meet the Child so Rarely.' Negotiations and Parental Desires in LGBTQ Family
Forming Processes
Anttila, Sonja
SAGE Publications
Tieteelliset aikakauslehtiartikkelit
© The Author(s) 2021
CC BY http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0192513X211064862
https://erepo.uef.fi/handle/123456789/26804
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Journal of Family Issues 2021, Vol. 0(0) 1–25
© The Author(s) 2021
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sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0192513X211064862 journals.sagepub.com/home/jfi
“ I didn ’ t Even Realize I Agreed to Meet the Child so Rarely. ” Negotiations and Parental Desires in
LGBTQ Family Forming Processes
Sonja Anttila
1, P ¨aivi Palojoki
1,2, Jaana Vuori
3, and Hille Janhonen-Abruquah
1Abstract
This study explores the negotiations taking place in LGBTQ families before a child is born or added to the family. It asks who takes part in the negotiations and what issues are negotiated about. An online questionnaire answered by LGBTQ parents (n = 74) was analyzed with qualitative content analysis. The chain of phases leading to having a child can be referred to as a family forming process with various negotiation topics. The four phases are identified as parental desires, consideration of practices, reflecting on the decision, and concrete actions toward having a child. Besides the LGBTQ parents-to-be, significant others such as friends and the family of origin and external others such as donors and fertility clinics took part in the negotiations. Future parents needed to think about their desires in advance to enable fair and equal negotiations.
1Faculty of Education, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
2Department of Food and Nutrition and Sport Science, University of Gothenburg, Goteborg, Sweden
3Faculty of Philosophy, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
Corresponding Author:
Sonja Anttila, Faculty of Education, University of Helsinki, Siltavuorenpenger 1 B, room 469, Helsinki, Uusimaa 00014, Finland.
Email:sonja.anttila@helsinki.fi
Keywords
LGBTQ family, negotiation, family forming process, parental desires, family formation, communication, family processes, gender and family, qualitative
Introduction
Previous studies have pointed out that having children in lesbian, gay, bi- sexual, trans, and queer families (henceforth referred to as LGBTQ families) is a carefully considered (Cot´e & Lavoie, 2019) and planned process (Berkowitzˆ
& Marsiglio, 2007;Malmquist, 2015). In this article, we analyze the nego- tiations between different parties in the family forming processes of LGBTQ families. We ask who takes part in the negotiations, what issues are negotiated about, and what kinds of power relations exist. Our study is based on the accounts of 74 Finnish LGBTQ parents who answered our questionnaire, consisting mostly of open-ended questions.
The family forming process begins with an individual’s desire to have a child. Already in the early phase of this process, parents-to-be step outside their private family sphere. Having children often requires one or more other co-parenting partners (Erera & Segal-Engelchin, 2014; Herbrand, 2018), donated gametes (Cot´e & Lavoie, 2019), and/or services from a fertility clinicˆ (Pralat, 2018).
However, there is limited research on the experiences of LGBTQ indi- viduals in planning parenthood and even less research related to the nego- tiations that occur during the family forming process. Negotiations between female and male couples have been sidelined in previous studies, but in the current study, the informants are more diverse. Indeed, the negotiations in family forming processes are examined as a whole, which includes several negotiation parties: the significant others of the LGBTQ individuals having children and the service providers. AsButler (2002)argues, modern kinship belongs between the public and private, and the family can be seen as an organization governed and bound by culture and law.
The idea of heteronormativity is still grounded to the standard ideas of a
“proper” or a “real”model of the family (Morgan, 2011). Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer families differ from each other even if they should be regarded as a “normal” family. At the same time, LGBTQ families challenge the image of ordinary family life, how gender and sexuality are related to it, and how doing family is carried out in everyday life (Newman, 2019).
In principle, the possibility of having children can be considered a fun- damental human right (KogovˇsekSalamon, 2015;ˇ Rivers, 2013). It is also an issue of equality that should not be affected by belonging to a sexual or gender minority. In order to understand more deeply the family forming process in
LGBTQ families and its specific features related to negotiations, we explore it empirically in the Finnish context.
Doing Family through Negotiations
In general, family can be defined either through doing or through being (Weston, 1997), through the idea of family practices (Morgan, 2011), or through family features such as the goals for the family’s future (Janhonen-Abruquah, 2012).
Family is about the process and doing, and individuals can be seen as doing family. When looking at activities within the family, it can be concluded that the family cannot be defined as“relatively static structures or sets of positions or statuses”(Morgan, 2011). In this study, the family is understood through doing, and the family actions are both tangible and emotional.
Family relations are the result of negotiations, and as such, they can vary within time (Valentine, Piekut, & Harris, 2015). Negotiating is a part of family life before (Malmquist, 2015) and after children are born (Tammelin, Mykk¨anen, Sevón, Murtorinne-Lahtinen & R ¨onk¨a, 2019). It is carried on in close relationships, such as between family members and significant others (Nordqvist, 2012), and with external others, such as institutional actors (Mcnair et al., 2008;Valentine, Piekut & Harris, 2015;Williams & Murray, 2015). Negotiations are integrated into everyday family practices, and re- vealing them helps us understand the decisions made within the family circle (Morgan, 2011).
The motives and expectations held by family members are important as they create the basis of negotiations (Cˆot´e & Lavoie, 2019). The notion of negotiation implies the existence of power relations between the negotiating partners. However, the power may not be one-sided and coercive—in such a case, no negotiations would be possible (Morgan, 2011). Commonly the competence to negotiate successfully results in positive outcomes (Williams
& Murray, 2015). Concurrently, it is essential whose point of view is dominant in family negotiations and the kind of power relations between family members (Tammelin et al., 2019).
LGBTQ Parents-To-Be Negotiating Their Pathways to Parenthood
Next, we look at studies that have, in some way, examined the negotiations or decisions made by LGBTQ people during their family planning. It is essential to consider the social circumstances in which the previous studies take place, as legislation, religion, history, and other cultural characteristics can affect researchfindings. The theoretical framework of this study consists mostly of research conducted in Western countries, which are, in many respects, similar to those held in the Finnish context.
Public conversation and legal aspects of what constitutes a family impact LGBTQ individuals daily (DiGregorio, 2016). Even though same-sex couples can marry and are legally recognized, sexual and gender minorities continuously confront various issues threatening their equality in various contexts (Kennedy &
Dalla, 2020). Specifically, Western culture grants biological significance in rep- resenting and classifying relationships (Weston, 1997). Parenting is still strongly associated with heteronormative assumptions, and thus, LGBTQ families chal- lenge gendered binary parental categories (Padavic & Butterfield, 2011) and bring a new perspective to family studies (Patterson & Riskind, 2010).
Female couples have found guardianship issues most salient, and attainment of legal marriage does not always alleviate these challenges (DiGregorio, 2016).
There are several paths for lesbian mothers to parenthood, as shared parenting (Herbrand, 2018), adoption (DiGregorio, 2016), heterosexual intimacy (Costa &
Bidell, 2017), and, most frequently used, insemination using donated gametes (Dempsey, 2010). Female couples consider and negotiate among themselves matters about siblinghood, legal parenthood, the role of marriage in the family forming process, and the definition of a family (Nordqvist, 2012).
Couples who want to become parents using donor insemination must choose the insemination process (Dempsey, 2010). The options are so-called home in- semination and insemination carried out in a health care institution (Somers et al., 2017). They must decide who the biological mother and the sperm donor will be, and what role the sperm donor will play in the child’s life (Nordqvist, 2012). A female couple sometimes seeks donors“matching”their appearance because they want others to recognize the child as part of their family unit (Nordqvist, 2010). In donor insemination, the female couples are allocated different statuses as a birth mother and a non-birth mother (Somers et al., 2017). Couples negotiate based on these statuses of parenthood in their everyday life (Malmquist, 2015).
A donor agreement can be very similar to a clinical contract for identity- release sperm or can be an agreement in which the identity of the donor as a biological father is openly recognized from the birth of the child (Dempsey, 2010). It is also possible to agree on fully equal co-parenting, in which all parties to the contract share the parenthood of the child equally. Thus, in such a situation, it is vital to negotiate about parenting roles and responsibilities and the practical arrangements of everyday family life (Herbrand, 2018).
According to previous research, gay fathers have become parents in the context of a previous heterosexual relationship (Power, Perlesz, McNair, Schofield, Pitts, Brown, & Bickerdike, 2012), through adoption (Berkowitz &
Marsiglio, 2007), via surrogacy arrangements (Nebeling Petersen, 2018), in co-parenting arrangements with lesbian couples or a single woman (Erera and Segal-Engelchin, 2014), through step-parenting, and through a foster child relationship (Power et al., 2012). Gay men constructed their procreative and fathering identities through negotiations with their partners, adoption agencies, the surrogate mother, and lawyers (Berkowitz & Marsiglio, 2007).
In the same way as female couples, male couples negotiate between each other about the meaning of biological parenthood (Berkowitz & Marsiglio, 2007). There are indications that gay men would sometimes like greater social participation with children, including the recognition of paternity for the child, than women are willing to consider. It is sometimes difficult for a male couple or a single gay man tofind a female couple or a woman for equal co-parenting, and even more challenging to find someone for an informal surrogacy ar- rangement (Dempsey, 2010).
The opportunities for trans people to have children vary depending on whether they have children before (pre-transition parents) or after a transition (post-transition parents). Pre-transition parents are more often biological and legal parents to their child, while post-transition parents more often use adoption or step-parenting (Petit, Julien, & Chamberland, 2017). Trans people face difficulties in adopting or choosing assisted reproductive technologies, but it is also important to note that they are not even acknowledged in every country as citizens that can reproduce (Mizielinska, 2020).
Collecting Data in Finland
The number of LGBTQ families has been steadily growing in 21st century Finland, along with other Western countries (Hiltunen, 2017). At the same time, legislative developments have diversified alternatives for LGBTQ in- dividuals’pathways to parenthood in a nonheterosexual context (e.g.,Cˆot´e &
Lavoie, 2019; Kogovˇsek Salamon, 2015;ˇ Malmqvist, 2015; Pralat, 2018).
However, at the same time, the ultra-conservative movement has strengthened across Europe, and attitudes toward LGBTQ individuals and families have hardened (Datta, 2018).
In Finland, a family where at least one parent identifies as LGBTQ or any combination of these is commonly referred to as a rainbow family (Sorainen, 2019). The term rainbow family is also used in several other European countries and includes all family forms of gender and sexual minorities (e.g., Hanssen, 2015). Same-sex couples can marry in 29 countries (Perper, 2020), and the law came into force in Finland on thefirst of March 2017 (Marriage act, 249/2016, 1a § & Marriage act 695/2016, 17a §). On the same date, married same-sex couples became eligible for joint adoption, and this notably increased the chances of male couples to have a child in their family. There is an option in Finland to have more than two legal guardians for one child, and this facilitates lesbian women and gay men to share parenting. However, custody must always be sought through the court after the child’s birth, and the court does not necessarily support the parents’wishes for more than two legal guardians.
However, the opportunities of LGBTQ parenthood in contemporary Finland vary depending on which minority the prospective parents belong to.
According to the law, female couples and single women have access to fertility
treatment (Valleala, 2017). The not-conceiving mother can be registered as the second mother already before the birth of the child in addition to the birth mother (Maternity act, 253/2018,LGBTQ Parents-To-Be Negotiating Their Pathways to Parenthood), but the law had not entered into force at the time the data for this study was collected.
In practice, fertility treatments have not been given to all equally in public health care, and thus, female pairs mainly use the services of private fertility clinics (National Non-Discrimination and Equality Tribunal of Finland, 2016).
When female couples or single women use clinical donor insemination, the recipients do not know the donor’s identity, although the provision exists for the child tofind out his identity when they reach the age of 18 (Fertility care act, 1237/2006,Collecting Data in Finland23§). As surrogacy is not allowed in Finland, medically assisted procreation is only available to single women and female couples and is not possible for single men or male couples (Valleala, 2017). Although surrogacy is not legal, individuals might have informal, secret agreements between themselves. The Finnish authorities do not recommend arranging surrogacy abroad, as family law concerning surrogacy abroad is always dealt with as individual cases. Thus, for example, there is no certainty as to whether the child’s access to Finland can be guaranteed or whether the intended parents can obtain legal status as the child’s parents.
Trans people are in a difficult position in Finland because there is still the requirement to present a certificate of sterility to obtain legal gender recognition (Honkasalo, 2018). According toRepo (2019), compulsory sterilization is the technology of power by which trans kinship can be governed. In any case, there are trans parents in Finland. Most of them have started a family before legal gender recognition. Nowadays, young trans people seek to obtain legal gender recognition at a younger age, when they do not have children, and they should have the opportunity to start a family after the transition. (Huuska, 2017)
Changes in the Finnish society mentioned above have affected LGBTQ families’official status. The general attitude and public discourse have be- come more open and permissive towards different kinds of families (Juvonen, 2015). Despite all these favorable changes in society, the normative structures as a point of reference still exist. The heteronuclear family remains the basis for comparison, and some LGBTQ family forms are still excluded from legislation. For instance, not all parents are able to take parental leave or make legal decisions for their children (Sorainen, 2019).
Online Questionnaire
Thefirst author (S.A.) collected the research data in spring 2016 with an online questionnaire. To ensure a common understanding between the researcher and the respondents, two informants who belonged to the target group tested the form. Based on their feedback, changes were made, for example, one
overlapping question was removed, and the two questions took better account of the diversity of the respondents.
The questionnaire was based on previous research on the subject (e.g., Dempsey, 2010;Nordqvist, 2012;Patterson & Riskind, 2010) and was mainly comprised of open-ended questions to give the informants the opportunity to express themselves in their own words (Guest, MacQueen, & Namey, 2012).
In addition, background information about age and domicile was collected.
Gender, sexual orientation, and family form were asked as open questions in order to create classification systems for the analysis to be as inclusive as possible and to allow heteronormative assumptions to be resisted as much as possible (Oswald, Kuvalanka, Blume & Berkowitz, 2009).
This research follows the ethical guidelines of theFinnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK guidelines (2019). An invitation to participate in the study was shared in open and closed groups in social media used by LGBTQ families. In addition, two registered associations distributed the questionnaire link on its e-mail lists because it was probable that there would be LGBTQ parents among their members. The invitation included infor- mation about the research, and it stressed that participation was voluntary.
Consequently, at all phases of the research, attention has been paid to keeping informants anonymous according to ethical principles of research. The re- search data were processed confidentially and in a way that rendered it impossible to identify the answers of individual informants.
The questionnaire was open for 1 month, and during that time, 78 persons answered. Two informants did not answer the open questions, two informants did not belong to the target group, and thus, 74 informants were included in the final data. When transferred into a textfile, the total length of the responses is 126 pages with font Times New Roman, font size 12, and line spacing 1.5. The ability to ask questions that are meaningful to the informants is one of the strengths of qualitative research (Guest et al., 2012). In this study, both the number of informants and the length of the responses evidence the signifi- cance of the research for the participants.
Description of the Informants
The informants (n = 74) of this study are individuals who self-identified as parents in an LGBTQ family. An online questionnaire can potentially reach a diverse group of informants; it retains anonymity if the informants do not want to identify themselves and allows them to respond regardless of geographical location (Levine, Madsen, Wright, Barar, Santelli & Bull, 2011). The set of informants was, as desired, diverse in terms of age, geographical location, and family forms.
Most of the informants, 37 (51%), belonged to the age group 30–39 years.
The age group 40–49 contained 20 (28%) of the informants, and 11 (15%)
were 18–29 years. The lowest number of informants was in the higher age groups, where 5 (7%) were aged 50–59 years and 1 (1%) were 60–69 years.
As gender is multidimensional, the study did not limit the number of categories that informants could select. The given categories were woman, man, transgender, non-binary, and intersexual. In addition, respondents were allowed to specify in an openfield how they define their gender. Most of the informants, 62 (83%), defined themselves as women, 5 (7%) defined themselves as men, 3 (4%) defined themselves as transgender, and 2 (3%) identified themselves as non-binary. Moreover, two informants (3%) did not feel that they belonged to the given categories. One of them self-defined as queer, and the other did not want to define their gender at all.
In total, 40 (54%) defined themselves as homosexual, 20 (27%) as bi- sexual, 4 (6%) as pansexual, and 4 (5%) as straight. None of the given categories of sexual orientation suited 6 (8%) of the informants, and they described themselves as queer or non-binary. Attempts were also made to reach intersex parents, but unfortunately, no answers were received from them.
The most general family form among the informants was a two-parent family where the parents were of the same sex. Altogether 43 (58%) had this kind of family form, including two families with male couples, and the rest were families with female couples. There were 12 (16%) informants who had single-parent families, and 8 (11%) had various co-parent families. Five of the co-parent families had three parents, two families had four parents, and one had two parents. In addition, 11 (15%) of the informants had another family form than those mentioned above. They defined their family forms in an open textfield as a foster family, a reconstituted LGBTQ family, a trans family, and a single-parent family after divorce.
De fi ning the Family Forming Phases
The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis (e.g.,Graneheim, Lindgren, & Lundman, 2017;Schreier, 2012). After a conscientious reading, segments of the data were sought in which the informants described the negotiations in their family forming processes. Similarities in the informants’
perceptions were highlighted, and key features were identified. Passages of interest for the present article were collected in a separate document. The analysis focused on both manifest and latent content (Graneheim et al., 2017), as on the one hand, some aspects of the negotiations during family forming processes were visible and obvious, and on the other hand, some aspects were hidden in underlying meanings of the text.
In the preliminary analysis, 36 sub-categories based on negotiation topics in the family forming process were found. The sub-categories, the negotiating parties, and the timing of the negotiations in the family forming processes
were transformed into a coding frame. These 36 subcategories were grouped into nine categories: (1) fear of the child being discriminated against, (2) support from the family of origin or lack thereof, (3) timing, (4) biological parenting and selecting a donor, (5) legal agreements, (6)financial issues, (7) doing family through parenting roles and everyday activities, (8) cooperation with the service provider, and (9) views on life.
Next, the meanings of the accounts were comprehensively considered.
Categories were used to identify the four phases in the family forming process in which the negotiations took place, and they were named (1) parental desires, (2) considering the practices, (3) reflecting on the decision, and (4) concrete actions toward bringing a child into the family. The phases are linked to the timing of the negotiations and are the result of the analysis. Even though the phases of the process overlapped and some of the same issues were negotiated in several phases, the steps in the process were separate and manifested in order. Next, the nine negotiation categories are presented in the order in which they appear in the family forming process.
Parental Desires: Negotiations on Whether to Have a Child
At the beginning of the family forming process, prospective parents began to speak aloud about their hopes of having a child. The negotiations focused on categories 1, 2, and 3. They discussed whether to have children in the family, on possible emotional and practical support from the family of origin, and various issues related to the timing of having a child.
Category 1,“fear of the child being discriminated against,”contains de- scriptions of couples’negotiations with each other in thefirst phase of the family forming process. When a couple would start making plans to have a child, they negotiated whether they wanted children in the family and, in addition, whether it is right to have children in an LGBTQ family. The question of morality was negotiated, as some informants feared that a child would face discrimination because of belonging to an LGBTQ family; ways of addressing possible discrimination were also discussed. One female parent expressed the issues they negotiated with her spouse as follows:
Uncertainty about whether the world is ready for the LGBTQ family. Would a child’s life be too tough because of our family type? Are we strong enough with my spouse to be the parents of a rainbow family, to build a strong self-esteem for the child that will allow her/him to face the stupid people of the world, and to support the child in any situations that may arise? (060, female couple)
The negotiations of the male couples were also in parallel, as in the ex- ample below:
How is a male couple received in different contexts when a male caregiver is a fairly unknown thing to many? And what is more, we had a lot of discussions about how we could protect a child from prejudice. We even wondered if it was right to have a child. Would his/her life become too hard? (410, male couple)
Informants who had experienced discrimination due to their sexual ori- entation or gender were the most concerned about these matters. They did not want the child to face similar discrimination, exclusion, or bullying. For example, Berkowitz and Marsiglio (2007) pointed out in a qualitative US study that gay men reported before becoming fathers that they worried about their future children being ignored, discriminated against, or teased. However, the gay fathers in the study did not report actual discrimination. Further, in a more recent US study (Perrin et al., 2016), gay men said that they prepared themselves and their children for the discrimination they may encounter when revealing their family type.
Category 2, support from the family of origin or lack thereof, was relevant only to female informants who mentioned negotiations with their parents, siblings, and cousins as part of the family forming process. Among both single women and female couples, some respondents had negotiated with their families of origin.
These negotiations appeared in two ways in the responses. The first way to negotiate was a subtle inquiry about the family of origin’s opinion on the re- spondent’s intentions to have children. One respondent describes it this way:
My most important role models in parenting are my own straight parents, and it was important to me that they accept my plan to have a child in a relationship with a woman. Ifirst talked carefully with them, and it turned out that this was exactly what they had secretly wanted. (120, female couple)
The second way was directly asking for concrete help following the birth of a child, as described in the quotations:
We made sure that my three brothers and our male friends would be available so that the child would not be left without a so-called model of masculinity. (370, female couple)
I agreed with my family of origin that they would support me if there were any
“unusual”situations. I also asked if my sister could help me with the child if something happened, for example, if I became ill. (008, single mother)
The informants did not report any negative reactions after announcing their intention to have a child. The question arises as to whether some informants had avoided discussing the matter with the family of origin if they assumed that the family members would react negatively. Not all of the informants were
in contact with their parents, and some informants did not mention their family of origin at all. However, parental opinions may have had an impact beneath the surface, and negotiations were held on other issues when, in fact, there was a lack of approval from parents. As one of the informants expressed:
I have been together with my current spouse almost my whole adult life. We have talked about kids all the time, but there have been several factors along the way that slowed down the process: money,“a decent situation in life,”etc. But honestly, I think the hesitation was due to the attitude of my spouse’s parents towards us. They would preferably deny the existence of our homosexual relationship. (240, queer informant, two parent family)
In accordance with category 3, reflection on having a child was related to whether the timing was right. The actual negotiations had been between the couples, as the single women had arranged suitable conditions in their life before having a child. Female couples and male couples had wondered whether it would be worth waiting for family legislation to develop and postpone having children to the future. Despite these negotiations, none of the respondents had ultimately postponed having children for this reason.
Some couples had also negotiated how long they would like to live together and what things they would like to do before having a child. One decision made as a result of the negotiations was to postpone having children until both had completed their studies and were permanently employed. Decisions on timing had also been made together without listing any reasons, as described by the following informant:
We negotiated a schedule and decided to wait a few years before having a child for no specific reason. However, our relationship strengthened during that time, and when the child was born, we were ready for parenting. (290, female couple)
When several family units were involved, the topic of planning the timing and related negotiations started in thefirst phase of the family forming process and continued throughout the process. Negotiations related to the parties’own reflections and the planning of a joint schedule between all of the participants were at the same time associated with the method of bringing a child into the family and parenting roles. This is further discussed in the results section Reflecting on the decision.
Considering the Practices: Negotiations on Biological and Legal Parenting
In the second phase of the family forming process, the negotiations focused on categories 4 and 5. One key issue the prospective parents began to negotiate in
this phase of the family forming process was who the biological parents would be. Biological parenting was linked to negotiations on legal parenting, the choice of donor, and doing family through decisions on these issues.
In LGBTQ families, it is common for a couple to have only one type of gametes, and those who have a child as a single parent are inevitably in this situation. In situations where more than two adults were working together to create a child, it was more likely that the necessary gametes could be obtained from the prospective parents. In category 4, female couples negotiated dif- ferent options for obtaining gametes. The negotiations related to what characteristics were desired of the donor, whether the donor would be anonymous or a known person, and whether he would be part of the child’s life somehow. As two respondents noted:
It was discussed what would be relevant in a donor. It seemed pretty much unanimous in the end. It was agreed that we would ask for a donor of our color who is not unconscionably tall because we, as women, are tall so that the children do not become terribly tall (although it really means nothing). (420, female couple, unknown donor)
We negotiated whom we would ask to be a germ cell donor. We both had the idea that the donor could be involved in some way in the child’s life, and on that basis, we started to think about what was appropriate. Of course, we wanted someone familiar, balanced, and trustworthy, who himself would like to get involved in such a thing. A spouse’s friend met these“requirements,”and we started negotiations with him. One principal issue was whether he would be willing to act as a donor for potential siblings as well. (570, female couple, known donor)
The responses above are examples of negotiations related to the external characteristics of the donor or co-parent. These results were in line with previous studies. According to Jadva, Freeman, Tranfield, and Golombok (2015), women looking for a co-parenting partner were more likely than men to be looking for someone of a particular race or ethnicity. A similarfinding was reported in a study of female couples in England and Wales choosing a sperm donor as they wished to “match” the donor to the non-conceiving mother’s appearance and ethnic background (Nordqvist, 2010).
The genetic relatedness (e.g., Nordqvist, 2012) and the idea of blood kinship were repeated in the descriptions of the negotiations in category 4, explicitly regarding who would give birth and whose germ cells would be used. In this respect, the results of the present study are in line with previous research, as the same was found, for example, in a sample of Swedish female couples (Malmqvist, 2015) and in a study of American gay fathers (Berkowitz
& Marsiglio, 2007). For female couples who were planning to have a child, the question of biological parentage arose regarding which of them would try to
conceive and give birth. Some of the couples had decided that both would give birth to at least one child if possible. The decision was also described as easy in one situation in which only one parent would try to conceive and give birth, as in the quote below:
My spouse and I discussed which of us would give birth to the children. The decision was easy and came quite naturally. It was essential to my spouse in particular that our children were blood siblings, so the donor was the same for both. (150, female couple)
Category 5, legal agreements, was closely linked to genetic relatedness. The male couples discussed which of them would be the child’s biological, and thus the legal, parent. They also negotiated what role they wished the expectant mother to have in their lives and the child’s life. As surrogacy is not legal in Finland, it was impossible to agree on these arrangements through fertility clinics or other official routes. Those who are unable or unwilling to give birth and seek sur- rogacy mustfind a surrogate mother themselves and agree to the arrangements among themselves. Male couples also considered having a child together with a female couple or a single woman and acting as co-parents.
Some female couples had their children when intra-family adoption was not possible, and some had their children when a social mother was able to adopt a child carried by their spouse. The couples negotiated how the legal agreements would be handled and what would be done if something happened to the birth mother before the adoption was confirmed.
It was mainly negotiated about the legal facts of things. How to act andfigure out all things in advance. (710, female couple)
We also negotiated our roles in the child’s life, we both wanted to be equal mothers and legal parents. (290, female couple)
At this phase in the process, some female couples had already decided that they wanted their family to have only two parents. In contrast, other couples were open to different ideas and the negotiation of co-parenting with a male couple or a single man, although they eventually ended up with another solution. Some were also ready to adopt, but this was not possible for a female couple in Finland at that time.
Re fl ecting on the Decision: Agreeing on Practical Issues for the Process and the Future
In the third phase of the family forming process, negotiations took place with a view to thefinancial issues of category 6, as well as the day-to-day family life
and activities of category 7. Negotiations were also held outside the family about cooperation with the service providers, in accordance with category 8.
In terms of category 6,financial resources, the negotiations discussed the costs of different methods of having a child, the potential need for savings, cost-sharing, financial compensation, and the costs of raising a child. The themes of the negotiations varied according to family forms and the method that the prospective parents would use to bring a child into the family. Money was also associated with the question of power; those who did not have to think about the cost had more varied options.
Single women and female couples agreed with the known donor on fi- nancial compensation or on a contract that includes no compensation. Some women who received gametes had also tried to offerfinancial compensation or expense reimbursements, such as gas money, without the donor accepting them. One respondent, who had become acquainted with the donor she used on an internet forum, shared the following:
We had an explicit agreement with the donor: he was just a donor and not in any contact with our family. We decided that we could greet each other if we met on the street. We agreed that the price was twenty euros. (330, woman, single parent)
The couples negotiated how much money they would be willing to spend and whether they should start saving. In addition, the female couples ne- gotiated what they would do if the pregnancy failed. They discussedfinancial matters such as how much money they were willing to spend and how long they would continue fertility treatments:
Treatments at the clinic are costly, so in between every treatment we had to negotiate how we would pay for them. We also had to think about how long we could continue the treatments and cope mentally. The pregnancies did not start very easily, and we experienced miscarriages as well. (220, female couple)
Many female couples wondered whether their currentfinancial situation was adequate for a child. These considerations included negotiations on whether their working situations or living conditions were good enough and suitable for a family with children. Similar issues related to the lives of single parents were also considered, but the single parents did not mention that they had negotiated these issues with anyone.
Various practical matters and everyday issues related to the day-to-day implementation of parenting in category 7 were negotiated between the prospective parents who were planning co-parenting between two family units. They negotiated such things as where the child would live, how de- cisions regarding the child would be made, how the parents would
communicate about issues related to the child, and how the child would be raised. In addition, there were discussions about the creation of a family through different parenting roles.
Among the future co-parenting partners, the negotiations were influenced by the phase in which the various parties had become part of the process.
Naturally, those who had been involved from the beginning of the process had had time to structure their aspirations. On the other hand, those who joined the process at a later phase may still have been reflecting on how they would like to carry out their parenting and live as a family. It is difficult to negotiate with others and impossible to reach decisions that are agreeable unless one is sure of one’s wishes.
According to a respondent asked to be a co-parenting partner, “surpris- ingly,”reflection on his situation sheds light on the importance of a period of reflection before taking concrete action:
We agreed at the planning phase on how we would act after the birth of a child.
My visitation rights, cost sharing, and the fact that the child’s mothers become legal parents. So, I would not acknowledge paternity, because otherwise, second-parent adoption for the non-conceiving mother would not be possible. I didn’t even realize I agreed to meet the child so rarely. Also, things haven’t gone as we agreed, and I meet the child very rarely. I would like to keep in touch more, but the child’s mothers are not cooperating with this. I dare not insist so that our relations do not get worse. (540, man, shared parenting with a female couple)
In a Belgian study (Herbrand, 2018), the interviewed biological gay fathers shared that when a co-parenting proposition was presented to them by a single woman or a female couple, it “often constituted a unique and unexpected opportunity to become a father.”Family life is not a static structure, and the meaning of paternity or being a father may change over time (Power et al., 2012). It seems that this is precisely what has happened in the quote above: the respondent has seized an unexpected opportunity to have a child and did not have time to think about his desires. After the birth of the child, his hopes for being able to exercise parenthood did not match the agreement.
On the contrary, the following quotation is an example of a situation where a gay man seeking co-parenting has been actively looking for parenthood partners himself.
From the beginning, the plans included an active as possible role for the father and shifting between the two homes as early as possible. These criteria dropped many women and female couples out over the years because I wouldn’t have gotten the role I wanted in a child’s life. (580, Male, shared parenting with a female couple)
He had been involved in processes from the beginning and has ended negotiations with maternal candidates who have been reluctant to share parenthood equally between two households.
Negotiations with the known donor were informal, and agreements were made, for example, on possible contact after the birth of the child or on whether the child could be told the identity of the donor if they wanted to know it as an adult.
We negotiated which one could give the child the name of their family. This eventually settled on us taking a common new last name for the whole family.
(510, female couple)
We had to consider what the child calls us because we are of the same sex. Who is mother, mom, mommy…(420, female couple)
There are four parents and for that reason we had to agree on what names the child would call us. (170, non-binary informant, co-parenting family)
Legislation affects the parenting of LGBTQ people in many ways, but the attitudes of the social community and institutional service providers are a significant factor (Padavic and Butterfield, 2011). In the current study, institutional service providers were also relevant parties in the negotiations regarding category 8. Such providers included fertility clinics, adoption agencies, and the organizations that provide children to foster families. Negotiations were held with these actors as to whether it would be possible to obtain the desired service, such as fertility treatments or adoption mediation. The responses also indicated that certain negoti- ations were being avoided, leading to circumvention of the law, and even to lying or failing to tell the whole truth to obtain the desired treatments or services.
Public fertility treatments were possible for heterosexual couples only. During them, my partner and I had to pretend to be friends while we were at the clinic.
The birth mother had to pretend to be straight along with our gay friend who donated gametes. (210, female couple)
The family forms that deviated the most from the heteronuclear family were the most likely to withdraw from negotiations with service providers.
The informants with a trans background and those who had polyamorous relationships avoided getting into negotiation situations with fertility clinics and adoption agencies. When they did, they chose to hide their LGBTQ identity and family form from the authorities because they felt that the ne- gotiations would fail. This is illustrated in the quotes below:
We had to conceal our polyamorist relationship in adoption counseling; oth- erwise, we would not have been allowed to adopt.… It is fortunate that our relationship looks outwardly like a“normal”heterosexual relationship. The hard thing is that you must think about who you can be open to about the whole truth.
(680, woman, polyamorist relationship)
We had to undergo extensive psychological tests, a family therapist’s assess- ment, and consulting [a well-known Finnish child psychiatrist], who saw it as impossible to give us fertility treatments before my spouse was sterilized. After everything, the fertility clinic withdrew, even though they saw no obstacle preventing us from parenting. It was an organizational line made during our care contact. The public sector workedflawlessly, but only one child could be made there. Our other children have been made in another private clinic“under the counter”without telling the whole truth. (410, woman, whose spouse is a trans man, two parent family)
In the first quote, a parent of an LGBTQ family in a polyamorist rela- tionship doubted their chances of adopting a child if they had been open about their family situation in adoption counseling. In the other quote, the spouse of a man with a trans background tells about their experiences at fertility clinics.
Both couples’relationships may have outwardly looked heteronormative, and they told only part of the truth about their family type through the adoption process or fertility treatment.
Concrete Actions toward Having a Child
As the name implies, in the fourth phase of the family forming process, prospective parents moved on to concrete actions of bringing a child into the family. These concrete actions included starting fertility treatments in a clinic, doing home insemination, or starting the adoption process. At this phase of the process, some respondents had to state that the decisions made at earlier phases on how to have a child did not work as planned. Thus, they had to return to the earlier phases of the process when considering a new course of action. Such situations existed for women using a known donor and those planning co-parenting.
Some of the negotiations that began in the third phase continued in some form, depending on the family form. Negotiations on financial resources continued for respondents whose method of bringing a child into the family required money. Parenting roles, future practices, and doing family through those practices also continued at this phase, even though they had already moved into practice through negotiations at earlier phases.
Category 9, views on life, appeared in the negotiations in thefinal phase of the family forming process. Negotiations related to one’s outlook on life,
religion, different traditions or their formation, and communication styles between the adults in the family had been conducted by respondents who were having a child together with someone else or more than one other person. The possible baptism, religious upbringing, and related issues are mentioned, for example, in the following ways:
It was discussed whether the child will be baptized or not and how religious matters will be handled in other contexts as well. Maybe I did give up a little of myself; they’re not that important to me. (054, man, co-parenting with a female couple)
At least there was a negotiation about whether to baptize the child and who to ask to be godparents. Whether a child is associated with a denomination. (150, female couple)
Co-parenting partners negotiated ways of forming an understanding of the family for the child, even though the parents do not live together. The dis- cussion topics included what kind of common traditions the family would form and how different holidays would be celebrated.
Even though we don’t all live together, I wanted the child to feel that we are one family. That is, we are his family. So we agreed that, for example, we always celebrate certain celebrations and anniversaries together. In addition, we agreed to have a joint holiday at least once a year and visit a restaurant together at least once a year. (002, woman, co-parenting family, two parents)
However, there were respondents who admitted that they had not been able to negotiate everything necessary when planning to have a child. The pro- spective parents had important decisions to make; however, since they were in a new situation, they did not know what to expect and in what ways the child’s arrival in the family would change their lives.
Discussion
This research aimed to understand LGBTQ parents’pathways to parenthood better and map their family forming processes throughout the journey. Ne- gotiations took place at every phase of the family forming process. The same topics were partly negotiated in different phases but with different emphases and between various parties. AsCot´e and Lavoie (2019) claim, negotiationsˆ are significant in the family forming processes of LGBTQ people as it is essential to consider the expectations of all the parties involved.
The family forming process involves questions of how doing family is carried out and how society influences the family planning of LGBTQ people.
On the other hand, it is worth noting how these diverse forms of family formation can shape society’s perception of family and family life. The in- formants shared how they resisted, challenged, and negotiated hetero- normativity during their family forming processes. Their reflections related to the general concept of a heteronormative nuclear family held by society, and many of the informants wondered whether it was even right to have children as an LGBTQ family. Heterosexual privileges in society are often hidden (Oswald, Kuvalanka, Blume & Berkowitz, 2009), and LGBTQ people with children make these visible.
The deeper understanding of the negotiations as a whole and within the family forming process broadens the perception that has emerged from previous research.Patterson and Riskind (2010)proposed 10 years ago that research on LGBTQ families should consider a wider variety of family structures. Further, they argued that specific family structures in the context of LGBTQ family forming processes might be unstudied because family scholars are unfamiliar with them.
Much research has been done since these arguments, but research is still needed that considers all the colors of the rainbow. Thus, the current research draws from the respondents’diversity in terms of gender, sexual orientation, family form, and methods of bringing a child into the family. This research follows the idea ofOswald, Kuvalanka, Blume, and Berkowitz (2009), as the starting point was not equating gender with heterosexuality or not comparing LGBTQ families to heteronormative families.
The four phases in the family forming process were not named by the informants but are the result of the research analyses. A large proportion of the informants are women who are in a relationship with a woman. This is expected because there are many female couples among LGBTQ families. At the same time, the large number of female couples among the informants can skew the results. Parents of LGBTQ families from all parts of Finland re- sponded to the questionnaire, but most of the informants lived in large or medium-sized cities, and more informants came from the Helsinki metro- politan area than from other parts of the country. The general attitude and practical opportunities to obtain, for example, fertility treatments are better in the Helsinki metropolitan area than, for instance, in remote sparsely populated areas. Thus, the family forming processes of those living in cities is ac- centuated in the answers.
It should be noted that the informants in this study reported the negotiations in their family forming processes that resulted in having a child. The voices of those whose family forming process has been interrupted for some reason are not heard from in this study. A topic of further research could be the ex- periences of unintentionally childless LGBTQ people in their family forming processes.
Conclusions
Family legislation that excludes certain family forms or gives a fertility clinic the option not to provide services are societal statements about who can be a normal parent or which kind of family is normal or desired in society.
Consequently, people do not dare to be open about themselves when they want a child, and after having a child, they are unlikely to want to bring extra attention to the child. This results in a negative spiral in which some forms of family are not identified in the services provided for future parents or families with children.
Birth rates are falling in Finland, but more children are being born into LGBTQ families than in previous decades. Finnish society’s aim seems to be to understand differences and individualities through comparison with the familiar “normal,” and there is a need for more consideration of different family structures and more versatile representations of LGBTQ families in different areas of society. Ethical and moral considerations about the right to have children should affect everyone considering having children. However, a rainbow-specific question in the data of this study was whether it is right to have a child specifically as an LGBTQ family. Here we return once again to an invisible heteronormative way of thinking that affects society.
People’s life situations and the social structures around them are constantly changing. Consequently, it is worth thinking about how enduring these in- formal agreements between LGBTQ individuals are in the end. What happens when one of the parties to the agreement changes their mind? AsHanssen (2012)states, being an anonymous donor is not necessarily afixed position. At best, all parties abide by informal agreements, but only legislation can guarantee that no one who wants a child must make unpleasant compromises in their parenting. Without the protection of the law, complicated relations between the parents can be inflamed in such a way that they must be clarified in court. Such custody disputes involving LGBTQ families have been the subject of litigation in the US since the 1980s (Rivers, 2013).
Based on this study, those who want a child shouldfirst consider on their own, even when in a relationship, what they are not willing to compromise on in parenting. The importance of these considerations increases even more if having a child involves more than two adults or more than one household. Fair negotiations can only be achieved when, in principle, all the parties know what they want. Those with a clear goal have the most power in negotiations. The time taken to think in certain phases of the process certainly will only be to the benefit of future family life.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the Elli Suninen and Rachel Troberg Foundation and the HEED research project for supporting the research.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Sonja Anttilahttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-2892-3486
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