Deciding Whether to Parent

Most research examining LGBTQ parents studies them after they have children. This entry looks at the major factors embedded in the process that LGBTQ people go through when deciding whether or not to parent. These include personal factors, support networks, work-related issues, and intimate partner relationships. The sections that follow examine how these factors, while experienced by LGBTQ people on an individual level, are socially constructed; that is, they develop out of and are embedded in social structures of race, class, gender, and sexuality that shape the decision-making process about whether or not to parent. The emphasis here, therefore, is on the personal, cultural, and structural reasons that LGBTQ people decide whether to parent.