Just Molly and Me, and Donor Makes Three: Lesbian Motherhood in the Age of Assisted Reproductive Technology

SUMMARY

The psychological experiences of lesbian mothers, both coupled and single, are compared and contrasted with heterosexual and gay parents who use assisted reproductive technology, focusing on issues of parental desire, fertility, babies conceived from science rather than sex, presence of an outside party in conception, genetic asymmetry, social anxieties, legal protections, disclosure, and gender. The psychological meaning of the donor or surrogate as an “extra” and “missing” piece of the family, along with the interactive effects of homophobia and “reproductive technophobia” are considered. Lesbian families are recognized to be constructing a new narrative of a bio-social family as they define and live their experience.

KEYWORDS:

• Lesbian mother
• assisted reproduction
• sperm donor
• alternative family

Acknowledgments

Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D., is the author of Mommies, Daddies, Donors, Surrogates (Guilford Press, 2005), her fourth book about parenting. She has a private practice in Oakland, California, and has served on the faculty of The Wright Institute, and the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. She is on the editorial board of the journal Studies in Gender and Sexuality.