Identity and pregnancy in conflict?: an examination of sexual minority women using qualitative description

Abstract

While there is growing documentation of pregnancy among sexual minority women, little research has focused on their perceptions and experiences of conflict between sexual minority identity and pregnancy. Because of this, this study used Social Identity Theory and qualitative descriptive analysis to explore the following questions: do sexual minority women perceive sexual minority identity and pregnancy as in conflict; and if so, from where does this conflict arise and how do sexual minority women experience it? Participants included 21 lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and other non-heterosexual cisgender women, a third of whom had previously been pregnant. Themes captured internally located conflict, including participants who saw pregnancy as irrelevant and those who experienced pregnancy as acceptable for sexual minority women; imposed conflict from healthcare contexts, including both health provider assumptions and imposed conflict on reproductive autonomy; and ambivalence. Overall, few participants noted internalised conflict between their sexual minority identity and pregnancy. Instead, sexual minority women experienced ambivalence or imposed conflict between their sexual minority identities and pregnancy from their health providers, although this imposed conflict was not limited to sexual orientation.

Keywords:

• social identity theory
• content analysis
• heterosexism
• pregnancy ambivalence
• reproductive autonomy

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Tonda Hughes, who facilitated the recruitment of CHLEW study participants to this study, and Margaret Paschen-Wolff, who played a key role in the initial coding and interpretation of the qualitative data.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare there are no conflicts of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

Support for this research was provided by the Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation to the first author as a Hillman Scholar in Nursing Innovation, and by the UW-Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education.