“It’s Just Who I Am … I Have Brown Hair. I Have a Mysterious Father”: An Exploration of Donor-Conceived Offspring’s Identity Construction

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to explore the communication and identity-related experiences of members of donor-conceived families. Guided by the theory of symbolic interactionism and a constitutive view of communication, the present study sought to understand the ways in which anonymous sperm donor-conceived offspring (DCO) make sense of their experiences and communicatively construct their identities. In-depth interviews with 14 adult DCO and 24 online postings by DCO about their experiences being donor-conceived were inductively analyzed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, 2011). The following five identity constructions were identified: (a) victims, (b) wanted children, (c) enigmatic, (d) storytellers, and (e) processes. The findings capture the multiplicity and complexity of DCO’s communication and identity processes.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The findings described in this manuscript come from a larger data set on donor-conceived families. Another publication from the same data set appears in the Iowa Journal of Communication, 46, 16–32. An earlier version of this article was presented in November, 2012 as part of the Top Papers Panel in Family Communication at the annual convention of the National Communication Association in Orlando, Florida.

The authors would like to thank Amy Cavanaugh, Alyssa Colosi, Sarah Foster, Maggie Gotch, Jerome Han, Sarah Kaszubski, Jamie King, Christopher Miner, Emily O’Neil, MaryKata Vadala, and Sruthi Venigalla for their insight regarding the topic at hand. The authors would also like to thank the participants for their willingness to share their experiences.

Notes

¹ This excludes instances where the conception of a child resulted from sexual abuse, including rape.

² When referring to the full data set or online postings, we use the term “DCO” rather than “participant.” We use the term “participant” to refer to those who participated in an interview.

³ Parenthetical citations include the interview number (designated with an “a”) and line numbers or online posting (designated with a “b”) and line numbers.