I Insiders and outsiders: Is there a space for the gay ‘father’ in the era of the hetero-normative lesbian family?

Julie A. Wallbank Dr, University of Leeds

Abstract

Abstract Donor insemination is frequently used by lesbians in order to have their own families. Choices have to be made about conception and empirical research tells us that under the previous framework of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 these decisions rest on a number of issues such as the prospective lesbian parents’ views on the perceived interests of the child in knowing their donor as a child, the risks of challenge from the sperm donor to the integrity of the lesbian family and the desire to contest the hetero-normative model of the legally sanctioned two-parent nuclear family and to have the children raised in what might be conceptualised as a Plus Two family. These decisions have also been influenced by discourses about the (il)legitimacy of the lesbian parent family and that when disputes arise between donor/father and lesbian parents it has been that perception about how wider society negatively views the lesbian family which is a source of concern for lesbian families and the judiciary. This article engages with a number of issues raised by self-insemination. It examines how the new provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 allocate parental status by drawing upon what I have called a hetero-normative continuum. It considers the impact of the new provisions on how known gay male donors/fathers may come to be located as either inside or outside the family and stresses the need for prospective ‘parents’, policy and law makers to be alert to the debates about gender, sexuality and power in light of the hetero-normalisation of the lesbian family.