Diversity, tradition and family : Australian same-sex attracted parents and their families

This paper describes the diversity of family forms within a sample of 455 families parented by same-sex couples and same-sex attracted sole parents from Australia and New Zealand. Around one-third of this sample had conceived at least one of their children while in a previous heterosexual relationship. The remaining two-thirds had conceived at least one child within a same-sex relationship or while they were single. Among this group, the largest proportion was women who conceived using home-based self-insemination with a known donor. A smaller proportion of women had conceived through clinic-based insemination or assisted reproduction with a known or unknown donor. There were 60 male participants in the sample. Around 20% of these men were raising children they had conceived through a surrogacy arrangement; the rest had conceived their children within previous heterosexual relationships or through donor arrangements with single women or lesbians. Around 50% of participants described their family form in terms of a two-parent model, where they and their partner were their children's only parents. Around 34% were sharing care of their children with ex-partners, either a previous heterosexual (opposite sex) partner or a previous same-sex partner. Around 10% described themself as their child's sole parent. In large part, participants in this study were not creating radically new family formations, with around half of all participants describing their family in terms of a two-parent ‘nuclear’ model, albeit a model involving parents of the same gender. However, pathways to conception and/or parenthood did reflect nontraditional patterns.