FAMILY MATTERS

With same-sex and trans parenting on the rise, the joys of being a mother or father should be celebrated, not mocked, by members of the gay community

- Oliver Keens

A recent book called The Queer Parent, written by Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley, calmly opens with the line: “Ninety per cent of queer parenting is simply... parenting.” It’s a fair point. Whether you’re male, female or non-binary, single or partnered, and regardless of your sexuality, all of us who parent aim to meet the exact same needs for our children, day in, day out.

The title caught my attention because I think there’s something very timely and profound about the act of being a gay or queer parent today. It’s doing the work that many (dare I say most) people want to see in society – namely raising a new generation of non-toxic humans, making the world a happier place to be different – but in the slow grind of parenthood, not just in the quick flash of activism. I really believe gay and queer parents are changing the world, in a very deep yet unsexy way. Mum and mummy being at the school gate, dad and daddy collecting a child from nursery, or as we’ll get into, dad giving birth to a baby son or daughter. They’re changing the world by being active, visible and engaged parents.

But there’s a slightly awkward, under-discussed aspect to this that has truly got under my skin in the eight years since I’ve been a parent. I’m pansexual, so I fancy men as well as women, non-binary people and pans. But oddly I’ve always been frightened to talk about parenthood with most of my avowedly gay male friends – because I’m never quite sure if anyone’s going to derogatorily refer to me as a “breeder” or not.