A Pregnant Lesbian Does Not a Radical Queer Make

Inspired by my coworker's recent review of Sexy Mamas (book) and the ubiquitousness of wee ones and pregnant women in my daily life, last week I picked up The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians: How to Stay Sane and Care for Yourself from Preconception Through Birth by Rachel Pepper. It may speak highly of the book to say that I barely put it down in my spare time and finished the two hundred and fifty pages in less than three work days. Or it may just be a testament to the ticking of my queer-ass biological clock and my passion for all things birth-related.

I would certainly recommend this book to anyone (gay or straight) who wants to know what to expect out of pregnancy and birth in terms of physical and emotional health and changes. Pepper dedicates twelve pages to self esteem and sexuality during pregnancy. This may not seem like a great deal, but given that most resources don't even touch on this subject and certainly not outside the realm of sex oriented towards a biological penis, Pepper's twelve pages that covered topics such as lube, anal sex, and positions were more than welcomed. While she acknowledged that some pregnant people feel highly sexual at times or throughout their whole pregnancy, she posited that the vast majority experience a dip in sexuality due to "fear, nausea, hormones, and the way your body is increasingly morphing into some strange other creature." Maybe it's my idealism or my still childless perspective, but I hope this is a little one sided. I'd like to think the the experience of sexuality on the road to babyland is as diverse as the people who travel it. I also stopped in puzzlement every time she mentioned the possibility that one's partner may not find their changing body incredibly sexy.

The first hundred plus pages of the book covers getting pregnant. In contrast to many hetero people who have little difficulty getting pregnant or do so by accident, this book acknowledges the inherent challenges that queer people face in embarking on building a family in this way. Pepper clearly outlines different options for aquiring sperm and inseminating and the pros and cons of each. She gives alot of information on all the options, however I felt that her writing was definitely slanted by the route she took in having her daughter Frances by an unknown donor.

If you are queers having a baby or someone looking to raise a baby on your own and worrying about legal issues, Pepper gives good information and points you in the direction of a lot of other resources. Her perspective left my wondering how these issues will play out in my own politically radical lgbT community that places a lot of value on trust and communication and developing mechanisms for accountability that don't rely on costly or oppressive legal institutions. Pepper, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of caution and protecting your relationship with your child from a male donor who later decides he wants to be more the daddy than you bargained for. She didn't delve very far into possibilities of alternatives families outside of one or two parent homes, but she did raise alot of issues that I hadn't necessarily thought through and in this way, I appreciated her work.

She used the phrase "dyke daddies and tranny pops" through out the book. It was hard to read it as anything more than tokenizing, though, when she rarely acknowledged gender identities outside of the binary with references to "girl names" and "boy names" and no exploration of choosing a name that will still feel comfortable to one's child if they later in life come into an understanding of their gender that is different than the one assigned to them. She also didn't acknowledge that not everyone who has given birth or would like to identifies as a woman. For more on this, check out Jules Rosskam's documentary film project at transparentthemovie.com.

I also wished that she would have acknowledged her apparent economic privilege and how that informed her advice. She assumed that one would most likely have health insurance when embarking on a baby making journey and borderline implied that if one did not or did not have the money it takes to work through a sperm bank, one should rethink whether they are fit to parent. Boo!

Though I felt that she failed to take responsibility for just how much her writing was informed by her own social location and experience, she added the voices of other women by frequently inserting quotes from different mothers and partners that she had talked to. I also was comforted by the consistent encouragement and pride she expressed towards queers creating families:

She writes: "Even Dr. Spock...stated that our children are comparable to all other children in their mental health, are as likely to be heterosexual as children raised in straight families, and are less likely to suffer sexual abuse in the home (since straight men are the biggest perpetrators of abuse); they also grow up more tolerant of differences in others." Her next section is titled "Will my kids be teased?" She answers, "Probably. But accept that and move on. Every kid is teased for something..." As someone who can remember Dr. Spock's parenting books on their mom's bedside table and who also knows their mom will raise these same questions about the wellbeing of her potential grandchildren, I wanted to photocopy these few pages and put them in the mail right away.

All in all, I found this a useful and interesting read and the bottom line is that there's not alot of other books out there about this topic that are not coming from a heterocentric perspective. But we can do better, queer family builders! In ten years or so, I just might...