More like a donor or more like a father? Gay men’s concepts of relatedness to children

Abstract

Lesbian mothers internationally have negotiated informal donor insemination arrangements with gay men since the earliest days of planned lesbian parenthood. In recent years, the relational status to children of these men has been subject to increasing legal and research scrutiny. In this article, based on interviews with Australian gay men, the various meanings of biological relatedness to children are explored from the men’s perspective. Of particular interest is the difference between a ‘donor’ and a ‘father’ for the men, and the extent of their complicity with patriarchal discourses about fatherhood. I argue that, on one level, it is important to distinguish between patriarchal concepts of relatedness that connote entitlement to authority, proprietoriality or legal rights over children, and the various other dimensions of affinity men revealed, including that predicated on biological relatedness. Men’s stories often indicated a strong sense of connection to children in the absence of a sense of parental entitlement. I also explore some slippage between ‘proprietorial’ and ‘connected’ concepts of relatedness which potentially have negative as well as positive implications for relationships with children growing up in lesbian-parented families and their mothers.