Grey and gay: Lisa’s story
When Lisa, now in her fifties, reached thirty she very much wanted a child. A short marriage had ended without children and she knew that she was attracted to women She sees it as a measure of how far things had moved that “Gay women, with a new confidence inspired by gay liberation, were beginning to make the decision to have children on their own.” She asked a gay man, recommended to her by her lover, to be her donor and had a daughter, Carol, in 1985. “It was an act of solidarity. He wanted to help me but not to have involvement as a parent and that suited me.”
The tolerance of gay women living together did not extend to them having children in this way. There was heated public discussion about how children would grow up living with gay parents.
Lisa, who four years ago set up Pink Parents, an organisation that offers guidance and support to gay parents, remembers how upsetting all this was to her and to her “very liberal and loving” parents.
“Of course I worried about how prejudice against lesbians and gay men would affect my daughter, but in fact I was able to choose a London school where they were very accepting and there were lesbian teachers on the staff.”
Carol felt at ease in her primary school. But when she started secondary school she heard the words “gay” and “lezzie” being used as terms of abuse, with no corrective messages from the teachers.
“She felt the hostility and was very intimidated. She had trouble making friends. Even so I really admired her when I was on a radio talk show and, aged 14, she grabbed the phone and said, ‘I want to say my Mum is a lesbian and I don’t have any problem with that’.”
When Carol was five years old Lisa got together with Maria, shifting the family shape from single mother to stepfamily. Now, Lisa and Maria remain in a strong relationship and Carol is working and living independently. Written by Angela Neustatter
This article was created: 13 July 2006.
This article was last edited: 2 March 2007.
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