ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a range of stories from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people who have experienced reproductive loss. It focuses on what Linda Layne and other researchers have theorized about the pervasive cultural silence surrounding pregnancy loss to argue that the cultural expectation is amplified by expectations of silence around “failed” LGBTQ reproduction. In a political moment focused on progress for LGBTQ legal rights, the pressures to achieve conception and establish families through pregnancy or adoption are inescapable. The chapter presents the experiences in depth and together, to emphasize the intentionality with which many LGBTQ people approach family-making, the deep emotional investments they make in those efforts, and the ways in which their grief frequently extends beyond personal experiences of loss to larger social, political, and community losses. Highlighting the long-term planning of many LGBTQ families, one participant explained, queer pregnancies “could have been incubating for years in planning.”
