ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the multi-layered meanings of reproductive losses for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ) people and the emotionally, and sometimes physically, damaging effects of heteronormative assumptions about who should get pregnant and how they should do so. Elizabeth Peel has examined the “heteronormativity and heterosexism embedded in the notion,” which she describes aptly as “the antithesis of the un-restful, un-calm, intense, often emotionally and financially challenging process of achieving conception” as LGBTQ people. For many LGBTQ parents, the question of whether to attend support groups proved particularly challenging. For LGBTQ people facing homophobia in such groups was often a significant concern. For couples who had experienced pregnancy loss, another common assumption by professionals, as well as within social networks, was that non-gestational parents should “stay strong” for their partners.
