"Family Thicket": Known Sperm Donor Family Relationships (WITHDRAWN)

Background and Purpose:

As societal and legal barriers to LGB (lesbian, gay, and bisexual) family formation become less entrenched (e.g., marriage equality), social work research must increase its focus on diverse family forms and the implications for practice, research and policy making.  Much of the current literature on LGB families privileges or assumes two parent family structures, often leaving out the role of sperm donors.  The experiences of lesbian couples who conceive using a known sperm donor are sparsely documented.  The limited work on known donor family structure suggests donors assume one of three fixed biologically focused roles:  donor, uncle or father.  Our grounded theory study investigated the role of known donors in LGB families and posits a much more complex relationship between LGB parents, children, and their known donors.

Methods:

We conducted ninety-two interviews with members of known donor families including: carrying and non-carrying parents, donors, and extended family members. Recruiting occurred through paid Facebook advertising, LGBTQ- organizations and in-person recruiters at Pride events across the United States and using snowball sampling.  Interview guides were informed by a previous phase of this study and included both narrative and semi structured sections.  Interviews were recorded and transcribed.  In keeping with grounded theory methodology, the research team moved between data collection and analysis.  Two team members coded each interview using emergent, axial and theoretical coding. Differences were mediated by a third coder and entered in Dedoose.  The constant comparative method determined theoretical saturation.  Results were member checked with an advisory council of stakeholders and participant volunteers.

Results:

The known donor’s role in a family is shaped by a variety of factors. We identified seventeen distinct areas of donor involvement. Sample domains include:  frequency of communication, physical time spent, financial, child supervision and decision-making.  Categories of involvement included both formal (i.e., legal) and informal (i.e., emotional closeness) aspects of family relationships. Domains appear to be largely independent; active donor involvement in one aspect of family life does not appear related to others.  Our data suggests that the level of donor involvement varies greatly at different stages of family development and shifts between and within the identified domains.

Conclusions and Implications:

The domains identified in our study begin to provide a framework for understanding, planning for and assessing the level of donor involvement in LGB families. Families could use these domain in practice settings to help articulate their desired type and level of donor involvement.  Domains could be operationalized into a donor involvement scale, which could examine the longitudinal changes in donor involvement.  Our findings suggest that the narrow legal structure for recognizing parenting roles may be insufficient for LGB families with known donors.

Our findings challenge existing research that narrowly defines donor role in biological terms (uncle, dad, donor).  More complex and flexible models for defining and addressing family relationships are needed in assessment and treatment approaches for families. Existing methodologies used to represent family relationships (e.g., genogram modeling) and approaches to working with families should be revisited in light of these findings.