REFER A FRIEND: Postnatal Services for LGBTQIA+ Parents

[sashh]

So this has just popped into my inbox - and I'm not sure how to react. I wonder who the 'client; is?

Do you know anyone that can help with our latest market research study?
The topic...
Understanding experiences around parenting and challenges faced, exploring support you have looked for/received, and gathering ideas for improving postnatal services
The who...
Parents with babies under 18 months
Our client are keen to hear from LGBTQIA+ parents across the UK!
Stage 1…
A remote online interview for up to 90-minutes w/c 12th September for a £55 eGift card
Stage 2…
You may then be invited to an individual online remote interview for up to 90-minutes around 2 weeks later for a further £55 eGift card

Were all LGB etc etc etc + these days aren’t we?

i think I was this in a bookshop at the weekend. It had removed its womens section (now gender and sex) 🤬

You could respond as a lesbian or bisexual and then talk about your fears of having to deal with well-meaning but clueless HCPs wearing rainbow lanyards and the removal of 'woman', 'mother' and 'breast-feeding' from websites and information. (I'm a lesbian, I dread rainbow lanyards: I wouldn't object to a straight woman helping out the LGB if you'd like to do it).

You're encouraging her to pretend to be lesbian or bisexual?

Why? Don't you trust the actual members of this community to take the opportunity to express their views?

Or have I misunderstood? Apologies if I have

Well, if she knows someone who's LGB and has a child under 18 months then she can certainly refer them to the survey. Given that the number of lesbians and gay men with babies of a particular age is likely to be quite limited, I have no issue with her responding as a lesbian or, probably easier, a bisexual woman (most bisexuals are in straight relationships).

If you fit the bill then OP can let you have details.

I'm a member of the lesbian community. Joined up in 1988.

I mean most women don't fancy sex after childbirth, which definitely makes them Demisexual and thus part of the LGBTQQPLUS community.
All this gatekeepers makes me so sad. People ought to do better and educate themselves.

I’m not surprised they are reduced to advertising for respondents, they must be fishing in a pretty small pond. Of all the letter people, aren’t only the Land the B qualified to participate? The G and all the others will presumably be adoptive or surrogate parents so not really clued up on the post natal part.

And why should L&B really be so different? They are mothers, surely, just like ‘straight’ mothers, so apart form from some possible social differences (?) there’s no reason for the experience of a physical and biological process to be different.

I know there are a very very few trans men who have given birth. I suspect that their experiences are of course going to be different, and those differences may not just be experienced by the mother.

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen

It seems from the email they are looking into experiences of support and challenges, so that may well be very different between lesbian and straight mothers.

Looks like an interesting bit of research to me. I hope it leads to improved understanding of how to support new lesbian and bisexual parents.

And why should L&B really be so different? They are mothers, surely, just like ‘straight’ mothers

There was a thread running recently about someone who experienced homophobic attitudes during antinatal care and during labour. Something that couldn’t have happened to straight women.

I think this study looks interesting.

I don't want this to come over too brutally, but there's a touch homophobia showing.

I noticed a distinct change in the way I was treated when after years of presenting at the doctor's surgery/ hospital as a woman whom they assumed to be straight, I told one of the HCPs who asked why I wasn't on contraception that I was a lesbian. Things became a little bit less relaxed after that because I'd gone from being one of us to one of them. When I last had a smear test the HCP insisted on calling another woman in as a chaperone even though I was clear I didn't want her there. Weird little things like that which leave you wondering whether it's you. When I talked about that experience with other women, none of whom had had a chaperone, one said 'Perhaps she was scared you'd be so turned on by the experience of a woman prodding about down there that you might come on to her.'

I presume my sexuality is flagged up fairly obviously when they open my notes because sometimes when I encounter a new doctor we have a relaxed first few minutes in which they treat me like a standard human being, then they have a quick look at my notes, see I'm a lesbian, become self-conscious and the atmosphere turns a bit odd. Not all HCPs, but it happens. It happens because I'm perceived as different and not like them. People get uncomfortable and sometimes they say strange things and that can really change your experience of a service and leave you feeling weirded out. Sometimes the people with the rainbow lanyards and tattoos leave you feeling weirded out the most.

We have no idea who the client is for this survey. It might be the NHS wanting to check up the kind of thing I've mentioned or it might be a formula producer trying to find out whether LGB people or people who believe themselves to be QT+ (whatever those letters mean) could be a good market for nappies, formula or unisex maternity clothing. I guess the OP could sign up and find out.

As I am GC and do not identify with a gender that seems to make me 'agender' and fall under 'T' so definitely relevant for the survey.

Indeed.