A Queer Parent

A queer parent is just that – a parent. Mostly. But it’s also a journey that might include co-parenting or donors or surrogacy or adoption or fostering or fertility treatment or pausing hormone treatment. And that’s just the beginning.

Over the past five years, authors and podcasters Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley have spoken to dozens of experts and queer families for their hugely popular podcasts Some Families and From Gay to Ze. In 2024 they took insights from these conversations and their own experiences of becoming parents (through IUI and adoption respectively) to write the must-have parenting toolkit for LGBTQ+ families, friends and allies The Queer Parent.

Writer Ben Fergusson, both a gay father and a parent adopting in a foreign country, makes an impassioned case for the value of diversity in family life in his first non-fiction book Tales From The Fatherland, arguing that diverse families are good for all families and that misogyny lies at the heart of many of the struggles of straight and queer families alike.

Vedrana Velickovic will chair this panel as Lotte, Stu and Ben celebrate the highs and lows and higher highs of queer parenting.