Stella Duffy on Queering Childlessness and Childfreeness

What can we learn from the queer community? 

Some of us in the childless and childfree community are queer. While it can be painful when our own CNBC community all too often forgets we exist, it can also be frustrating, because we have possibilities and lifetimes of hard-won learning to share…  

Left out of family gatherings? Expected to be the adult/child/dog/cat/gerbil-carer because you don’t have kids to look after? Asked daft and often brutal questions by your dearest beloveds about your ‘lifestyle choices’? Above all, assumed to have a lesser life because it doesn’t fit the traditional pattern? 

Your gay friends and family, especially those of us who are now elders, have lived this for generations. From the children taken from ‘unfit’ lesbian mothers when they came out, to the gay men assumed to be child predators, to the widespread belief that coming out as gay automatically meant a ‘choice’ to be childless, we have lived, fought, suffered, survived this and more. And, often, we have also learned how to thrive despite the odds stacked against us. Let’s look at our possibilities for thriving.