![](https://images.storyhouse.com/uploads/2023/07/STORYHOUSE-CHILDLESS-1080-x-1080-px-1920-x-1080-px-5000-x-2000-px-scaled.jpg?resize=900%2C900&gravity)
Sat 28 September 2024 • 3:45pm
Stella Duffy on Queering Childlessness and Childfreeness
Storyhouse Childless
Event details
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.
Members: £4.50
Non-members: £5
Included in the Childless Weekend Pass (£35)
Click here to buy your pass
Please book a space for the events you will be attending with your pass
About Stella
Dr Stella Duffy She/Her
Dr Stella Duffy is an existential psychotherapist, and her doctoral research was in the embodied experience of postmenopause. As well as her private psychotherapy practice, Stella has worked in NHS cancer psychological support, low-cost community services, and hospice bereavement support.
Stella is also the award-winning writer of seventeen novels, over seventy short stories, and fifteen plays, she worked in theatre for thirty-five years as an actor, director, facilitator, and improvisor. The co-founder and, for eight years, the co-director of Fun Palaces working with communities and inclusion across the UK, she has been active in equalities and diversity work in the arts and LGBTQ+ communities for many decades. Stella is also a yoga teacher, leading workshops in yoga for writing and dreaming our creative postmenopause. Childless-not-by-choice since cancer treatment in her mid-30s, Stella is a proud member of Jody Day’s Gateway ElderWomen group.