The World Needs More LGBTQ+ Family Building Medical Research
Underrepresented but growing.
This summarizes the current state of medical research on queer family building from the largest U.S. conference on assisted reproduction.
The American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) had its annual conference in Denver Colorado from October 19th to the 23rd, and the full program is available for free online (1).
In searching this program for LGBTQ+ keywords, I found an interesting abstract titled, ‘The State of Research on Fertility for LGBTQ+ People: A Scoping Review.’ (2).
This abstract was written by an international group of researchers from Argentina, Spain, and Canada. The lead author, Dr. Demian Glujovsky, is from a clinic in Buenos Aires called CEGYR, which describes itself online as a private clinic ‘noted for offering a comprehensive service for each reproductive stage with the latest scientific advances’ (3).
To conduct the study, the abstract authors did a literature review for publications from 2013 to 2022 using the following search keywords:
Sexual and Gender Minorities
Reproductive Medicine
Reproductive Techniques
Fertility
Pregnancy
Surrogate Mothers
The results were interesting and showed clear trends.
In the last 10 years, only 268 studies addressing fertility issues within the queer community were published. However, an uptrend was present, with 9 publications at the beginning of the decade and 58 at the end. Half of these 268 studies were published within the last three years.
The most common topics in these 268 studies were ‘family planning’ (38.4%) and ‘reproductive outcomes’ (29.1%).
Some of the less common topics (1.9 to 19%) included:
Access to fertility services
Psychological impacts
Ethics/legal issues
Challenges
Partner engagement and experience
It's interesting that this abstract was led by an Argentinian researcher, given the article I wrote a few weeks ago on the threat to international surrogacy in Argentina (https://www.babymoonfamily.com/original-articles/argentina-surrogacy-ban). Given the increasing popularity of Argentina for intended parents (IPs), especially queer IPs, it seems likely that Dr. Glujovsky has likely seen an increase LGBTQ+ family building first hand and wanted to validate this through the literature.
It’s intriguing that there is a dearth in the current literature related to access, ethics, regulations, and challenges, as these are all possible reasons international and LGBTQ+ IPs go to Argentina.
The authors concluded that LGBTQ+ reproductive research is underrepresented but growing, and I believe this is a great trend to see.
Through my writing with BabyMoon Family, I have focused on reviewing scientific publications that focus on all aspects of rainbow families related to assisted reproductive technologies (ART).
Some of the BabyMoon Family articles that highlight this scientific research includes:
Increase in International Intended Parents Undergoing U.S. Surrogacy Journeys
Are Gestational Carriers at Increased Risk for Pregnancy Complications?
Procreative Consciousness and Family Planning in Swedish Queer Men
Lessons from Gestational Carrier Experiences During the Pandemic
As a physician and clinical researcher, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of all forms of evidence generation related to rainbow families and ART.
More research leads to better understanding, addressing barriers, more ethical processes, and, ultimately, more rainbow families. I hope researchers will work to fill these gaps, and I look forward to reading, learning, and reviewing all the future research on LGBTQ+ family building.
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