Children to me personally are a non-issue. I never wanted them, and since I have a distinctly younger sibling who was a baby and a toddler in my teenage years, I know very well what it really means to have children. The beauty-of-motherhood propaganda is wasted on me.
I see the emotional, psychological and political damage done by the principle ‘family’ as a whole. I also see how troublesome it is when Lesbians direct their energy towards their children, in particular towards boys. Het or Lesbian household, boys are treated better than girls in so many regards, and even those women who attempt to raise sons in a ″feminist″ manner failed, as the history of feminism shows.
When I came out, I assumed the kids topic was off the table. Things in Europe always are a few years behind the US. While across the Atlantic ocean marriage and adoption rights for homosexual couples were already a big issue in the media, the average inhabitant of my little country in the mountains never would have associated ″I’m a Lesbian!” with ″I want to get married and have children!”
In the contrary, it still was the time of ″How can you do this to me, I was hoping for grandchildren!”
For several reasons the grandchildren issue wasn’t that important for my own parents, and I enjoyed a refreshing period without anyone wanting me to have children.
Before I came out, that was different.
Since grammar school I was badgered if I wanted to have children, and when I stoutly refused, I was met with confusion or disdain.
I argued with the nurse when we were sent to the rubella shot at school. We were told that it was to protect our future children. Neither me being prepubescent nor me assuring I would not have children stopped the nurse. Of course not. Law has to be obeyed and the law says the bodies of 13 year old girls have to be prepared to carry and birth children, end of the story.
In the mountains I was born language often is brutal. When I was a teenager and still refused to say I wanted children, I usually was given the sentence: Where you spit, you have to lick up.
This is a traditional way to say ″karma will get you″ and means that I will be cursed with a bunch of kids for contempting the joys of motherhood in my youthful ignorance. I have – so I was told repeatedly – a very fertile great-grandmother and very child-bearing hips, after all.
All the psychological terror came to an abrupt halt when I told people I was a Lesbian.
But things didn’t stay this way.
Now the tables have turned once more.
Now the main goal of the local Lesbian and gay organisations is to open marriage, adoption and all kinds of fertility treatments for gays and Lesbians. There are more Lesbians on TV than all through my childhood, real Lesbians and fictional Lesbians, and most of them want, crave or have kids. It has become the most normal thing in the world that Lesbians have kids – just take a look at Grey’s Anatomy. It doesn’t get any more mainstream than that.
And I get to feel the outcome of this. The heterosexualisation of Lesbianism in the media and society have taken their toll. Again I am asked if I want to have kids, and why I don’t want kids, and how kids ever could have been the decisive factor for me to break up with my long-term girlfriend.
Again I have people – and not just nasty people or stupid people, mind you – urge some male’s semen on me. This implication is something I usually don’t point out to people who want me to have kids, because it is rude. But it sure is a valid thought: Some loser in Denmark desperate for money and/or sure of his own genetic superiority jerks off and I am supposed to want to put that disgusting slime up my vagina and have the result rip my vagina in shreds nine months later? There are better things to do in Denmark.
So I decided to make a list of all the arguments I had hurled at me, because the uterus sniffers and the fertility brigades just don’t stop hurling them.
I am convinced every Lesbian of vaguely child-bearing age who doesn’t buy into the heterosexualisation of Lesbian culture will have heard them, too.
1) The Political Insinuation argument:
It basically means I violently suppress my natural urges to have a child in order to promote my political belief. They call us feminazis, after all.
2) The Too Egoistic For Precious Little Souls Anyway argument:
This always strikes me as a clumsy attempt of reverse psychology.
″It is good you don’t have children, you would be a lousy mother anyway!”
″He called me a lousy mother! Now I’m gonna prove I am mom of the century!”
3) The If You Don’t Find The Right Man To Procreate You Want Too Much argument, or The Uppity Bitch argument for short:
This is one taken from the fundus back when I was young. No matter what women want in a man, and may it be basic health and no crime record, they will be accused of setting too high standards. Who is the uppity broad who actually wants to decide whom she mates with?
Also, whenever a father of the year ends up in the news for raping/killing his kids, there will be voices blaming the mother for procreating with the wrong man. But of course: When women set high standards, they are doing it wrong. When they set low standards or no standards at all, they are doing it wrong, too. I detect a pattern here.
(I have yet to see the het woman who draws the only resonable conclusion: Stay away from men, stay away from procreating. But I am wasting my breath here, I assume.)
4) The Nature Wants Women To Be Mothers argument:
When we are talking nature here, I’m dead. Nature decided to kill me when I was eight years old, and since nature doesn’t provide surgery… too bad.
5) The What If Your Parents Would Have Thought Like You argument:
This is a spin-off from the abortion rhetorics: ″What if your parents aborted you!″
It amazes me on many levels.
First of all the sheer stupidity of it: If I wasn’t born, I wouldn’t mind, because there would not be an ″I″ to mind. And what’s with the child that couldn’t be born because I took up the space in my mother’s uterus for so long?
Second: This rationale would be also true for abstinence (the trademark religious way of contraception) and religious celibacy. Yet I don’t see bishops preach to nuns to get out and have children? Also, every menstruation is the bloody sign of an egoistic woman who let one more month pass without granting the chance for a child to be born so that it can police Lesbians later.
Third: What if my parents didn’t think at all? Children as ″accidents″, children because abortion is impossible, children born from rape or incest – there are millions and millions of mothers who didn’t even have a chance to ″think like me″ because they have no choice. I know, something that is not very welcome in our postmodern society and not even liberal feminism who values tales of ″choice″ over Lesbian experience (of for example corrective rape).
6) The Broodmare For The Fatherland argument:
Only the wrong people have kids – the poor, the brown, the stupid. They will breed us good human material into extinction. Go on, German Mother! Give us blonde children for our people!
(And I’m not even German or blonde.)
7) The Future Tax Payers argument:
Who will pay your pension and wipe your ass when you are old and sick? You women have the vote, but you don’t do your duty as citizens and crank out tax payers!
If you don’t, MY precious tax payers for sure will not pay for your egoistic hedonism!
8) The Future Doom or The Menetekel argument:
This one comes in two versions:
″Once your post-thirty hormones will kick in, you will CRAVE children!”
or
″Once you are post-menopause you’ll suddenly realise you missed the best part of life!”
Both versions culminate in the same: ″And then you will realise it is too late!”
9) The Right Man or the Once You Meet Him, You Will Want Babies argument:
Again an originally heterosexual trope, but I have heard it with The Right Woman too. In particular with The Right Woman. Must be the age. Bonus version: ″You will give up the Lesbianism and have children when the Right Man shows up.”
10) The Old And Lonely argument:
″If you don’t have kids you will be all lonely when you are old and nobody visits you.”
Because it never happens that mothers end up alone when they are old or see their children only when they want money. No, that never happens. Ever.
11) The Poor Victim of Politics argument:
This is my secret favourite. They basically are concern trolls who tell me I make life decisions based on the whims of politicans who fail to provide things like attractive child support or daycare. While of course child support and daycare are helpful for raising children, I still wouldn’t reject a deep need of mine for political reasons. I’m a Lesbian. It means I’m discriminated against by politics, law, church(es) and society all the time. Does it make me give up being a Lesbian? No.
If I wanted to be a mother, I would be a mother.
12) The I Know Better Than You What You Want argument:
″If you are older you will want children. Full stop.”
Full stop, indeed.
13) The You Must Have Had A Horrible Childhood argument:
This blanket statement can make use of many circumstances: When you actually had a horrible childhood, people will ask you just why you don’t want to make it better with your own children? If you had a lovely childhood, they will not believe you or want you to ″pass on all the love you received″. If you are a single child, they will tell you that this made you egoistic. If you have siblings (probably even more siblings than usual) people will tell you ″But children from big families always want big families themselves! ALWAYS!”, brushing off arguments along the lines of “I had enough noise, shit, yelling and poverty in my life already, thanks.” with a simplistic “But children give so much back!”
14) The Breeding Is The Sense Of Life argument:
Because, you know, life is totally senseless. All you are is a set of genes that has to be passed on. If you don’t want to pass on your genes, you are biologically broken. And because you are a woman, you have the biological urge to stay at home and wipe up baby shit while I make money. WHO ARE YOU TO RENOUNCE EVOLUTION!
By the way, the evolutionary-biology-fuelled atheist community is the very corner I personally experienced the most blatant homophobia and sexism from. Not even the catholics come any close to what is going on there.
15) The Mentally Disturbed argument:
It always amazes me how freely people flaunt homegrown diagnoses of mental illness when they meet people whose values they don’t share. And no, I’m not ″on the autistic spectrum″.
16) The Spiritual Healing argument:
Once you shed your pop cultural Sex and the City party lifestyle (ha!)/university education/atheism and find true spirituality/god, you will automatically take up your natural role as giver of life. Amen and Hail Mary!
17) The Baby Smile argument:
Nothing you can achieve will ever be as good as the SMILE OF A BABY.
The more I hear about that infamous baby smile, the more that smile reminds me of the threatening tooth-baring of a baboon, really.
18) The Just Do It argument and the Sigmund Freud sub-argument of it:
This aims at every woman, but also at women unwillingly pregnant and rape victims in particular: ″Hey, probably this will turn out great! Stop worrying so much, just do it! You’ll see how great it is to have kids!”
A particularly vicious twist of this argument is ″If you truly wouldn’t want kids, you wouldn’t have forgotten to take the pill!” and the most despicable of all: ″It doesn’t matter you got pregnant by rape. God has a plan with you!”
Given the high numbers of Lesbians who are raped, there is a clear hetero agenda behind both rapes and this ″argument″: Children as punishment and tool of submission.
19) The You Are A Child Yourself argument:
We all get to hear that we are only true grown-ups and responsible adults when we have procreated. We don’t bear responsibility and deal with the hardships of life before we have kids, you know? As a truly mature individual you have to learn how to put someone else before you and your own egoistic needs. This puzzles me most: How can they advertise the joys of motherhood by telling me I have to learn to suffer? This CAN’T work.
Also, this is a very common homophobic pseudo-argument in general: Our love will always be less-than, because we don’t know the hardship of hetero family (religious twist). Our love will always be less-than, because we failed to mature into ″real women″ (psychology twist). Our love will always be less-than, because we don’t have a penis involved (porn twist).
20) The Perfection argument:
I often hear women claim they put off having children because they think they would not be good mothers. And this seems to be one of the few arguments that are actually accepted in patriarchy – a patriarchy which even makes sure women suffering of cancer have eggs frozen. It still backfires often when women decide to have children after all. This is the classical Bad Mother argument: ″Why did she even want to have children, if she doesn’t want to care for them?
All these arguments, no matter how different they may look, have one thing in common: They assume that the heterosexual/heterosexualised family is a good thing. They are patri-archal in the strict sense of the word: patēr = father and arché = rule.
Lesbians and feminist hetero women see this clear enough, and yet many Lesbians and feminist hetero women think their very own heterosexual/heterosexualised families are somehow something else, ‘queer’ or ‘rainbow’ or suchlike.
Motherhood is a complex thing. Mothers in patriarchy have the highest status of all women. Being a mother gives status, respectability, social standing and a place in the patriarchy.
This is also one of the reasons I suspect behind the heterosexualisation of Lesbian life.
And this is something I can refuse to give in to.
IceMountainFire 
All I am saying is average working class dykes went and got green cards. They went to talk to people in congress, they had a plan of action, and they got the cards. They weren’t college educated, they didn’t do high level jobs, but they did go and meet with the congress people, they showed up. That was really all they did. How many lesbians do you know Bev, who went to say a US Senator, and presented her case directly? Did they ever bother to do this? I often wonder… there was no money involved, they just showed up. So don’t take this personally. I’m just curious about the women you knew who wanted green cards and if they ever did this.
I don’t see marriage as a pathway to liberation for women, lesbian or otherwise, it is the basic institution of patriarchy and has no redemption. Why did you assume the women who got green cards were privileged Bev? I don’t get that. They had no advanced degrees or even a basic four year college degrees. They had less education than I did. But they did go and talk to the right people. They simply found out who the people were and met with them. It really wasn’t all that big a deal, and I thought what they did was innovative and admirable. If you want lesbians to have access, then share the access, but there is no point is saying lesbians are a poor class of people with no imagination. That insults the working class lesbians who had the guts and the plans to get the green cards. I simply supported them in their efforts and encouraged them, and they explained how they did. So I don’t know why you are taking this personally, and not really asking key questions. OR assuming they were class privileged lesbians, because they weren’t at all. Where does this come from? Lesbian do something well, and that automatically makes them class privileged in your mind? Or do you just have horizontal violence to intelligent and motivated working class lesbians? They’d be insulted at the assumption of class privilege here. Sheesh.
I repeat, the entire institution of marriage is about heterosexual reality, it is about patriarchy, it is the very heart of it. If you want to visit a lover in the hospital, you get a document, you find two witnesses to sign it, and then you bring it to the hospital and they put it in the patient file. You pay nothing for this, no lawyers fees, you can find this form and photocopy it. Now it is probably on the internet, although I haven’t looked recently. Any lesbian who is younger can buy a life insurance policy, and then if she dies, there is money for all her lovers or ex-lovers. This is not rocket science, it doesn’t require a lawyer, it just requires the mind to care and think about a future with the lover or lovers in the first place. It is just not that difficult, and those are just two things that will provide health care protection and death protection, and marriage has nothing to do with this. I’d ask every lesbian I knew if they were even thinking about this stuff, and I get the answer if probably no. It mystifies me, but then, I just had to turn off the ignorance in the lesbian community itself. I did have health care crises to deal with, and emergency operations and almost 20 years of dealing with all of this, so I don’t have much patience for it all I guess.
Of course it’s personal. You are denying the hell my lovers and friends and I went through. We lived it.
NO, I’m not saying that those who were not able to get a green card were “a poor class of people with no imagination.” I’m saying YOU have no imagination to not be aware of what so many have tried and been unable to get because of being Lesbians and otherwise oppressed. You are aware that deportations have greatly increased and that people are still dying trying to emigrate? Even people who spent almost their entire lives here are unable to get residency.
When Silf came,in 1991, she had years of visas to try to get an work visa to get a green card. And she had the privilege to try. When Andy came in 1998, they were given three months only before being considered “out of status” and deportable. Even hets coming forward after that would be deported for ten years, but they have the option to marry before the three months ended. So Andy was undocumented for over ten years.
You ignore that that can mean indefinite imprisonment.
Of course I assume those who were able to get a green card were privileged because of what friends and lovers went through who were unable to. You said they could “start a business”!!! And that business has to have a number of employees and income to qualify. As I said, having $500,000 buys a green card.
Accusing me of “horizontal violence to intelligent and motivated working class lesbians” is beyond insulting because you were implying that all those I know who were unable to get green cards were stupid and unmotivated. Silf was daily harassed for being a Lesbian at her job where she was trapped for five years, trying to get a green card, and becoming injured. Her master’s degree in Japanese and paying thousands to a lawyer didn’t help. They changed her job title, so none of those years counted. (And if she had tried to stay, it still wouldn’t have worked because the company went bankrupt.)
You really think a Lesbian who is undocumented is safe to go to congressmen? Not one of the many activists or organizations I talked with about how to get a green card suggested that option. Of course there is money involved — the hundreds it takes to fly to Washington. Do you know how hard it is to make enough money to survive when you are undocumented? If it’s this easy, why are people dying every year trying to cross the border?
You are in a privileged fantasy land if you think the document you described ensures any safety against privileged family who want to nullify it. If you and your partner are safe it’s because of your privilege or your families would not try to forbid you access to each other. But Lesbian couples have been surprised before and no one is safe.
Can you even imagine for a moment if you or your partner were suddenly deported or in danger from deportation?
Again, none of what we went through for years would have happened if we just were able to do what any het couple is able to do, which is to get married.
As I said, I am against marriage, but it’s more important to me that Lesbians finally begin to get something approximating equal rights. How you can tell us that doesn’t matter is unbelievably cruel.
Another aspect to all of this is that it’s interesting what some Lesbians get upset about in terms of assimilation, and feel they can lecture other Lesbians about. We are told we are stupid and incompetent to not know other ways for lovers from other countries to join us, or that there is no risk from family if we are very ill or dying, even though we know that is not true.
But why does wanting equal rights get such a hostile reaction when no one is protesting hets getting married? And why no reaction against much more upsetting forms of assimilation that Lesbians are doing that betrays other Lesbians? In the Seventies, getting a degree or high paying job or even owning a home (as opposed to renting a slum apartment), were criticized as being part of the patriarchal system. Most of those laying on the pressure already had degrees and trust funds, so later, when the cost of an apartment went from $100 to $1500, those who didn’t have the privilege were in serious trouble just trying to survive.
Still, those who did move into high paying jobs did weaken their Radical Feminists politics. They suddenly began to refer to their corporations as “we” and their government’s atroctities as “we.” And then those who went back to privileged family had alliances and identification with hets and sometimes even the men who had sexually assaulted them as girls, as they liberalize and turned right wing to get family approval.And then there were the volunteer organizations started by activist Lesbians, which later became high paying jobs as the organizations made men a priority and abandoned Lesbians (while still demanding Lesbian money and time and energy). One result was segregated Lesbian communities only for the most privileged since high prices keeps out the class and race oppressed and most of the disabled Lesbians.
I saw all these changes in politics and the selling out of individual Lesbians and Lesbian communities, which is far more harmful to Lesbians that wanting the equal rights of marriage.
I think all marriage is an attrocity and have wanted to end that institution for all women. I have always told het women not to marry, and not become house servants. I think the entire institution has been one losing thing for all women — het or lesbians. So I boycott all marriage ceremonies, and refuse to participate in any of them. And in another 10 years, you’ll all know how screwed up lesbian marriages have really become. I can’t speak to women studying in college or getting property or not. I do know we have a viable community because women don’t have to have public events, and women are able to provide rooms for other lesbians at way below market rates.
In my opinion, it is best for women to learn as much as possible, and to learn the tactics of this. I don’t support the hetero family in any way shape or form. Anything I have at the end of my life will go to other lesbians, not heterosexual family members, not het anything. Whatever group of lesbians is kindest to me at the end of my life will get everything. It’ll be pretty simple I think.
Yes, that’s what I’m planning if I have anything left. I don’t support het family either. I’ve been a Separatist since 1972. It’s very important when so many Lesbians will leave what they have to any relative, even a man who hates them, because he’s “family,” when Lesbians need so much.
Here, we do not have a community without using public spaces. The one Lesbian-owned space I know of costs a fortune to rent, as in thousands of dollars, and is mostly rented for het weddings. This Lesbian community is very segregated, based on class which also means the Lesbians affected by classism, including Lesbians oppressed by racism, ableism, ageism, fat oppression. They keep us out with high prices. Even their private parties of the privileged are private.
Being working class from poverty class culture and parents, I have to say that even though I am against all marriage, I know that if my mother’s last husband hadn’t married her (and he played her by being a bigamist, still married to his wife in Guam, so my mother’s marriage was not legal until years later), she would have not had access to his health insurance or pension, or my father’s social security. It would have likely meant the difference between life and death for her. I’m sure there could be other legal ways, but for someone who didn’t have the class privilege and confidence to be able to sue the goverment when her husband died from lung cancer from mesothelioma gotten from asbestos exposure at his government work site, and didn’t have the sense to not call up her local airport threatening to shoot the helicopters down that were driving her crazy, she could never have figured it out.
Again, it’s all so easy if you are protected by privilege, but those still undocumented and threatened with fear of imprisonment and deportation, uninsured, no ID, no driver’s license, etc., being told you will find out in a few years how bad marriage is, is beyond insulting. As if we don’t know. It reminds me of the “friend” who advised a disabled friend to give up her state health insurance and disability income because then money would just flow to her. Like hell it would. She then asked the disabled friend to loan her $1800.
Having state health insurance and disability income are also things the privileged Lesbian Feminists I used to know would recommend not doing because it ties you into “the system.” Those who are living in the real world of oppression know that everything is about compromising as safely as you can. It’s not very nice to have to steal food for a living either, and is another way to be looked down on, but some have to do it. We can talk all we want about ending patriarchy and capitalism and the money system, but if you don’t have food, what do you do?
I’d never gone to any wedding until a few weeks ago for a friend. Besides that it was in a het privileged house that I would otherwise never have seen, it was important to me that they had Lesbian friends show up since most there honoring this Lesbian couple were hets. And that was important for the Lesbian who worked with these people, to have her love and relationship with her lover acknowledged legally as these people had experienced for themselves, and as both Lesbians had experiences previously with their husbands.
I’m against a lot of things in patriarchy, but let’s dismantle them when we no longer need them for survival.
Pingback: Motherhood | IceMountainFire
Very interesting way of thinking.
I havent experienced all the talk about children or marriage yet but i do know that i want none of that.
Good article! I have heard most of those arguments before too. I find the whole artificial insemination to be creepy and it’s even creeper than I thought after I learned from Bev Jo that about how 85% of the children produced by this are boys. Lesbians producing future men sounds like a patriarchal wet dream but it is becoming reality. And when it comes to lesbians being parents, A.I. is always promoted or just having sex with men is. You almost always see lesbians who have children from previous het relationships or from A.I. in the media. You don’t usually see lesbians who have become foster parents. But, if you’re “just” a foster parent or if you “just” adopt some kids then you’re not reproducing more men and that’s not okay.
My parents don’t hassle me about having kids anymore and they never really did. However, my mother told me when I was a teenager that I should have my girlfriend have the baby (because I was repulsed by pregnancy) and I replied that if I wanted kids I would adopt. When I was a teenager I was already disgusted by the idea of pregnancy; even before I came out as a lesbian and was under the assumption that I might have a male SO in the future I didn’t want to become pregnant. In fact, I always thought that a perk about being a lesbian was that it was impossible for your girlfriend to get you pregnant, and so your odds of pregnancy were quite low unless some asshole raped you. But, thanks to the heterosexualization of lesbians, I have to deal with people asking when I’m going to do artificial insemination. Now I just respond that I’m a lesbian so that’s gross and watch them try to say that pregnancy isn’t a heterosexual act.
@Utopia Bold: That’s an interesting video and it is very accurate. This is why there is so much overpopulation. It’s not just that we keep artificially increasing our carrying capacity (although it helps). It’s because women have to keep breeding for patriarchy to work.
@IceMountainFire
It sucks, but I am not surprised why people don’t “get” why you and your girlfriend broke up over the children issue. Even in het relationships it is not considered okay to split over that. My aunt was in a relationship with a man who wanted to have children, but she didn’t and they ended up breaking up. Some of my aunt’s friends and family basically told her she should have “compromised” (read: given in and reproduced).
Anyway, I’ve heard most of the arguments and they always end up being contradictory. Plus, the ones that involve punishing women by using children for some “mistake” she made are sadistic and make me think that a lot of people pushing the “everyone must breed” philosophy don’t care about the well-being of children. Children are not tools for punishing women. Hell, I know these people don’t care about children. Children have no choice in being brought into this world and many of the children being born now might be our competition for future resources because the world is overpopulated and like us they are used to increase the wealth of the top 1%. Those would be political reasons for me not reproducing or paying someone to reproduce for me. (Surrogacy is reproductive slavery and I couldn’t afford it anyway.) As for the getting older argument, I am 25 now and I still don’t want to be pregnant. Having kids doesn’t make you more responsible and there are many cases of shitty parenting in my extended family. I also hate the white supremacy and I’m not going to breed for it either.
I would just add that I am not a big fan of marriage; however heterosexuals can give up marriage first and it is not forward-thinking to vote against same-sex marriage, because a lot of the same people who do so sure as hell aren’t spending any time denouncing heterosexual marriage. While in an ideal world everyone would have rights regardless of marital status, I wouldn’t knock lesbians and gays for marrying to secure legal rights. There are plenty of horror stories about the homophobic heterosexual family members who haven’t spoken to their lesbian or gay relative in years coming out of the woodworks after they die to legally steal their assets, leaving the surviving partner destitute. Also, I know that some homosexual couples marry for reasons related to immigration.
As Bev wrote somewhere earlier, let heteros give up the privileges of marriage before we do. Marrying for legal rights for many of us is necessary. That doesn’t include the need to go full het-assimilated, though.
Very good article. The lesbian baby boom is nothing but a bad heterosexual/male influence on our community. Not sorry, but playing around with semen and getting pregnant is a heterosexual act and a form of being a sellout for lesbians, especially since most AI children are male.
With overpopulation: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140918-population-global-united-nations-2100-boom-africa/
breeding is an incredibly selfish choice. Anyone who has the choice not to do it should. It’s so hilarious that when the world population will potentially be 11 BILLION people, I have to deal with hysterical male arguments that the human race would go extinct if I don’t reproduce. As if. The human race needs to stop cranking out children if it wants to survive.
I also think that when I hear women freaking out over me not having children, that they just want someone to suffer with them. So many of them (including relatives) will whine about how hard their lives are because of their kids, and then turn around and berate me for not breeding. I know they only had kids because of the privilege/punishment cycle associated with it and the praise you get from het society from breeding. Plus, when you’re 30 something, you should know that fucking around with a guy, especially without protection, can result in pregnancy, so my sympathy is none.
I have heard passive-aggressive white supremacy arguments too. I live in America and people have asked me if I’m “concerned” that minorities will outnumber white people soon. There is a suggestion I should go breed with another white guy. I just say I think white supremacy is a disease and I will be glad when it’s gone.
There are also a lot of kids in foster systems, but unfortunately a lot of the people adopting kids are white (in this county) and many of them are racist and only want white babies.
I really don’t like this heterosexual obsession with getting lesbians to have children. And it’s almost never lesbians adopting children, but all about getting lesbians to reproduce with artificial insemination. With overpopulation and all the health problems that fertility treatments and being pregnant can cause women, I refuse on ethical grounds to support this. I also don’t support surrogacy. I’ll be honest and say that I can’t relate to most mainstream lesbian characters because of the reproduction obsession, and not to mention many of them are more into femininity that a lot of straight women I know.
You did a good job at listing the common arguments in favor of reproduction and countering them. I actually decided not to have kids even before I decided I was a lesbian. I would like to be in a lesbian community and help out other lesbians, including girls who are other lesbians, than become a pseudo heterosexualized nuclear family. I grew up in a relatively functional nuclear family, but that doesn’t mean I want to reproduce nor does that mean because I was well-adjusted I am ignorant to the damage the institution of family has done to lesbians.
Also, with overpopulation I feel that if you have a choice in it, it is more ethical to decide not to reproduce.
I don’t care if it is selfish, but I’m not going to risk my life and my health to have a baby. I choose my own life.