About us

We are a couple of best friends who, as a part of the LGBTQ community in USA, connected over the same struggles. We met in college in the early 2000s. Being other than straight was legal in theory, but still frowned upon by many back then. We quickly became friends when we discovered that we both had the same difficulties and interests. It also became clear that we both loved history, especially that of minority groups in America.

Now the years of confusion are behind us, and we’re both happily married and raising children. Getting to these points in our lives wasn’t easy, though. We faced many obstacles when starting our families. Even though we’re happy to see that the world is changing for the better, there is room for improvement when it comes to LGBTQ rights in the US, Canada, and other countries.

The main reason for creating this blog was to inform people about the history of LGBTQ parenting, which isn’t as simple as many would think. We also want to remove the stigma associated with saying that we’re parents in same-sex relationships. After all, we walked a difficult path, and we’d be happy if our stories and informative posts helped someone facing similar obstacles to ours.

Who are we?

We are Martha and Dan, queer Canadians passionate about the history of minorities in America. For obvious reasons, LGBTQ struggles are the closest to our hearts. As we said, we became friends in college. We met through our mutual friends. I – a confused bisexual woman (who didn’t even know the term back then) – discovered that Dan was openly gay, and we clicked.

We are history freaks, so the idea of starting a history project was in our minds for years. When Dan and his partner started filing documents for child adoption, our friend group gained first-hand experience of the process and its difficulties. That’s when we decided that our little history project would involve queer issues, and thus an idea for the history of LGBTQ parenting blog came about.

Our vision

The twenty-first century is the best period for many queer people. Surely, most countries ceased to punish people for homosexual activities. This, however, doesn’t mean that everything is fine. There are places where being gay is a crime. On top of that, even in so-called “developed” or “first-world” countries, queer people still face hate and discrimination.

Some places allow same-sex relationships or marriages, but frown upon child adoption, thus not allowing gay people to have families of their own (or making it very difficult). We, as LGBTQ parents in a modern-day developed country, are also aware of the stigmatization of same-sex partnerships. Some people still believe myths about gay parenthood negatively affecting children’s well-being and development.

Most of these beliefs are the results of a lack of information. Our job is to educate people about what it means to be an LGBTQ parent and how the times changed. Is gay parenting something new? Did it exist years ago? How much different is the LGBTQ situation in the US compared to the rest of the world? Read the blog to find out.

Welcome to our blog

As we stated before, we are both parents of wonderful children, but we (and our partners) had to overcome some obstacles to achieve our current situation. Our mission is to interest and educate as many individuals as we can, so more people are aware of gay parenthood history and struggles. This is an important topic to everyone – not only queer people. After all, it all comes down to children’s well-being, and that should be everyone’s concern.

This blog is a safe space for everyone planning or thinking of parenthood, or currently dealing with its difficulties. Even though we focus on LGBTQ parenthood, we encourage everyone to read and learn.