How a Single, Queer Mom Found Community in the Deep South

I had my daughter in the American South, far from my own family and in a place where we had no guarantee she would be accepted or loved.

Rick Scott’s Florida was where I first grew used to accounting for us, explaining us, making us safe. In my late thirties, I didn’t have a partner. I didn’t identify as queer then, though I was certainly queer. A year away from finishing a doctorate in English, it wasn’t obvious how I could provide for the child I wanted. Some women—too many women—are pressured to become mothers, but I wasn’t one of them.

I decided to use donor sperm from a cryobank to become a mother. I am told that this was an act of grit and bravery, but I prefer to think that my family, just like the children heterosexual married couples have, arose from logic. I was nervous about starting a family in a conservative culture and with precarious career prospects, but my reproductive window was closing. I wanted a baby and the time—well, even if it wasn’t right, it was now.

Read more at The Daily Beast.