Episode 172: A Mic for the LGBTQIA+ Community: The Queer Family Podcast

Dan Bulger: It took considerably more time and effort than Jaimie anticipated. But together she and her wife had two children. And that was when she had the idea to create a podcast.

Jaimie Kelton: The podcast started six years ago, I had just gone through two and a half, almost three years of infertility to get pregnant with my second kid, my wife gave birth to our first as you do when you are experiencing infertility, I started to get a little lonely and I wanted to hear my story mirrored back to me. And I was looking at podcasts. And I was trying to find stories like mine. And I found a lot of infertility podcasts, but I didn’t find any stories of lesbians experiencing infertility. I didn’t hear any queer stories at all. So, I thought, well, somebody needs to create this. And so, I just ended up creating it.

The show gained traction, apparently a lot more queer people out there wanted to hear these queer baby making stories and it started to pivot away from just how lesbians make babies, but the whole entire LGBTQIA+ community, how we make our families, how we show up in a world that was not necessarily designed for us. In the last six years, you know, not only has the podcast grown, but also the world, and the conversations surrounding identity have really changed. I realized, you know, I have we have to do a better job of representing our entire community, and we’re interviewing our entire community. And I went through an entire rebrand and I guess, and it was in the, with the mission to uplift, highlight, normalize and celebrate queer families in all of our beautiful and diverse identities.

Jaimie Kelton: So, a lot of our guests come from just listeners writing in, or DMing on social and, and a little bit of it is outreach, you know, if there is somebody on social media, who is a big influencer in our community, who is also a parent. Every single story is different, even if it’s the same exact situation.

Dan Bulger: This is a show called This is Infertility, and there’s no community who needs information and support around fertility and family building more than the LGBTQIA+ community. So it’s something that they talk about a lot on The Queer Family Podcast, as well.

Jaimie Kelton: The inequality in fertility care as it pertains to the queer community is, it’s pretty big. We’re really not thought of in the conversations around fertility care, in the grants, in the grand conversation by the ones who are making these decisions. For the most part, the LGBTQIA+ community is an afterthought when it comes to fertility care, which is funny, because we are the main supporter of fertility care, because most of us need help to make our families. Whether you’re gay, straight, whatever, it’s not. A lot of times, we’re all paying out of pocket here. And it’s really not fair. Everybody deserves access to family building, fair family building and across the board, whatever your identity is. It’s not fair. We don’t we don’t get full and complete access.

I got an email from a person who is not a part of the queer community, but who’s an avid listener of the show. And it was like, such a kind and thoughtful email saying, you know, I’m not in the community, but I just want to let you know, I love your show. And I learned so much every time and you know, just beautiful words. I’ve gotten so many responses from allies, which has just been so heartwarming to hear. And just to know that, this show, it’s not just for the queer community, it’s for everyone. And everybody can get something out of it and learn something and learn a bit about humanity and people and yeah, we hear I hear a lot from the listeners, which is nice.