Gay and bisexual dads and diversity: Fathers in the Work, Love, Play study

This paper reports on findings from the Work, Love, Play (WLP) study, an Australian/New Zealand study of same-sex attracted parents. There were 88 fathers who responded to the WLP survey. There was a diversity of contexts in which these men had become parents and were currently parenting: 34 (39%) had become parents while in a previous heterosexual relationship, 20 (23%) were parenting children who had been conceived via surrogacy in the context of the respondent’s current same-sex relationship, 17 (19%) had become parents through sperm donation and co-parenting arrangements with single women or lesbian couples, while 10 (11%) were parents to foster children. The shift to parent- hood generated largely positive outcomes for most men including bringing men closer to their families, although some men who had children from previous heterosexual relationships faced challenges confronting their families concerns about the impact of their ‘coming out’ on their children.