Legally, a family didn’t have to look like the nuclear examples I’d seen growing up,
I grew up heavily closeted in a small, conservative village, and from a young age I assumed that I would grow up, find a husband, and have children. I still have my 13-year-old diary in which I set out my life plan, which involved being married, qualified, and a parent age 27. Even then I liked to have everything organised as far in advance as possible.
At university, I was fascinated by family law, in particular the then still relatively recent Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, and the fact that legally, a family didn’t have to look like the nuclear examples I’d seen growing up, that two women in a civil partnership (marriage was then still not an option) could both be the mother of a child born through artificial reproduction. Even then, it took me until well into my final year, having written a dissertation on the possibility of same-sex marriage, to come out to myself as bisexual, and even longer for me to come out to family and friends. When I began dating my now-wife, at the back of my mind was the lingering concern that this meant that my plans of marriage and motherhood might no longer be on the table, but I was too happy in my new found self to allow this to haunt me for long.
