A look at “‘We carry on living in this othered world’: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of lesbian/queer co-mothers’ relationships with professional support” by Beth Levy and Amanda Middleton (2025)
Picture walking into a GP surgery, a school meeting or a hospital ward with your partner and your child, only to be met with a puzzled look and the question: “And who are you?” For many lesbian and queer mothers who didn’t carry or aren’t biologically related to their children, this happens again and again. This UK study listened to five of them.
What they found
The researchers interviewed five co-mothers: four cisgender women and one trans woman, aged 33 to 63, from a range of ethnic backgrounds. All were raising children with a partner who was the biological or birth mother. The authors draw on the idea of monomaternalism: the assumption that a child can only have one “real” mother. Three themes emerged.
Bumping into normativity. Participants described constantly explaining their families to professionals and fielding intrusive questions. They felt pushed into labels like “the other mum”, which carried a sense of being lesser. One was told by a hospital worker, “Of course there’s a father”, when there wasn’t one. Some found therapy supportive: one described her daughter’s therapy as “magic”, where they were “treated as a family”. Others felt judged in family therapy and feared that professionals might decide they weren’t a “proper” family.
Building their own identity as mothers. Without a ready-made script, co-mothers crafted their own. One cheerfully named herself “mumdad”. Another found her confidence shaken when a professional’s comment about the “real mum” triggered insecurity she hadn’t felt before. Chosen family and friendship networks were often central.
Tension with professional systems. Legal and institutional realities added stress. These included the fact that, depending on when children were born, co-mothers may not have automatic parental rights. Many therapists may not know this.
A grain of glitter ✨
This is a sensitive, thoughtful piece of research. Its focus on just five people is deliberate: this kind of qualitative approach aims for depth rather than breadth. The authors are also open that the interviewer was an “insider”, sharing aspects of participants’ identities, which may have helped trust but also shaped what was said and heard.
The findings can’t tell us how common these experiences are, and they reflect a UK context. Interestingly, the authors note that their own study “bumped up against normativity” in its design, which is a refreshingly honest reflection. Experiences of non-binary parents, or co-parents in other family configurations, aren’t covered here.
Why this matters
If you’re a co-parent in an LGBTQIA+ family, your role is real, your bond is real, and you shouldn’t have to justify either. Therapy can be a place to explore what parenthood means for you, and to process the exhaustion of being “othered”, without having to explain your family from scratch. A good therapist will ask how you describe your family, rather than assuming.
A foal can have two mums, three mums or a mumdad. The magic is in the love, not the biology.