Hi lovelies, as you know, we have been embarking on our baby journey this year. With that, we encountered unexpected barriers and discrimination towards the LGBTQ+ community in the UK. We definitely didn’t expect to find discrimination still lurking in 2020! As a result, we launched a petition that is near and dear to our hearts.
We were devastated when we found out that we cannot do home insemination with sperm purchased from a sperm bank. We wanted to be able to ‘give it a go’ at home in a loving environment, like so many other couples get to do. But our only option is being forced to go to private clinics, being treated medically infertile and with extortionate fees.
Consequently, it saddened us to hear some of our followers had given up on having a family because of this. It also worried us that others were finding men online to be sperm donors, which can be a dangerous and unsafe route for them and their future child.
We were even more shocked to find out that LGBTQ+ couples, single women & trans men have to go through multiple rounds (normally 6) of IUI to ‘prove infertility’ before being entitled to 1 free round of IVF. In contrast, most heterosexual couples qualify after two years of unprotected sex, which albeit a long time, holds no additional financial cost. This is discrimination. Plain and simple.
We therefore decided that something had to be done and if not by us, then who! We couldn’t sit by and just let it continue to happen. We therefore launched a petition on Sunday, 22nd November, with an exclusive in The Sunday Times by Alice Hutton. We're calling on the government to do a review into the fertility sector. This is not for us but for everyone else out there.
Sexual orientation should NOT be a barrier to having a family in the UK. In our fertility equality campaign, we are asking for the following from the UK government:
Help us demand a government review of the fertility sector by following the below steps:
