We are all in this together - Sandra (Sandy) Sjollema

Hi. My name is Sandy, my pronouns are she/they, and I identify as Queer. I am also childless not by choice.

I identify as Queer in two ways, one is by gender identity and the other, through sexual or romantic attraction. I identify as female, and the “she” is because I live in a female body with female organs and physical attributes. The fact of living in a female body has had an enormous impact on my identity, from the time I was a young child to this day, as I am now coming up on my 62nd year of life.

I feel the need to honour that identity and experience.

The “they” is another story. Indeed, from a young age, I did not “perform femininity”[1] or femaleness very well, although, due to familial and social influences and pressure, I tried. In fact, as a small child, I was a tomboy who wore short hair and whose favourite attire was blue jeans, jean jackets and t-shirts. I liked to play football (soccer), jump around in the trees, and run on the nearby beach.

My mother, for one, was aghast. The desire to wear what she considered “boys clothes” set up an enormous power struggle between her and I that would last into adulthood.

Coming into adulthood, I did still not identify with mainstream femaleness (now womanhood), not only in terms of my presentation, but in terms of life goals: for example, I just could not see why so many women seemed preoccupied with “finding a man and getting married.” I didn’t feel that way. Although I identified with other women in some ways, I still felt different.

Another reason I saw myself this way was because, since my early twenties, I started feeling attracted to women, while still holding attractions towards men. As I had grown up in a very homophobic environment - with my mother being one of the most homophobic people I knew – and with no positive representation of gay people, I did not want to be feeling this way. My response was to push any same sex attractions as far away from me as I could, although I was unable to completely control my bodily responses.

Later, I came to understand and accept that I was bisexual, later to be changed to pansexual when I realized that I could also be attracted to nonbinary and trans individuals. It took me a long time to come out, a very long time.

So, what does all of this have to do with childlessness?

One element was that when I came into young adulthood, I felt bad about myself, like I could never really fit in, and I felt very lost. This was surely, at least in part, due to issues of gender identity and sexual orientation. My response was to stark drinking alcohol excessively and to hang out with severely marginalized people who also drank heavily and did drugs. I later learned that Queer people have a higher rate of substance abuse than the general population due to the stresses of living as a much-berated minority[2], which, although less the case now, was especially true when I was in my twenties and early thirties, at the height of the AIDS epidemic.  

As for me at the time, I was on the road to nowhere. I had gotten pregnant at the beginning of this descent into hell and figured I was in no shape to have a child. So, I had an abortion.

I finally got sober, and after having spent many years going to and coming back from “the bottom of the barrel”, I was already in my early thirties. So many fertile years were spent in survival mode fighting the beasts of addiction, depression and despair.

Even sobriety, however, did not resolve the question of having children.

Another element, as such, was that I was still convinced that I was not a normal woman, and now with the added identity of ‘recovering alcoholic’ on my back, I felt even more removed from mainstream womanhood. I thought that having children was for ‘normal’ woman who were feminine and straight, who knew how to handle men – most of my relationships were highly conflictual – and who “had it together”. Despite my sobriety and now a successful career as a community organizer and project coordinator, I did not see myself fitting this portrait.

I also had a very conflictual and painful relationship with my mother, even though we loved each other. Beyond her strict sense of gender roles and behaviour and homophobia, she also suffered from mental health issues that greatly impacted – and damaged - me. I felt insecure about repeating some of these tendencies.

Finally, when I did decide at the late age of 38 to try for a child, I did it with men, for two reasons: one, it was more socially acceptable than having a child in a non-heterosexual relationship or situation and two, I thought it would be easier to do it the natural way.

The first attempt was with a man who I actually did love at the time, but my body simply would not cooperate. We ended up parting ways. The second individual was a man I casually knew who expressed a desire to become a parent. Worried that time was running out and feeling desperate, I decided that he and I could become co-parents even if we didn’t know each other very well.

This situation did not work out either, despite hormone treatments and artificial insemination (I did not have the funds to try for IVF). This individual also kept on insisting that we engage in a typical heterosexual “love” relationship, and I was not interested. With constant pressure on me to conform to his expectations and my body not responding to treatments and interventions, at the age of 42, I decided to put my quest for parenthood to a stop.

Strangely enough, it was during this second attempt at parenthood that I fell for a woman I met in a computer class, pursued her, and finally came out as bisexual to a select group of friends in Montréal (where I have lived most of my adult life). It was only after my mother died in December 2021 that I came out to my family of origin as pansexual.

Looking back on this history, I know that I was deeply affected by the homophobia and gender expectations I grew up with. For example, due to these situations, I was convinced that I was somehow inferior because I was different and therefore not suited for parenthood. I was also convinced that the only way to have a child was with a man.

Today, I see all kinds of same sex couples having children seemingly without batting an eye (although obviously not always the case), with fertility clinics, IVF, and adoption now readily available to gay people (at least where I live). Although homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity still exist, I see much greater social representation and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people now than when I was growing up.

The times, they have changed, and I am glad for it. Still, I feel sad that I never got to be a parent, and that I denied who I was for so long. I am also angry at society and family who could not accept me for who I was/am and convincing me that there was something wrong with me.

However, I try to focus on what I can do, including sharing my story with others to let them know they are not alone. Especially in today’s climate, with LGBTQ people and rights under attack again with the rise of right-wing populism in Western countries, I feel a responsibility to stand in solidarity with younger – and even older – LGBTQ people.

We are all in this together.

[1] Everyone from French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir to Queer American theorist Judith Butler have discussed the idea that females learn to “perform” or “act out” female roles or femininity through socialization and that to engage in behaviours that are deemed “feminine” or “female” is largely learned and not innate, although biology can play some role through hormones etc.

[2] See, for example, Wilchek-Aviad, Y., & Oren, L. (2022). Linking minority stress to substance abuse in LGB adults. Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.), 1–10.