Birth includes us

biu rainbow long

Welcome to Birth Includes Us, the first large study aimed at exploring the birthing and family building experiences of the queer and trans community in the US and Canada.

No matter your identity, you will find yourself reflected in our study.

researchers biu

Who are we?

We are a team of predominantly queer and trans researchers from the University of Washington, working in collaboration with the Birth Place Lab at the University of British Columbia. We come from nursing, midwifery, and social work backgrounds, and we are passionate about improving the health care experiences of the queer and trans community. We have been working closely with a Steering Council of community stakeholders over the past two years to create and validate this survey. Read our full bios here. 

Why are we doing this study?

We want to understand the variety of experiences queer and trans individuals have when creating their families. We know that queer and trans individuals have worse outcomes related to pregnancy than cisgender heterosexual people, and we want to figure out why and how we can address it within the health care system.

Who do we want to be in our study?

We are looking for members of the queer and trans community who experienced a pregnancy as part of family building within the past ten years. We want to learn about the experiences of all those involved in family building, including but not limited to those who were pregnant, those who were a partner or co-parent to someone who was pregnant, or someone who used surrogacy to build their family. We also want to understand all pregnancy experiences, including those that end in miscarriage, abortion, or stillbirth. All of your experiences matter in this study.

AdobeStock_480152933 crop

How did you build your family?
What was your role? What was your experience?