Isabel Côté

Professor in the department of social work at Université du Québec en Outaouais
isabel.cote@uqo.ca
819-595-3900 poste 2334

Isabel Côté is a professor in the Department of Social Work at Université du Québec en Outaouais. Her research aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of third-party reproduction by combining the perspectives of all the people involved: parents, gamete donors and surrogates, extended families and individuals conceived through gamete donation or surrogacy. Anchored in innovative qualitative methodologies, her work draws from the sociology of the family, kinship anthropology and feminist and LGBTQ+ studies to take a fresh look at contemporary family experiences that remain marginalized today. The agency of children is fully integrated in the construction of knowledge about families created thanks to third-party reproduction. Her research results are mobilized in community and institutional networks through research partnerships with organizations such as the Centre ESPER and the Quebec LGBT+ Family Coalition. Côté is a member of the Comité central d’éthique clinique en procréation médicalement assistée (Quebec central committee on the clinical ethics of medically assisted reproduction). She contributes to social and policy debates, while also promoting the development of tools to better support the well-being of the people involved in third-party reproduction. She is a member of the Partenariat Familles en mouvance (an interdisciplinary partnership for research on families) and of the Réseau québécois en études féministes (RéQEF) (Quebec network for feminist studies). In 2025, she entered the Cercle d’excellence de l’Université du Québec, and the UNIE-LGBTQ research partnership, which she co-directed, received the Academic Prize at the Emergence Gala.

Publications

  • Book chapter

    Resigning oneself to resort another woman to have a child: procreative trajectories of Canadian women who became mothers through egg donation or surrogacy

    In Pursuit of Parenthood: Infertility, Assisted Reproductive Technology, and Surrogacy, pp. 195-213, Emerald Publishing Limited (2026)
  • Scientific paper

    Parents LGBTQ+ au Québec : expériences de microaffirmations et de microagressions au sein des milieux éducatifs fréquentés par leurs enfants

    Enfances Familles Générations (2026)
  • Scientific paper

    A Portrait of LGBTQ+ Parents in Quebec: Sociodemographic Profile and Pathways to Parenthood

    LGBTQ+ Family: An Interdisciplinary Journal (2026)
  • Book chapter

    Les participations des jeunes en recherche : un processus relationnel, dynamique et réflexif au cœur de la reconnaissance de leurs droits et de leur contribution à la transformation de la société

    La participation des enfants et des adolescents en recherche : la co-construction au cœur de pratiques novatrices, p. 1-13, Presses de l’Université Laval (2026)
  • Book chapter

    « Que doit-on retenir de l’histoire que tu m’as racontée? » : posture éthique et réflexive de la restitution des résultats de recherche aux enfants et aux jeunes

    La participation des enfants et des adolescents en recherche : la co-construction au cœur de pratiques novatrices, p. 339-349, Presses de l’Université Laval (2026)
  • Scientific paper

    Analyse intersectionnelle quantitative de l’instabilité résidentielle chez les personnes LGBTQ+

    International Journal on Homelessness (2026) [available in French and English]

Projects

  • From Silence to Vision: a Photovoice Study to Support Resilience in Parents Affected by Prolific Online Sperm Donors 

  • Intergenerational Ties Through the Lens of Third-Party Reproduction

  • Contact: the experiences of gamete donors contacted by their donor offspring

  • Drifts in Donor Conception and Their Impacts on Life Trajectories

  • ACCESS to reproduction for LBP women and QTNB people

  • Adoption Project

Related contents

  • Fact sheet

    Children’s narratives on the constellation of their family: family ties and relationships in families with lesbian parents and a know donor

    Isabel Côté, Renée-Pier Trottier-Cyr and Kévin Lavoie, Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO) [2017]
  • Fact sheet

    The trajectories of families with lesbian parents who used a known donor: how does the relationship between the donor and the children change over time?

    Isabel Côté and Kévin Lavoie, Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO) [2017]
  • Fact sheet

    Parental trajectories in gay couples who had a child with the help of a surrogate: results of a Quebec study

    Isabel Côté, François Sallafranque-St-Louis and Kévin Lavoie, Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO) [2015]
  • Fact sheet

    Two mothers, one door, and children: a redistribution of family roles?

    Isabel Côté and Kévin Lavoie, Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO) [2013]