Isabel Côté

Professor in the department of social work at Université du Québec en Outaouais
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

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

    Enfances Familles Générations (2026)
  • A Portrait of LGBTQ+ Parents in Quebec: Sociodemographic Profile and Pathways to Parenthood

    LGBTQ+ Family: An Interdisciplinary Journal (2026)
  • 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)
  • « 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)
  • Analyse intersectionnelle quantitative de l’instabilité résidentielle chez les personnes LGBTQ+

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

Projects

  • PREFER Study

  • Narratives within families with children conceived via sperm donation

  • STORIES: Self, Transmission, Origins, Representations, and Identity among Donor-Conceived Teenagers and their Families

  • My Mother’s Surrogacy

  • Surrogates’ Voices

Related contents

  • Naissances du futur

    Savoir média (2025)
  • Parental projects involving surrogacy: an interdisciplinary (legal and psychosocial) practice guide

    Chambre des notaires du Québec (2025)
  • Multiple parentage and the search for ancestry, in the shadow of family law reform: conference booklet

    Observatoire des réalités familiales du Québec (2025)
  • Do you know about the barriers affecting access to fertility services for lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, trans and queer women, trans men and nonbinary people?

    ACCESS Research Team & LGBT+ Family Coalition (2024)
  • How is adoption by special consent perceived by individuals involved in a surrogacy agreement?

    COMMUNICATION Research Team (2024) – Infographic from a study by Kévin Lavoie, Isabel Côté and Sophie Doucet
  • How do children see their polyamorous parents’ romantic partners?

    COMMUNICATION Research Team (2024) – Infographic from a study by Milaine Alarie, Morag Bosom and Isabel Côté